I would like to get your feedback in regards to one of my forums. The forum went online in late November/early December. It's still lacking activity and I want to see what you guys think.
Forum: http://www.firsttimepregnancy.com/forum
Thanks.
Christoph

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The-USA dot net - PR4 Web Directory

Hmm the problem i see is your targeted niche - first time pregnant women.

First off, i doubt you'll get very active members - a pregnant woman can't sit at her pc all day and once she's had the baby your resource won't be ideal for her anymore, she'll want a community more focused on parenting and socializing with other new moms, even then her time will be extremly limited to go on the net.

If i was you and realised that there just wasn't enough activity i would purchase a new domain and expand the community to include pregnancy, birth - toddlers - preschool-juniors - right upto teens. These could easily be catagorized and your targeted audience broadened immediatly.

An idea would be to also include a section for parents and their children - online learning - there's loads of preschool games you could add, even colouring books and story audios.

Hope this helps

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Thanks. Here are some comments:

The niche is actually fairly active. Pregnancy and parenting are always in high demand. The overall site is pulling in about 8K - 9K unique visitors a month. Some of the articles on the site haven been read over 20,000 times within the last year. I think I am failing to re-direct the visitors to the forum maybe.

Expanding the parenting section is a good advice. I'll have to think that through and create appropriate forums/sub-forums. Just have to get some content for that to avoid empty forums.

What do you think of the overall forum setup? Is that appealing or do you see any major issues with the overall forum setup?

Thanks for your feedback.

Christoph

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The-USA dot net - PR4 Web Directory

The layout is 'ok' but nothing original. Personally i'd have laid it out in order - conceiving, pregnancy, birth etc. As it is it looks, dare i say it, bland. There's no 'character' to the place.

The word 'pregnancy' is over used. Take the lounge, for example.. it's a place to discuss other things yet is still labled.

I noticed there's a forum for babies health but nothing for the womans health during or after pregnancy. Perhaps adding this could entice some activity.

Your stats show there's interest in this subject, but the activity within the forums shows there's not enough 'interest' to keep people returning and participating.

Loads of content is needed. Your article section could be filled within two hours if you looked around for relevant articles.

Have you thought of including pregnancy journals? This could help create a stronger sense of community if members shared their experiences in a log.

The skin could do with a few tweeks too. The banner could be better and the boardmarkers could be customized.

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Thanks for your feedback. Quite some stuff to think about. Back to the drawing board.

Christoph

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The-USA dot net - PR4 Web Directory

You're welcome. Glad i could be of help

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