Everyone wants an active community for their site, and having an active forum usually helps you have a well-promoted site, too! However, we know it's hard to start up a forum and it's hard to get people to remember it and stay. Here are some tips on how to promote your forums.
Have a Good Theme.
A good forum skin is vital - first impressions count! Depending on what type of forum and what audience your forum is geared toward, make the skin accordingly. Make sure that it's easy to read, has no clashing colors, and is overall aesthetically pleasing. If you use phpBB3, you can download the Neskaya phpBB3 skins.
Use a Good Host.
Generally people tend not to go to forums that are hosted on free servers. Sure, free forum hosts are handy and easy and they do a lot of the setup for you, but if you really want a successful forum, you need to buy your own web hosting and host it on your own domain. It's not a necessity, but it sure helps, and it makes you seem more professional and serious about you forum.
Be Friendly.
As the site administrator, you should give off a lot of warmth and friendliness and a genuine aura of caring about your forum and its members! People will not want to come back to a forum where the administrator hardly seems to care.
Be Professional.
The same type of advice as the last point - have a personality, but also don't act like a little kid! Use correct punctuation and capitalization when you're typing. How you act really reflects upon your forum.
Choose Your Staff Carefully.
Be sure to hire other administrators and moderators with the same criteria in mind! The staff should represent your forum and lead by example, and a good moderating team will help your forum seem more inviting and friendly. A good staff also helps to eliminate a lot of spam that can make your forum seen uninviting.
Have Few Categories.
Don't have too many categories / forums for your forum. It gets too confusing and makes your forum seem less active - if you have many posts in all of your categories, that's much more aesthetically pleasing and makes your forum seem active.
Have a General Chat Forum.
Be sure to include a general chat or off-topic forum within your board! Sure, the focus of your board might be on design or cars or anything else, but if you really want a good community, members should be able to talk to each other about pretty much whatever they want.
Give Incentives for Joining.
Be sure to let guests notice that they can use different forum skins upon joining, or have access to different features! Give them incentives to join and stop lurking.
Install Useful Mods and Hacks.
There are many useful mods and hacks that you can implement into your forums to make them more unique, efficient, and convenient. vBulletin and phpBB both have a large hacks community and many mods. Just do a Google search for "phpBB hacks" or similar! It's tough work to implement them, but it's worth it.
Cash System?
One useful mod that you may want to consider is a cash system. It's a system that gives the users certain points after every post they make and every topic they start. The points display under their name or in their profile, and they can use the points to "purchase" rewards. Think of some good rewards to give, such as custom titles and more. Be creative! Of course, you'll need a cash mod for this. Depending on what type of forum you use, search Google for "phpBB3 cash mod" or similar.
SEO Optimization.
Another useful hack to get your forum noticed is the SEO optimization mod. Some forum types do this automatically, but you may need to install mods for others. It makes it so that if you start a topic called "SEO optimization," the URL for that topic would be yourforum.com/SEO_optimization.php instead of yourforum.com/viewtopic?11.php or something similar, which really helps search engines to find you. Search online for an SEO optimization hack for your type of forum.
Use Meta Tags.
Yes, even for forums! Just put it in your overall header so that it shows on every page. You can read my how to use meta tags article / tutorial for this.
Join Other Forums.
And put a link to your forum in your sig! If you become a well known member in other forums, people will likely click your sig and join yours. Be sure to have an aesthetically pleasing image that you can use for those purposes.
Join Advertising Forums.
There are many forums out there for the specific purpose of advertising! You can do post exchanges, which really help your forums seem more active especially if it's initially starting up. You can also purchase packages for posts on your forum as well. One such forum that I've tried out and enjoyed is ForumPromotion.Net.
Forum Link Exchanges & Affiliates.
Do some link exchanging or affiliates! You can either put affiliate buttons in your forum footer or you can have a drop down menu with the links. Your affiliates and link exchanges will do likewise for you, and members of those forums may click the links and join yours.
Ask Your Members to Help Out. You can't do it all alone, so if you have some loyal members, it can be a big help. Ask them to do the same sort of promotion tactics that you've been doing!
Forum Promotion Team.
One thing you might consider is creating a new staff category called the Promotion Team or similar. That's something that Neskaya forums will be employing. This helps the members become more involved and gives them a duty to help promote the forum and invite new members. It also gives them a sense of recognition for their work.
Join the Neskaya Forums
You know you want to. Okay, that's not really a promotion tip, but I'd really like you to. ^_^ Besides, if I've been helpful at all, please try to return the favor! ♥ Thank you! That's all I can think of for now, but I'll be sure to keep the list updated if I can think of any other way to promote your forum. Good luck!
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