How To Advertise Your ProBoard

[pcdude]

pcdude said:

myke said:

I recommend it if you're watching to see what traffic you get from where. This will help you realize which places where you link exists helps get you the most traffic.

I will look into it. I've been trying to find a way to find out where my traffc is coming from, and this sounds like just the thing I've been looking for.

Well I signed up at Statcounter this morning, and it is excellent! It offers ALOT of information. It's precisely what I've been looking for! Thanks again for suggesting it xkamelx!

[myke]

goose said:

Yes i have had no true welcomer by anybody, and i was curious.... I have had many sites, and usually people judge your site by the welcoming.. A tip, but... I love the way you set this site up.. It has a lot of thought.. I would like you to pm me, whoever is in charge, because i have a question for you

Don't know exactly what you mean by 'in charge' but you can PM me.

livesylvania said:

pcdude said:

I will look into it. I've been trying to find a way to find out where my traffc is coming from, and this sounds like just the thing I've been looking for.

I just have a bravenet counter, and it tells me what the refering page for recent visitors has been, if its a direct hit is says so, otherwise it says the link. it also shows what browser they are using, and there are also stats on that.

I'll have to look into statcounter though. and xkamelx, I clicked on the link you posted and it took me to a page about a movie called enders game? is that right?

No. I must of had the wrong thing copied into my clipboard. I've fixed the link.

pcdude said:

pcdude said:

I will look into it. I've been trying to find a way to find out where my traffc is coming from, and this sounds like just the thing I've been looking for.

Well I signed up at Statcounter this morning, and it is excellent! It offers ALOT of information. It's precisely what I've been looking for! Thanks again for suggesting it xkamelx!

No problem. It is full of a lot of information, I love it.

[devin79]

Most of my hits are coming from the GOAYB board and this board, but nobody is rating and nobody is joining. With only two members, I don't want to start looking for affiliates because it doesn't make sense to affiliate with a forum that only has two members.

The other problem is that obviously with search engines, content is a really big deal. With only two members (one of whom has been busy since she joined and hasn't been able to post), it's difficult to get the content up to the point where the search engines are really going to bother with you.

I've joined topsites. One doesn't have me listed yet but will recognize a vote for me. Okay, now that doesn't help me a whole lot. Another doesn't have a whole lot of sites listed, so again, that's not a lot of help. And a third has an icon that doesn't have anything to do with the subject, so I unsubscribed.

Again, still no increase in traffic. I'm posting here, I'm advertising on the free advertising boards, and I'm not getting any changes at all.

Of course, PAGIN is still quite new, and it's going to take time to get anywhere with it. The problem is that we need some members to really get things off the ground. I'm running out of topics, particularly on the days when we HAVEN'T gone out recently.

Advertising only does so much when the forum just isn't any good. I'd just like to think that isn't my problem

[Raven]

I am starting to believe that word of mouth is the best way. A very active member on my forum has been doing it and the forum has been booming with activity. It was starting to die, sadly. So that is a good way to do things. I just never knew it could work so well, but I'm experiencing the success that word of mouth can offer, thanks to a good member.

[devin79]

I wanted to comment that I have one affiliate on the PAGIN board (which is now being moved for convenience for the co-admins), and I have gotten quite a number of hits through the affiliate. Also, of course, I've gotten a lot of hits through here.

I would like to add, in addition, that somebody said something about hit counters. I prefer "shinystats" reports over any that I've seen before. Very easy to read and to use. The one problem is that they don't display the actual number of hits that the forum has received.

[rivenriver]

devin79 said:

Most of my hits are coming from the GOAYB board and this board, but nobody is rating and nobody is joining. With only two members, I don't want to start looking for affiliates because it doesn't make sense to affiliate with a forum that only has two members.

The other problem is that obviously with search engines, content is a really big deal. With only two members (one of whom has been busy since she joined and hasn't been able to post), it's difficult to get the content up to the point where the search engines are really going to bother with you.

I've joined topsites. One doesn't have me listed yet but will recognize a vote for me. Okay, now that doesn't help me a whole lot. Another doesn't have a whole lot of sites listed, so again, that's not a lot of help. And a third has an icon that doesn't have anything to do with the subject, so I unsubscribed.

Again, still no increase in traffic. I'm posting here, I'm advertising on the free advertising boards, and I'm not getting any changes at all.

