Website Traffic Advice/Help !

[brandons]

Forum URL: occultknowledge.boards.net/

I started this website/forum around may 25th, so I usually just round it up and tell people it was started in early June.
So far I have almost 70 members, Personally I think that is rather slow. But recently I have viewed other boards on here and noticed that some have been on for years and dont have as many. But then again I have viewed other boards who started around my date or a few months earlier with several hundred and loads of activity. I was wondering if anybody on here can tell me is if 70 well technically 69 members joining in 2 months and a bit is pretty good for a starting forum.

I also would like to know if there are any other ideas/tips I can do to draw more traffic to my forum and get more members. I have made an alternative facebook account and been advertising there. I also have been members of other communities and have added my banner in my signature to draw traffic this way as well. I also registered a few accounts on those top100 websites. Were you submit a forum with your website and banner then place there banner as well. But these top 100 websites are pretty sketchy, I have been registered for a week now and still have yet to see my website added? Does anyone have any knowledge on these websites and if they draw good traffic to your website and if some of them do, can you link me to ones that will help me achieve this?  I have also added my board in the pro-boards search, as well as affiliate exchange and advertising board. 

I'm just trying to draw some traffic to my forum, and find the best places that have the best out comes and would love some hints,tips,advice on what to do from here. Thank you!

[Kami]

This topic is really more suited to the manage your forum board, hopefully a staff member can move it there (:

To answer though, there is unfortunately no definitive path for forum success, for a few reasons:

1. As you've already mentioned, what counts as a "good" amount of members for a certain period of time is completely subjective. You may think X amount is bad, someone else might think it's good, and someone else might think it's average. Instead of asking other people what they think is good, you should decide that yourself so you can make goals based on your intended usage of the forum / your eventual plans.

2. The only way to ensure the success of a forum without spending a lot of money on professional advertising is time and patience. Different subjects will have different patterns / cycles of popularity. For example, the first few forums for a brand new, wildly successful series might skyrocket in membership in the beginning + at the start of every new season. Others may not start quickly but wind up having more steady and consistent success. You can examine your analytics and see where most of your traffic is coming from, and at what times, what geographical locations, etc, and adjust your strategy accordingly; you can continue to work on building content containing relevant key words to boost your SEO rankings. Ultimately though, you just have to keep at it. It is not unheard of for sites to take an upwards of a year to take off -- and some never do, or at least, do not in the way the admins desire.

3. Related to two, there are only so many free ways to spread the word about your forum. Social media, being active in other sites and having your link in your signature, topsites, and forum affiliation / ad posts tend to be free, or have no monetary conditions (some sites may require a post count or registration or something). Beyond this, you're looking at spending money on ad campaigns which, quite honestly, tends to be a pretty expensive venture for non-professionals. Many companies spend millions or more yearly on ad campaigns and SEO improvement, and that's generally out of the reach of the average forum owner.

As far as topsites go, they really aren't sketchy at all. You have to understand that topsites tend to get tonnes of new additions every day; depending on the topsites rules, people may be posting repeat submissions that the topsite runners have to sift through (some may be doing that anyway even if it's disallowed).

To sum up, you just have to keep at it. Some general tips: post in GOAYF to get feedback on looks and content; find other sites that offer similar feedback areas; be more aggressive in finding forums to post ads on or affiliate with (Id even recommend posting in dissimilar forums, as there's always a chance that you'll reach someone you might not have otherwise). Honestly though, you're pretty much in the right track for getting members -- the increase may be too slow for your liking but it's not from mismanagement or a lack of understanding on what to do.

[♥ ℒʊ√ ♥]

I think this question is more suited for this board ~ support.proboards.com/board/140/managing-forum ~ rather than support.

But that said, I'm not so sure the number of members is as important as is the number of active members.

Many forums have members who simply join to get affiliations and then do nothing more than that. They have no intention of being a full time member. And that's fine if member numbers are important.

But for many, it's not about the number of members, but the quality of the posts and the posters. If your forum is active, with good content, and has members posting daily that generally assures a presence on search engines. 

You're doing all of the right things. I just don't think there is any quick solution for popularity ~ just because of the sheer number of forums out there. 

Since your forum is geared towards a specific subject, have you done link exchanges with other similar sites (not just forums)?

[aidan]

If this helps, I encourage my members to share their favourite forum threads on other Social Media, such as Facebook, Google+, Twitter etc. This increases the traffic because this attracts those on other Social Media to read the content on the forum. This also increases new potential members.

I like your forum by the way being a pagan myself and you have done better than my own forum as far as member numbers.

[brandons]

thank you everyone for the advice,
is anyone here aware of any websites that offer you post your site,
and in return her traffic? Its hard to find top 100 websites for my website.
or for that matter websites I can put my website on.

