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Post by myke on May 31, 2006 15:43:39 GMT -8
It is common knowledge that we are not allowed to advertise anywhere on ProBoards Support, which in a way is good, as everyone here already has their own board. You want to reach people who have no board of their own and who may be looking for boards to join. Below, I will list a few techniques I have learned, and encourage others to offer their own tips. - Affiliates - Contrary to popular belief, affiliates do work. I, and many other has received members from affiliates from other forums.
It is also not a good idea to only affiliate with boards of the same genre, For example, if you own a Harry Potter forum, why only affiliate with other Harry Potter forums. Those people who will be seeing your banner already have a place to discuss Harry Potter. I have found it best to affiliate with all kinds of different sites. for example, if a HP forum affiliates with a sports forum, then a member of the sports forum may also like Harry Potter, and may not have a place to discuss Harry Potter. So don't restrict your affiliates to your own genre, affiliate with all types of forums.
- Search Engines Google, among other has greatly benefited my forum as far as receiving members. Google adds ProBoards automatically, but it doesn't hurt to submit your forum manually. Here is a list to manually add your forum to multiple search engines:
Note: As with any service on the Internet, please review the privacy policy and terms of service for each and any service you use.I have added my forum to each of these, and have received a lot of members as a result. but remember, as the other threads discuss, getting people there is the first step. Keeping them there is a whole new discussion that can be found in those threads. This thread is focusing on how to advertise your ProBoard. - META TAGs - a lot of people will tell you that META TAGs are a waste of time, and that most major search engines no longer use them. However, smaller search engines do use them and they cannot hurt. I use META tags on my forum, and search my keywords and find my site, so META Tags do work.
Below I will post an example of how a graphics forum may set up their META tags. This will go in the bottom of your headers:
___________________________________________________ <meta name="description" content=" Short Description Of Your Site/Forum"> EDIT: removed unnecessary tags, description is the only one that is searched, description should include some key words relating to your site.
title and head tags are already in a Proboard ~ASE___________________________________________________ It is not recommended that you use the same keyword twice. - Receiving Traffic From GOAYB and Other forums.
- GOAYB - What is the key to any web site's success on the Internet? Hits/visitors. The more places on the web that a sites link is displayed in, the more hits it will receive. The same goes for ProBoards forums, and GOAYB. If you spend time rating others peoples boards, and offering constructive comments and suggestions, then your site's link in your sig, is going to be displayed in every thread you rate. Thus more people are going to have an opportunity to click on your link.
I suggest getting an eye catching banner, adding it to your sig and link it back to your forum. When you go rate a site, the author of the thread, and everyone else who visits it, will see your sig, and alot of them will click on it.
On a good day, I get about 40 visitors from GOAYB. Guess how many come from my own thread? 10. So 30 more people are seeing my site as a result of my rating others' boards.
So basically, not only are you helping others' out, but you are helping yourself out at the same time. It's a win win situation. If you do this long enough, and make a name for yourself here, then you will get more activity in your own threads.
- Posting On Other Forums Of Your Genre - Advertising directly rarely works, but I have found that if you join a board if the same genre of your own, and still add an eye catching banner to your sig, then your fellow posters on this new board will see your banner, it will capture their interest, and they will click on it, and maybe even register.
So it is important to not be greedy. Join some boards similar to your own in subject, and become an active, productive member. not only will you be helping out someone else board, but you will be receiving traffic to your own board, again, it's a win/win situation.
There are so many ways to advertise and get members without ever asking someone to join. In fact, asking for joins seems desperate, and will not get you members, you have to make people think they are missing out by not being a part of your board. I hope this guide/tips has been of some help, and look forward to everyone input/additions.  ~Myke |
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Post by D on Jun 1, 2006 2:22:34 GMT -8
Advertising is very important in creating a forum. This is one of the ways you can get hits and members.
There are many forums out there let you advertise for free those are great opertunites. But when advertising make sure you describe your forum a thouroughly as possible as people wont know whats its about and just think, oh another noob forum. The same goes for forums that have a directory or index of forums, get added to as many as possible.
Serach engines are also another good way particually Google and Yahoo, the big ones. Paces like topsite sites are also very good for advertising and getting hits. You may want to get a hit counter to see how many hits you are getting or have a guestbook on your site. Another good way to find out where people have come from is a thread called "How'd you find us".
ProBoards support is also a great way to get hits/members. Altough not directly advertising your thread in Get Opinions About your Board can bring in a few. Also advertising in your site in you sig or personal text or even avatar can help to get those all important membes.
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Post by Minimejer05 on Jun 3, 2006 22:32:53 GMT -8
Thanks for the advise. This will help my site grow alot!
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Post by myke on Jun 3, 2006 22:46:56 GMT -8
Thanks for the advise. This will help my site grow alot! You're welcome, but please be sure to read the rules before posting. |
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Post by Zen on Jun 4, 2006 5:18:37 GMT -8
Affiliate helps a lot espically if you have a catchy mini banner. Many a times I just spend much of my time clicking on affiliaes and the mini banners I like, are the ones I click on first. You can't expect someone to click on your mini banner if there are many more nice looking banners. I know many forums which have become successful due to affiliating.
My rules of affiliating with a forum requires that forum to be successful and active. I don't want to affiliate with a forum, which I know would be dead any time even though there is no harm.
Even though it is good to affiliate with different genres, I prefer affiliating with same subject forums. I have some non-HP affiliates but HP affiliates dominate and I also got some good members throught them in comparison to other genres.
Search Engines are very helpful. I have got some members from it but it doesn't help much if your forum has a very common name. If you want to join to a Hogwarts RP board, you search for Hogwarts RP and then there are hundreds of sites which appear. If you are searching for a particular board e.g. Hogwats Online then its more helpful.