Of course, PAGIN is still quite new, and it's going to take time to get anywhere with it. The problem is that we need some members to really get things off the ground. I'm running out of topics, particularly on the days when we HAVEN'T gone out recently.

Advertising only does so much when the forum just isn't any good. I'd just like to think that isn't my problem

Maybe you could get some of your RL friends to join. That's what I did - it made us a little bit active, and more attractive, and now we have some actual members who I don't know. It worked suprisingly well.

[Sarah]

I also get all of ym friend's to join the my sites. It's worked well, sometimes. Well, with my lastest forum is getting sponsered(sp) by Trios Hogwarts and that's getting alot more members to join. But anyways I can affiliate with anyone if they want. I do with anyone else.

[rivenriver]

I tried to affiliate with Trio. I wasn't active enough. It's good getting onto active sites, but active sites only accept active sites, and by the time you're active enough, you probably don't need it!

[devin79]

I just had a random thought.

For those of you who use hit counters, think about this: When you check your stats, you can see where your hits are coming from, correct? Well, when you link to other sites, they can see that they are getting hits from your site. Oftentimes, this will cause them to click through to see your site, what it's about, and why you're linking to them. Which is a good thing, but usually only results in one additional hit to your forum.

HOWEVER, if the owner of that site sees your forum and likes it, there's a good chance that he or she will then link to your forum because of personal interest in your site.

My advice is to link to as many good related sites as possible (that don't have forums) and see what happens. They just might link you!

[flowerpetal]

webrings are useful if you find a good one and if your site is up to the competition of whatever else is on its list - people go to them because they are interested in the subject into which your site fits, so it's kind of like a search engine with the search words already filled in for the people who visit them. It also helps to get you in search engines without having to do anything, if enough people click on your link from the webring main page

as far as search engines go, i use metatags and submitted nothing to get sites on search engines, but they are there. One of them tonight is #3 yahoo, #2 google, and #1 on msn, using a very simple term that will get you 100 pages of websites.

now here is something i do that i think is great....
there is a free email account service host - you can offer email accounts with your website's name. You can let people know that they can use an email address from your site to register for the forum, AND you can customize the codes for the registration and login and put them directly on your forum! I have mine on my regular website pages with an inserted menu button to them on the forum menus. I don't know if im allowed to give the name of the host on the open board here, so you can pm me for it.

[kelendria]

I've never paid for advertising yet, people have their preferences as to whether it works or not, but I'm happy being ranked for free, it might be the small search engines sometimes but it's good enough for me.
I didn't find webrings at all beneficial to be honest, but again it's up to the user.
Affiliates are the biggest thing for me but word of mouth is not

[Beatle Aimee]

I usually don't advertise my forum on other forums or that, but sometimes I meet somebody, and after I talk to them for a little while I ask them "Would you like to see my forum?". They usually say yes and even if they don't join they can at least see it. I think advertising on other forums is silly but that's my opinion and it's probably not really.

[Jokerdog]

How do you get Affiliates? I have just set up an MMO proboard, and am in desperate need of members. I have posted on another proboard, which is how I found out, and decided to make my own board. I have one member besides myself, and he isn't on much,granted my MMO/forum just started out. I just want some help!!!

[myke]

jokerdog2012 said:

How do you get Affiliates? I have just set up an MMO proboard, and am in desperate need of members. I have posted on another proboard, which is how I found out, and decided to make my own board. I have one member besides myself, and he isn't on much,granted my MMO/forum just started out. I just want some help!!!

Next time please either ask all questions of this nature in the support board, or read the table of contests thread to see if there is a thread on the topic that you have a question on (as it may answer your question without you ever having to ask).

support.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=promotion&action=display&n=1&thread=28693

That thread will tell you everything you need to know about affiliates, just be sure to keep all support questions in the support board as this board is reserved for discussion and debates on the topics at hand.

[pcdude]

beatleaimee said:

I usually don't advertise my forum on other forums or that, but sometimes I meet somebody, and after I talk to them for a little while I ask them "Would you like to see my forum?". They usually say yes and even if they don't join they can at least see it. I think advertising on other forums is silly but that's my opinion and it's probably not really.

I agree. I don't do much advertising on other forums. Instead, I usually just put a link to my forum in my sig. I figure that if people look at my posts their bound to see my sig. ;D