My forums are going on a month old and although I think we have done OK in terms of registrations and post counts so far, I want to try and get a lot more traffic to my site.

I currently have a competition running where by the winner will receive free registration of a .com or .net domain name. I've got a couple of new registrations from it but nothing like what I expected.

So, instead of stuffing around with $20-30 (Aus Dollars ) prizes, do you think I should try and go big, like a free "Play Station 3" big, or is that just over the top?

Need some advice/opinions/comments/suggestions and anything else you can think of.

Thanks!

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IT Resource - www.itresource.com.au
General Chatter - www.generalchatter.com

This may seem odd, but I would suggest freshening up your homepage there a bit. Get some sharp buttons made up for those text links, add a simple gradient background image. It's just so.. plain...

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Yeah, it's a bit plain! It's only a month old though. That said, I do have a lot of things to add to it, I just haven't got around to doing it yet. Hopefully I can get stuck into it over the weekend providing I don't get called into work.

Thanks!

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IT Resource - www.itresource.com.au
General Chatter - www.generalchatter.com

Hmmmmm...IT Resource Forums....That doesn't necessarily mean that all of your members are going to be webmasters or even need a domain name for that matter.

Have you considered giving some little piece of technology away instead? Maybe a USB flash drive?

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This may just be off-topic. Do you really need all of those boards? Wouldn't it be best for you to make your forum relate to one topic and not a piece of everything? Such as Website Development, Games and Lifestyle & Entertainment. Personally, i think that you would get more people in your forum posting daily if you make it relate to one topic instead of 3-4 topics.

Back on topic. Making posts like this would get you more people to take part into your competition. You have to advertise in more than one place to attract more people from different area's. When releasing a contest, you should at least have a list of forums to advertise on so the participants will have a fair chance of winning. Sometimes, no matter what the prize is, you may not get as much people as you think. This is because you did not advertise the contest correctly. You have to let everyone know that your contest exists.

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I had someone else suggest that exact same thing to me the other day. After the current comp is finished, I will find a prize that can be beneficial to a wider range of people.

Thanks a lot!

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IT Resource - www.itresource.com.au
General Chatter - www.generalchatter.com

It's an IT Resource. The idea is to cover the IT Industry in general. If I wanted to cover just one topic then I would have called it webmasterresource.com.au or pcsecurityresource.com.au.

I think as more and more people register and become aware of the site, hopefully I can get some people who are actively involved with the site and want to write some articles on various IT related topics. Then it will start to become more of an IT Resource as such.

I don't quite understand what you mean by this sorry. I've advertised in various places on the internet. I also planned to drop leaflets into peoples mailboxes as well as various computer related businesses. However, after what was suggested about giving out a USB drive instead of a domain name (above), I'm going to wait until the current comp is finished and then run another one but with a prize more beneficial to a larger number of people. I will do the leaflet handout then.

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IT Resource - www.itresource.com.au
General Chatter - www.generalchatter.com

If you can afford a ps3 why not use the money to advertise all over the place
such as here,taz and other big places such as that say spend 200+ on advertising and use the other 300 to get a xbox 360 for a prize

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but if you're going to do that...Make it a Wii instead of a PS3...Not only is it cheaper, but it is better

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Listen to the man!

The Wii is also harder to find in stores.

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