You definately need a good few active members to help keep new arrivals interested, and you need knowledgable members, else who's going to help who?

One tip also, is to have small competitions, these can do wonders!

Depending on how much money you want to put into your forum, many things interest newbies, but it depends on what sort of forum it is..

For instance, a web/computer related forum could give away something as cheap as a domain name. Alot of people will go crazy for a free domain! Just set it as post and refer competitons, the most wins! The more people interested in the prize the better. This could be done every couple of months untill your big enough to either not bother with competitions, or move onto bigger and better prizes (mp3 players, hosting etc..).

This may sound iffy, (to give away your cash), but more visitors, more ad clicks = more money .

Holding small contests is so true...if you can constantly surprise your members with new things, even if they are very small, they'll be much more likely to stick around just to see "what is next"

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...some super-sweet signature

Content. I am getting people to my health site very easily just from odd keywords that people type into google. Its sustained at 15 visitors per day with no work at all.

One of my best keywords is "yellow urine in morning"

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I will make quality posts daily on your forum in return for forumwide text links or a high PR link. PM ME!

Trying the old Coke trick! I thought Google lowered your PR for doing that.

Anyways, I agree that contests are a good way to attract somebody to a forum. It gives them something to look forward to in the future. But, they get discouraged when they don't win after a few rounds.

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