How To Advertise Your ProBoard

[x|XRoseleafX|x]

but what I don't get,is how to make an affliate?I know how to make the pic,but how do you get it to go to the page?Im not good with computers...

also,does it cost to put your site on yahoo or google?

[Remarque]

Yes, it does cost money to advertise in the boxes that say 'Ads by Google'. However, you can 'sumbit' your site to Google and a variety of other sites. I'm not sure how it works, but I know it's free :-)

As for the affiliate banners, I usually host them somewhere like Photobucket. If you need more help[ then you should PM somebody. This is getting off-topic.


I usually advertise my forum by making an advertisement beforehand, a nice, appealing banner, and then posting it on all the Advertisement boards I can find. I try to find my forum's good points and brag about them, and skim over the bad poitns. No need to tell people what's wrong with my forum if they can't figure it out for themselves :-)

The advertisement itself should be long enough to tell people about your forum, but short enough so that people don't die of boredom reading it. Have a big link at the top, and make sure your banner is a linky too.

It helps to have a short tagline so that people can find out what your forum is about just by reading the thread title. I can't stand it when people just post 'Read this!' as their thread title - it means that I have to click on it and I still don't know anything about it.

I have a friend who says she advertises but complains that no one signs up. I found out later that she advertises on a couple of sites a week.

She'd have more members if she advertised on ten sites a day. I've found that that's the best number. You really have to be insane.

It helps to only advertise on sites that are similair to yours - for example, someone with a Warrior cat RP probably wouldn't advertise on a graphics site, would they? The people at the WCRP want people who have read the books and are interested in roleplaying. Grpahic people probably aren't.. :-)

[kelendria]

On the contrary, it helps to broaden your horizons by advertising elsewhere other than your own subject: simply because you never know what people are in to.
Plus some people may see it as competition, & may delete your link.
It does help to advertise a lot, but beware, don't annoy the admins or webmasters of the places you're advertising on, especially if you plan on doing a few.
Always offer to link back or affiliate wherever possible, if they're really that bothered about it, they'll delete your site & you can delete theirs.
I agree that a short description and/or a clickable banner does help also.
I've never paid for advertising yet & I have quite a few hits daily, there's plenty of options, just hunt around!

[hcfwesker]

Jun 28, 2008 15:36:11 GMT -8 x|XRoseleafX|x said:

but what I don't get,is how to make an affliate?I know how to make the pic,but how do you get it to go to the page?Im not good with computers...

also,does it cost to put your site on yahoo or google?

i joined an ad Forum that will do this for you. my site is on over 30 search engines.

the thing is, your forum sometimes is automatically put into a search engine.

but, depending on how many links you place on other forums and sites, and how many times they get clicked, will depend on how far down the page of the search results your forum will be.

i have learned alot since leaving here, and have alot to share.

[Eight Star Music]

Hi all!

Sometimes the best advertising is from word-of-mouth. My forum deals with both a music group and their genre. In the past, when I would attend a concert or music festival, I would hand out a small card to people interested in finding out about the group. This card contained the forum URL as well as some other info.

I was surprised by how many joined up just to share a photo or two.

Best wishes,
Joe

[sorceresss]

Search engines are tricky and not knowing how to properly prepare your forum for search engines will make it all a lost cause. The best methods for advertising (at least this is how I started) is to first create a quality board so that other webmasters will be encouraged to link to your site. I find most webmasters don't mind adding you to their links page even if you have a rival site as long as it looks good. The best thing to do is perform a google search for whatever topic your board is about and email all the sites you can asking if they will link you. I've gotten a number of quality sites linking to me and I don't even have to link back to them! Even if websurfers never find your link on their site it still helps alot with search engine ranking and getting your site found by them.

Also, search the DMOZ for sites similar to yours and do the same thing, contact them. You may also wish to submit your board to the DMOZ and Yahoo directory though it is VERY hard to get in. Other great sources would be to use BoardReader.com and BoardTracker.com, they allow you to submit your board and it will be indexed and can found by those who use those two services. I've also noticed that google likes to index BoardReader, when you make a post on your board it gets indexed by BoardReader and then sooner or later that post gets included on google which in return increases your link popularity thus improving page rank.

More ways to advertise is to use expensive or inexpensive ad services like google adwords and adbrite. That allows you to get your board seen on many good websites similar to yours. For those of you who would rather use the search engines to attract visitors remember that the more you post the more that is found on google. ALWAYS create topics using keywords that you want to be found for. When you create a new topic on your board it's always best to do that.

