Hello, this is my first post here and would like to say hi to everyone.

I just launched a new forum site, at this point thats all it is a website with a forum.

I have a few other websites up with forums, but they all also are connected to a content site. Which favors the SE's.

Is there anything else different I should be doing with a 100% forum site as opposed to a content site with a forum added, to draw in the attention of SE's and People.

I did install one mod that changes links into search engine friendly urls, but is there anything else I should be aware of

Thak you Jer

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MediaSwim.com
Win a free Ipod Nano

Nothing beats word of mouth marketing. Period. Just check MySpace.

The best way to attract members is to offer something. If I was going to build a new forum, I would create a 2-3 month competition where the most member valuable member would win a free ipod.

And at the same time I would create another competition where the 3 or 5 members with the highest postcount would also get a nice reward.
However you should set some rules, otherwise the members who registered a week later (after you started the contest), will probably lose interest when they check the top 10 members already have +1000 posts each.

Depending the visitors age, I would also consider the chance of implementing a particular vbulletin hack, that modifies the regular profile into a MySpace profile.

Obviously you need money to buy those prizes, and perhaps you can´t afford it at the moment. I´m in the same situation. That´s why while I´m managing my boards I´m making some websites in order to generate some income that will be used to "feed" the forum (prizes, hosting, start saving for a dedicated server etc.).

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Always remember you're unique, just like everyone else.

Having a variety of topics that range from short answers to long ones are good. That way there's a little something for everyone and it can get post counts up.

Have you tried Link directories?

Word of mouth and signatures are also great.

Mark

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Check www.theforumfairy.com for quality Paid Posting, Unique Content and more...

What rules would be best to make the contest fair?

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LinuxEdit.com - We are paying for Linux documentation

Digg
Reddit
Stumbleapon

Enough said (just Google for those terms individually if you don't know what I mean).

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Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Who Will Live and Who Will Die? Debate it now!

Submit to every link derictory possible. That will help. Word of mouth deffintly is the best though. Like euroci said, myspace is great for it.

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Like Music? Talk about anything music related here!

No "trick" would work for an empty forum. I have used dig and stumbleupon and even if my forum is not just starting I just had some visits and that's all.

You need content.

Start MANY topics, I mean 20-30 (at least) a day and keep this up. As soon as you have 40-50 topics started start some post exchanges in this forum and other related forums. Look for many webmaster forums and you'll see a lot of "post exchange" threads.

Make yourself a plan of 2-3 exchanges a day with 10-15 posts. (you could try to vary the numbers so that you don't have only members with 10 posts). Do this for few weeks.

If you keep up the program, you'll have in 30 days: 60-90 members and over few hundreds posts. Of course that you also keep on thread creation program so that those new members have what to reply to. MY MAIN problem when doing a post exchange is that almost all my partners don't have threads. I am not doing an exchange to start threds for anyone and not would your normal member. So do yuorself the biggest favour as an admin and START threads.

As you work on the content see some forums that are in your topic or related. JOIN some of them and have your link in the siggy. Don't forget that LINK IN THE SIGNATURE might be your BEST way to promote at least in the first days when no search engine has indexed you.

Other ways to promote: word of mouth, paid ads etc.

The IDEA is: content is needed and a constant influx of topics, replies and members. This way the visitor that might see your forum will like what he sees and join. Those will be your first "natural" members.

In order not to get bad results from post exchanges: Tips and tricks for a good post exchange

Another VERY important aspect: don't fall into the trap of installing some article bot or similar. I would make some feed-topics, but most members are not interested and would look bad in the end.


I took the liberty of quoting one of my articles, because it's too hard typing it all. I have full re-publish rights so it's OK.

Hope that will start you a bit

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Dojo,

Fantastic post, lots of great information. This is good for new forum owners, as well as forum owners who are struggling to find traffic.

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I wouldn't submit to every directory possible as mentioned by a previous poster. I would only submit to quality directories, mostly in your target market, with greater PR than your site.

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