[Former Member]

Aug 19, 2016 4:20:29 GMT -8 brandons said:

thank you everyone for the advice,
is anyone here aware of any websites that offer you post your site,
and in return her traffic? Its hard to find top 100 websites for my website.
or for that matter websites I can put my website on.

Aside from those top 100 sites, are you also advertising on other ProBoards sites where you can? Especially forums with related topics on board.
    
Also, I know you said something about getting around 70 members in your first 2 months and thinking that was kind of slow... I have to disagree, I think that is an excellent start! Especially if there's a lot of active posters in there. Shoot, when I ever manage to launch my site, I hope to have even half as much luck!

[brandons]

we just got three new members now since the post. so now we are at 73.
I have been advertising on facebook,tumblr,reddit, and spiritual chat rooms as well.
As well as doing the affiliate thing here on pro-boards.
Ohhh I also add my affiliate banner in my signatures on the websites I go to regularly.

Im just having trouble finding other top 100 websites to add my site too,
because of its category there are not many of these that cater to my category.
I have came across advertising website that gives you points or something,
and some how it gives you alot of traffic but I lost the url.

thank you for the advice though, I really appreciate it.
I wish your board lots of luck as well ,

thank you

[Kami]

Aug 19, 2016 19:37:39 GMT -8 brandons said:

we just got three new members now since the post. so now we are at 73.
I have been advertising on facebook,tumblr,reddit, and spiritual chat rooms as well.
As well as doing the affiliate thing here on pro-boards.
Ohhh I also add my affiliate banner in my signatures on the websites I go to regularly.

Im just having trouble finding other top 100 websites to add my site too,
because of its category there are not many of these that cater to my category.
I have came across advertising website that gives you points or something,
and some how it gives you alot of traffic but I lost the url.

thank you for the advice though, I really appreciate it.
I wish your board lots of luck as well ,

thank you

have you considered webring? dir.webring.org/

[brandons]

Aug 19, 2016 20:23:56 GMT -8 Kami said:

Aug 19, 2016 19:37:39 GMT -8 brandons said:

we just got three new members now since the post. so now we are at 73.
I have been advertising on facebook,tumblr,reddit, and spiritual chat rooms as well.
As well as doing the affiliate thing here on pro-boards.
Ohhh I also add my affiliate banner in my signatures on the websites I go to regularly.

Im just having trouble finding other top 100 websites to add my site too,
because of its category there are not many of these that cater to my category.
I have came across advertising website that gives you points or something,
and some how it gives you alot of traffic but I lost the url.

thank you for the advice though, I really appreciate it.
I wish your board lots of luck as well ,

thank you

have you considered webring? dir.webring.org/

nope but I will now thank you so much for the link share !

[Kami]

Aug 19, 2016 20:31:31 GMT -8 brandons said:

Aug 19, 2016 20:23:56 GMT -8 Kami said:

have you considered webring? dir.webring.org/

nope but I will now thank you so much for the link share ! :)

no problem! i used them a lot when my sites were starting out; i'm not sure how successful they are any more (i see a lot less webring links on forums than i used to in the early 2000s) but it's at least another way to get your link out there.

[♥ ℒʊ√ ♥]

brandons ~

I don't know if you've read ProBoards' Ethan Baker 's latest blog, but it's got some great info ~

www.proboards.com/blog/community-resource-roundup-7/


And then there's this site ~

www.topsite.com/best/occult

[Eaglenz]

You gotta be patient, sometimes it just really takes time. But 70 members looks good from my view. I am just the type to believe that if the members you have are active and happy, it doesn't matter how many they are. But anyway, advertising is really a good way to go. You must place your ads strategically though, you want your forum to be shown in a place where people are likely to be interested in it. I have seen debate forums allowing advertisements, and the most successful advertisements were for other debate forums.

From my experience, it also seems people join more when a member of a forum invites people rather than an admin doing so. Pretty sure it has to do with people noticing that members of that forum are happy with it. I personally also increased activity in my forum by offering a prize for users that reach 2,000 posts, although that kinda resulted in some spam here and there, but it was okay. I could've avoided it with clearer instructions. Making a thread for an activity recounting somehow helps too, as whoever sees the thread is supposed to reply to it. That helps see if users who register but don't post are inactive because they don't find threads, or because they don't know what to post. It kinda helps bring users into trying to figure out how the forum works, as I have noticed many people don't post on forums for thinking they're too complicated. It's a measure supposed to help understanding the current activity level. I have also noticed that I had better results on my forum working for the members I already have than the ones that are still to come, nowadays I have a forum with over 300 members and 40,000 posts. I haven't advertised it much, I let it build up slowly. However, for a fast build up really, the best option is advertising, that's what'll get your forum growing. Your forum's theme is more popular than my forum's one and I already feel my forum is fairly active, just continuing advertising it should bring in traffic.

Good luck with the forum, it looks great by the way!

[aidan]

Do not bother with adding your forum web address to search engines, since they all use google.

Therefore, add your forum web address to www.google.com/addurl