Then, after all that, you still have the traditional ways of advertising like posting on other forums using a banner in your signature ect ect. Lets face it, search engines are the only sure way to get found without having to kill yourself but it takes a long long time and lots of dedication to link build and optimize your site. I've been working hard and it's paying off. I run a simple fantasy board and if you do a google search for "fantasy messageboard" or "fantasy message board" there I am!

Hope this helps some, good luck!

[Kingrazor]

I've relied on word of mouth for my past few forums and it didn't work out well. I advertised on forums that I frequented (making sure it was ok to advertise before I did) and also talked about them to friends I had on those forums. I don't really know how to make banners, so I've only had a couple in the past made by friends. I looked on a few search engines but didn't figure out any free way to get my site on there, though it appears I didn't look hard enough. My biggest problem is that I made my sites alone, starting from scratch, I didn't have anyone helping me get the word out or helping me make the site look pretty. My question is, what can you do when you're flying solo? When you don't have anyone helping you out and no affiliates?

[DorothyL]

Hello
Being new to web design and a total self learner....I need a few bits of direction in adding an affiliate banner to my forum.
I have looked at all of the admin options and cannot seem to locate my html for my entire background page where I would like to add a few affiliate banners.

Could someone please in lay-mans terms direct me with this issue?
Thank you in advance!
DorothyL

[Ímþ®óvîšâ†ó®]

Aug 30, 2008 8:03:03 GMT -8 DorothyL said:

Hello
Being new to web design and a total self learner....I need a few bits of direction in adding an affiliate banner to my forum.
I have looked at all of the admin options and cannot seem to locate my html for my entire background page where I would like to add a few affiliate banners.

Could someone please in lay-mans terms direct me with this issue?
Thank you in advance!
DorothyL

Hi Dorothy,

Welcome to the D:YP sector of ProBoards Support

Regarding your link that I removed from your post, if you want to advertise for forum, please use the advert board. If however, you want OPINION/RATES and alike for that forum, please post in the GOAYB area

Now regarding your question, from the way you have worded it, seems like it's best to ask it in the support board.

Please keep in mind the following (quoted from the rules):

This board should be used for intelligent discussion of the topic presented. If you don't have something valuable to add to the topic, don't post.

Please remember to re-read this and any other rule from that sticky before replying to any thread within it and good luck with your forum

~*Improvisator*~

[Michael]

Sept 1, 2008 15:27:48 GMT -8 joey123 said:

anybody want to join my forum [removed]

Please note, this board is for discussion and not advertising. Read the post just above yours.

[Rozic Dixon]

Can an admin Promote a member?

[Rozic Dixon]

Can we advertise our forum everywhere.

[mailna]

This thread is really help many peoples to sort out the problem

Really good one

[Evil Inclination / / Jason]

Aug 29, 2008 21:44:40 GMT -8 Kingrazor said:

I've relied on word of mouth for my past few forums and it didn't work out well. I advertised on forums that I frequented (making sure it was ok to advertise before I did) and also talked about them to friends I had on those forums. I don't really know how to make banners, so I've only had a couple in the past made by friends. I looked on a few search engines but didn't figure out any free way to get my site on there, though it appears I didn't look hard enough. My biggest problem is that I made my sites alone, starting from scratch, I didn't have anyone helping me get the word out or helping me make the site look pretty. My question is, what can you do when you're flying solo? When you don't have anyone helping you out and no affiliates?

I completely disagree. Word Of Mouth worked brilliantly for my forum, so much so that I have 78 members in just over a month. I have got a total of zero members from affiliates and zero members from advertiaing on other forums. This is because on a site there are alot of the times 100 banners and 500 links to other sites, and it's incredibly unlikely that someone will just click on yours. I have done the forum by myself but you have to have alot of friends to start a forum and you need to get them all to join and post so you can gain members quickly, then others will join.

I find the best ways to advertise, besides Word Of Mouth, is advertise on a forum that you are a respected member on, if you're a respected member, people are likely to look at your site. This takes time but it must be late. I also found that advertising your site on google gains you alot of members, I didn't think it would but advertise it on every search engine possible and alot will join.

Hope that helped.

[swcking]

But how do members start registering an dposting thought i have a mixed forum with wrestling sports an dother random topics and my forum get 70 Lurkers every single day