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Having been clicking on a few people’s signatures around here, I’ve noticed that alot of you run (what look to be) very succesful forums, and it has got me intrigued.
I’ve only just launched my first (and very small site) affiliated to PKR, and I suppose the goal of it is just to make sure that a steady flow of people find it and then click through to the site.
Forums seem to be a totally different kettle of fish. You actually need to ensure people come back to you … and they won’t do that unless there are already a load of people there creating content. It seems to be “chicken and the egg” situation.
So my question is, how do you go about estabilishing a forum? How do you keep people coming back to steadily grown your fanbase when there are very few members there?
I’m curious.
I’m not very well in forums, I established one but have no enough time to develop it. But I know a one thing: good fresh content is a key. If your forum has an interesting fresh content visitors will be and they will come back.
Most people wait until they have a steady source of traffic, especially returning ones.
Then they open the forum and ask people they know (or they do it themselves on multiple accounts) to post and try to spice things up.Forums are annoying to set up. My newest website gets ~50 uniques per day (last month’s average) as well as returning visitors, but only 15 people signed up on the forums so far and out of those, only 5 actually post (3 of which are myself).
I do think the advantages outweight the disadvantages in the long run.
@JackTen 144554 wrote:
but only 15 people signed up on the forums so far and out of those, only 5 actually post (3 of which are myself).
Haha, that’s about right for a new forum. They sure take time, patience and work to get established.
I remember early times at CAP when we had a couple of posts on good days, and one of them was usually me.
I remember Antoine faithfully hanging around…
My experience has taught me to first choose a good platform and VBulletin is one of the best IMO. You have a variety of moderations and hacks that you can add to increase your member base. It also is very SEO friendly.
Be prepared to spend atleast several hours a day at the forum. It’s a good idea to have enough people assisting you so that someone is usually always at the forum so that the members know their issues/questions will be addressed in a timely manner. I try to get staff that is from different parts of the world so that someone is always up and working at the forum. 45% of my members/visitors are international so that is important for me.
Remove all spam and ban spammers asap. Let everyone have their say as long as they are not attacking others personally. Eventually the members will build a ton of content and you don’t have to address every post because they all help each other.
At one time I had 1,000 unique hits a day, but it dropped a little around the beginning of this year.
It does not happen overnight, but it’s well worth the effort if you want to take full advantage of this industry.
Good luck!
A forum is sure a lot of work,
you need to be there daily, even you dont post its already good members see you online.
We are in the lucky position to have a very nice Staff team,
it took some time to find the right crew, lol
they are doing wonderful and of course we pay them something, and let them also do some own advertisement, like for Poker or Bingos and somtimes also for Casinos.
A good Crew is very important and you have to keep them motivated.Another point what i find important is
Your members have to feel as a person, if ya understand what i mean,
If you reply in a post to a member its always nice to put in the members name or some kind words.
Try to involve them, ask for their opinions, ask them for help, ask for their experiences at a special Casino and so on.
Show your members that they are important.I think you need also to be the right person to run a forum,
you need to love to do it, then normally it grows and grows and you enjoy your job.And i totally agree with Gamtrak
a good Platform is very important, dont go with freeboards,
you dont have access to all what would be important.
you may only customize them,
i have learned my lesson.
I believe my next forum will be Vbulletin either, still need to check all out.Regards
MarinaA few hints from my experiences:
1- Start small and try to fill a SPECIFIC niche.
My 1st forum was about slots – and had some die-hard real slots players on there (about 120 of em).. 2nd forum was Poker. The best thing I ever did was then to funnel both to forums to forum 3 (a General gambling forum) and ditch forums 1 and 2. Some of my other gambling websites have a “gambling forum” link – which also directs /funnels more traffic to my forum. Result.
2- Content
Yes content is still king. I recently wrote an article (which quadrupled my main site’s daily traffic) and added a “discuss this in our forums” link.. Visitors and signups increased significantly..
3- Good deals/promos
Get your punters some good exclusive deals when you can, or get sponsorship from some companies in your niche for competitions (in exchange for advertising / signups).. Small events can build / foster community spirit – which at the end of the day is what keeps a forum growing, and alive (and it costs nothing).
Just a few ideas off the top of my head..
oh and don’t forget, Don’t click this link!where do I find the script like CAP forum to build my own forum. I use cms system building my affiliate sites. Can I merge forum with my site?
If you go to the buy sell trade section on digital point forums you can hire people to post on your forum for about .10 cents per post. This can help to kickstart your forum. You can also find people to trade posts with. Tell people that you will post on their forum or blog in exchange for them posting on yours. Then when new visitors come to your forum it will look more active and they will be more likely to post. Most people usually hang out in forums for a while reading the content before they make a post. If you don’t have any good content for them to read then they will not likely come back.