Top sites are also a good way to get hits but in many (I think almost all) of them you have to vote. So you need to have people who cam vote. If you don't then you can never manage to get to the top or atleast get noticed. So personally I don't believe much in Topsites as I don't have a good number of people to vote. I have to ask my friends to vote and when my site does get noticed another of the other site replaces mine in a short period of time.
From Proboards Support I have got only 1 unactive member! I don't find it much helpful if you don't have much influence. As 99% of people here have thier own boards, they want you to join thier board if you want them to join yours. There are some exeptions but it is very less. I don't know about others but I have got very less members.
Other ways of advertising I use include adding my site's link in my forum signature in some forums. Some forums have banned this which I don't know why. Word of mouth also helps a lot as I have got many important members by this.
(All these are my own personel opinions. If you don't like some of them, then please don't adopt it. Its upto you.)
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Post by Minimejer05 on Jun 4, 2006 19:06:36 GMT -8
Well i read over the rules and sorry to get off topic but im sorry for the kinda spam post above now to get on topic i think adding your forum to a E-Submission board works. And I have added it to google and Yahoo but i dont see where they can be found. I also found it very helpful to add a mini banner and add other forums stuff and they add yours. But overall the way i have been getting new members that post is by just Iming them to join and then they spread the word
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Post by Drewz on Jun 4, 2006 20:16:56 GMT -8
I like affiliating, it helps everyone. I make sure that I don't affiliate with forums of the same topic as mine (wrestling) and I won't affiliate with 2 forums of the same subject, like Transformers for example. Does it work? It proberly does work if your mini-banner is clear on the subject and good looking. Neither of which is mine  . I find the best way to is post on forums as the same subject as mine (wrestling) and have a banner/URL in my signiture. If I impress people, or people are bored they'll look around. |
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Post by Former Member on Jun 4, 2006 20:38:18 GMT -8
Does it work? It proberly does work if your mini-banner is clear on the subject and good looking. Neither of which is mine . Have you thought about having a new mini banner made? There are many places that will do this for you, just have a look through a few peoples signatures for a design board and make a request. I've found the best methods of advertisment are word of mouth and having banners in your signature. Encourage your members to talk to others about your forum, perhaps even offer incentives to those members that spread the word effectively and bring new members into the community. Never pass up an opportunity to mention your forum during conversations... but DO NOT try and force people to join, and don't make your forum the only thing you talk about, that usually doesn't work to well at all. Banners in your signature allow people to casually browse your board. The thing to keep in mind with this method is that people will judge your forum based on what messages you convey in your posts... so be warned. The main thing to remember when advertising your board is that it takes time and dedication to build a solid member base for your forum, so don't give up  |
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Post by Da Bearfan on Jun 12, 2006 22:06:47 GMT -8
Just another suggestion on advertising: someone on a site which I am an admin of, a MLB sim league, said something about it in a few My Space baseball groups. Yesterday alone, the number of members almost doubled. It went from somewhere in the 30s or 40s to 77! I never thought of this (especially because I don't use My Space), but it was very effective.
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Post by Frosty225 on Jun 18, 2006 11:01:34 GMT -8
My main problem with my sites is search engines and Affiliation. Most sites don't like advertising and they barely have any way of allowing you to affiliating with them. and for me, submitting a forum to google is confusing. GOAYB's are good for advertising becuase people have to get on your site to see it. and if they like what they see and like the topic of the forum they sometimes join. GOAYB's have worked for me some of the times. I have also tried Meta tags but like the search engines they confused me . Well. that's my two cents (even though it isn't worth a dime). |
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Post by SnowBlind on Jun 18, 2006 15:57:37 GMT -8
i simply use MMORPG's to advertise my board such as I also bring the topic up when im talking to a friend online... such as "Oh, crap, my sites going screwy!" "You have a site?" "Yeah! It's www.blahblahblah.proboardsblah.com  |
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Post by Shade on Jul 4, 2006 4:30:24 GMT -8
those links are useless, all need pay or download something. i dun wana waste time with that. i want something quick and free.
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Post by myke on Jul 4, 2006 4:34:42 GMT -8
those links are useless, all need pay or download something. i dun wana waste time with that. i want something quick and free. Umm, those links are all providing a free service. If sone of them has changed to a pay only service, PM me and I'll remove it. |
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Post by Kmylove on Jul 4, 2006 8:15:04 GMT -8
I was very sceptical about the efficiency of having the boards indexed by Google. Especially since I've tried Google-ing them myself and I couldn't find them... But this week I've got a member that found both the boards on Google.
It has been very effective using link buttons as a signature on other forums I go on. If people catch an eye on them, they might end up joinig if they like what they find.
I've also tried linking to them on my Livejournal Community, as I get many visitors, and they might be interested.
I've also advertised by sending bulletins on Myspace, mentioning my bord in blogs, posting links on the messenger as a personal message, but none worked, as they all seemed desperate measures.
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Post by sleepylazy2006 on Jul 4, 2006 17:48:22 GMT -8
I was very sceptical about the efficiency of having the boards indexed by Google. Especially since I've tried Google-ing them myself and I couldn't find them... But this week I've got a member that found both the boards on Google. It has been very effective using link buttons as a signature on other forums I go on. If people catch an eye on them, they might end up joinig if they like what they find. I've also tried linking to them on my Livejournal Community, as I get many visitors, and they might be interested. I've also advertised by sending bulletins on Myspace, mentioning my bord in blogs, posting links on the messenger as a personal message, but none worked, as they all seemed desperate measures. I also index it on Google but couldn't find them either. Yeah I did the link on my livejournal so hopefully someone will notice it. Also you can put the link in your sig line in your e-mail account. |
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