Web Hosting Talk : Web Hosting Main Forums : Web Design and Content : Can someone help me ...

[ShinyToyGuns]

This forum was made by my brother and has only been set up recently,he does all the html etc .. and we are wandering if any people that own forums have any tips or advice on how we can promote our website to increase traffic flow.We only have 20 odd members and want to encourage more people to join,all help appreciated <3

.. I got no replies on the webmaster chat part .. can anybody help me ?

<<Signature to be set up in your profile>>

[dollar]

Not sure this is the right section, but in any event, if you want people to join answer this question for me:

Why should I join your forum when there are many more already active forums with a greater number of members and a greater number of posts?

[ShinyToyGuns]

^ Yes but every forum starts out with not alot of posts and hardly any other members.Sorry but I asked for advice.

[Weberz-Justin]

I think justadollarhostin is on the right track. Yes, all forums do start out small, but there has to be something there that draws attention. It could be the quality of information, the quantity of information, all of the above, etc.

[the_pm]

I would suggest asking this question here - http://www.forumuniversity.com/

It's a forum specifically designed to answer questions about forums and forum administration. Good luck!

[dollar]

Originally Posted by ShinyToyGuns

^ Yes but every forum starts out with not alot of posts and hardly any other members.Sorry but I asked for advice.

Trust me, I am giving you the very best advice there is. There is generally two things a forum does to be sucessful:

1. Discusses a topic that no other forum discusses yet.
2. Gives users some feature, benefit, tips, advice, etc.. that they simply can not get anywhere else. This must be valuable enough to them to join the forum.

Since you don't fit number 1, you need to work on number two.

If I opened up a small little coffee shop next to a StarBucks, and did nothing special, do you think I would be getting that many customers? Of course I wouldn't! Why go to Mike's run of the mill coffee house when they could spend $.30 more and go to StarBucks right next door.

Now your problem is much the same, except your location is the internet, so no matter what server you put your site on, you're going to be right next to the likes of SitePoint.com. I would suggest taking a trip over there if you haven't been there before, and looking at all they offer their members. The forum is only one part of why it draws so many people.

As always with webpages: Content is king

[SniperDevil]

I second Forum University. It was started by SoftWareRevue and is a great resource for forum founders, administrators, moderators, and users alike.