How To Advertise Your ProBoard

[Zeno-Zatch]

Thank you SOOOOOOOO much for this. I have one question though...the META TAGs. What do you do with those?

[Enchant]

zenozatch said:

Thank you SOOOOOOOO much for this. I have one question though...the META TAGs. What do you do with those?

You are more than welcome, I hope it helps you out. You would place them in your headers. If you have further questions as to the mechanical aspects of your forum, you should check out the FAQ and commonly asked questions on the support board, you might find what you seek there as well.

[andyy]

Ive made several myspaces just to advertise my site. It takes a bit of time but it does work, i currently have over 1000 friends on each myspace, by making blogs about your site they vist the proboards sites. Im getting between 10 - 30 hits a day from myspace. You can always cheat and buy a pre-owned myspace site (seach google), then just change the info to suit your proboards site.

[angelica93]

Thanks for all of the ideas! The way I get members is tell my friends who like the genre of the forum, and I tell them to tell their friends who like the genre. I also just submitted my forum to Google and Yahoo. The other thing I do to advertise is to put a banner in my signature of forums that I'm a member of.

[Gamoc]

Well, there are many many ways to advertise your forum. I will list a few.

Search Engines

Search engines won't always get you the best result, but they do help you get hits. If yours is at the top of a certain search, that means you have a great board/site compared to the others and that you will get more hits. It is best to get it with Google, Yahoo, MSN, ICQ, and AOL, for they are the ones that are commonly used. They aren't the best ways, but they are good ways to get members on your forum.

Signatures

Well, if you have a really nice looking siggy that stands out from the rest with a link to your forum on it, that can get you some members. Why, I joined some of the forums I am a member of because I loved the sigs that they had.

Good things for a sig

• One that sticks out, but not bad looking
  
• Changing text
  
• Detailed, even if you have to request for it
  
• Putting a lot of focus on it
  
• Cool text
  

Bad things for a sig advertise

• Unmatching colors
  
• Something that says join or I'll get you
  
• A detailed description of why they should join
  
• One that is just mean in general
  

The way your siggy appears if you are advertising that way can make all of the difference in many ways.

Word of mouth

Well, like angelica93 just said, asking friends who like the genre to join and then asking them to tell people is a great way to get people to join. I have found that effective, and they don't have to like the genre, either, as long as you have a general board, you can still get people to join.

Make friends

Well, I have joined forums that people PMd me asking to join for one reason. They tried to become my friend first. They sent me 5 or 6 PMs to just talked, asked me if I liked something, then asked if I wanted to join. The best part of it was that they asked before they posted a link. It is good to try to make people your friends and then ask them, it is quite affective.

[rehy]

Several ways to advertise, though some may have probably been mentioned:

---

Nice Skin

Make sure your skin is appealing, you don't want to have colors like this one, now would you? If you don't think your any good at making color schemes, then simply find a pre-made template. Don't take one of the commonly used templates though, then your board would look like one of a million, take one that people don't use very often, that makes your board stand out, and have a nice feel to it.

Flashy Banner

This, isn't going to do much for your forum. This, might do a bit more. See the difference? Make sure your banner is prettiful.

Nice Sig

Make your sigs one of two things.

• Nice, don't make it boring, if it has color, one or two images and text, it's good.
  
• Or if you don't want to make a sig, or can't, then you can do a text link. Make sure the text is interesting, don't just put the name of your forum, say something like:
  
  Don't click here! (that always makes me click. )
  
  Or
  
  ~Click here for some wicked fun~
  
  You get the jist of it?
  

Word of Mouth

Maybe one of the most powerful forms of advertising. If you have a friend on IM you could ask them something like this:

You: Are you interested in joining a new RPG?
Your Friend: Sure
You: k, you wanna join mine?
Your Friend: Sure
You: http://blah.proboard##.com/
Your Friend: That site is like awesome! I'll tell all my friends to join.

[Gamoc]

Well, I don't think that the banner and skin will advertise your board since they won't be able to see those if you haven't advertised it yet. Those might be some things that will help you keep some members, though.

I think that the IMing part is not the same thing as word of mouth, word of mouth would be telling your friends at school, on the phone, and other things like that. Though, IMing is a good way to get members, also.

[Abeni]

Videos. I took a month, set it aside and made a video for one of my forums. We got three members in one day! It's still working. People like to VIEW advertisements better then read them.

[myke]

thenexthorizon said:

Videos. I took a month, set it aside and made a video for one of my forums. We got three members in one day! It's still working. People like to VIEW advertisements better then read them.

But how do you get people to view the video advertisements?

[trent]

I've tried Webrings, but the webrings I've tried haven't confirmed yet. I search for topsites via yahoo or google, but can't see any thats been active in a while or too big or too many members for a small forum to join or have something that doesn't match my forum

What's a good general topsite to start with?

myke said:

thenexthorizon said:

Videos. I took a month, set it aside and made a video for one of my forums. We got three members in one day! It's still working. People like to VIEW advertisements better then read them.

But how do you get people to view the video advertisements?

I know espically with everybody's favorite internet speed dial-up

[No]

I've found that putting one's banner in their Gaiaonline sig helps get members, I know I've gotten at least five users from it.

If a forum, or chat will allow, post your link or banner there. It also helps.

I've gotten three or more users from posting my link in chats, but that often doesn't work, since many chats are pains when it comes to Copy And Pasting.

[andyy]

im offering a free link - support.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=pbadvertise&action=display&n=1&thread=1174222926

Hope that helps

[Gamoc]

Well, basically, what you are doing there is affiliation.

I am going to add something to my signature part. If you go to a forum that is similar to the one that you are at. If you become a popular member among the crowd, or just an active poster, you will find that many people will go and join your forum, which is how I have gotten half of my members. It really does work. Well, as long as the signature looks good and isn't very mean, you should be fine with that part of the story.

[CIWY]

I think for a successful forum, you shouldn't have just people that you found on different Proboards, are a member of a Proboards site and other stuff. You should advertise on other websites and forums that dont belong to Proboards.

[djbone]

Could anyone help me? I need more people for my forum/Rp board but none are coming. How Should I advertise it?