Didn't know where to put this because it's not 100% SEO related... as SEO may garentee more views it doesn't garentee more members and more importantly, more active members.

Bit of background on me and forums, i live in the UK and i love football (soccer).. i started off about 4 years ago messing around with invisionfree and it was mainly a board for mates really. I made one then started again from scratch and then after that one i started a new one with a different name and tried a more general board. My cousin became interested and we decided to buy vbulletin and convert my old invisionfree board into a vb forum, it went well i guess but we started to attract the wrong age group, 13 year olds and under and on a board with about 30 odd members at the start and the most active being a group of immature 13 year olds.. it wasn't an attracting feature to our board. We decided to start again with a new name and that is where jibba jabbas came in! We started doing SEO (found this site) and a lot more things. Still promotion was hard. Unfortunatly when we asked to cancel our host but ask if we could keep our files they got in a hissy fit and deleted everything...

So were starting again, same name but this time back to the original idea i had 4 years ago, a football forum!

I've looked around at the hugely popular football forums on the net and from all the links on the first 2 pages on google, 1/2 are about average. Most look extremely amateur. I stumbled across some not so popular ones on google too which had a few hundred members and a lot of active ones and their skin was fairly bad and no special features.

I feel we have a much better forum than a lot, if not all, of these popular and non popular football forums i've seen. Were the only ones which use vBookies to allow betting on football matches, the only one with live scores which i think is a huge feature. Our skin is nice a clean and both works in IE and firefox (only ones i've tested), which is a first lol. Our forum layout is very nicely done...

I'm planning on opening today but i'm worried it'll end up the same as all my others.. a board where just my mates regularly post.

So i need some advice on how to get people posting. We post a hell of a lot of news, we post a great deal daily and we also try to post to all topics especially if it's a new person.. to try and keep them interested and posting but we don't go OTT and scare them off lol.

So the help I need is:

1. How do i get visitors in the first place, i have a few ideas but not positive they'll work well.
2. How do i get them to stay, how do i physically make them see we have features no other board have! Links in the nav bar just isn't enough, i have a topic in the announcements explaining our unique features but again i feel this isn't enough!!
3. How do you motivate people to post news?

The 3rd is a big problem, last few forums it's been me and my cousin, the other admin, posting all the news. Articles from bbc sport and things. It's not that the other members (unfortunatly my friends) don't know how to, it's like they don't see why they should. They act like they care about the popularity and success of the forum but do nothing to help out, even when tempted with money competitions and even mod status. It's very hard to get people making topics. It seems to be there are two types of posters on forums, on who starts discussions aswell as joins in with discussions and those who just sit back and add their view to things they find relivent to them, they never start the discussions off.

Sorry about the hugely long winded post but this is becoming a bit of a pain as i feel we have made a ridiuclous amount of progress in the past 4 years, looking back at my first invisionfree forum and now looking at the one i'm about to open.. we've made huge improvements but still we get the same amount of members and posts which is a problem.

Thanks in advance for any advice!

*moved to vb promotion*

--------------------

Post your URL and a link to your vb.com username here to get full access.

Add our Facebook Blog, Group and LinkedIn group.. Thanks

Stay up to date by installing our Tool Bar

You need good staff...good original content...Something to keep the members is hard..That is in the good content...But always never forget you have on average 8 seconds to capture a visitor as a member...So I would make sure everything is open to see for all the guests..And if you have special thigns make a nice welcome header...Make sure it reflects the sites new and cool stuff..Getting members in the first place takes time and is not always the easiest thing..But gl

--------------------

Firstly, you need to get new visitors. New blood, if you will.

Promote on other sites within your signature, if allowed. Try aiming for general sites (the football fans will spot you, trust me), and definitely try to hit up some other football sites. Not just forums, though. Blogs, chat rooms. Heck, maybe even in-game if you can find the time.

I know it sucks, but when starting out (and often later on, as I am now), in order to get new peopl to YOUR site, you're going to have to spend NO LESS than half your internet time, on someone else's site.

--------------------
TheRogueForums.com | Gaming and the TRF Non Clan | This and That