Webmaster forum - How to promote a forum

Author

How to promote a forum

universalsid

2006-08-22, 10:33 pm

Excuse me if i have posted the topic in wrong place.

Can anybody suggest how to promote a forum? As in the beginning a forum
can hardly contain any substantial content but for few empty categories
which in anyway not going to get traffic from search engines.

Marc Bissonnette

2006-08-23, 3:43 am

"universalsid" <sid.calcutta@fancy-shoppe.com> altered the spacetime fabric
by disgorging news:1156298050.345815.159870@74g2000cwt.googlegroups.com:

> Excuse me if i have posted the topic in wrong place.
>
> Can anybody suggest how to promote a forum? As in the beginning a forum
> can hardly contain any substantial content but for few empty categories
> which in anyway not going to get traffic from search engines.

Ahh, now this is refreshing: Actually asking how to promote a forum
properly, rather than just popping in and spamming the unholy begeebus out
of it - thank you !

One suggestion would be to start filling the forum out with content
yourself. If you dedicate yourself to a few new articles per day in
different sections of the forum, google will pick it up and, if the content
piques enough interest, you'll see other people begin to put their own
thoughts into it. I have found, in general, that most people do not like
being the first post in an empty forum, but do enjoy adding to an already
thriving one.

Another method is to link directly to the forums from the more heavily
trafficked sections of your site, to draw people's attention to it.

There is also nothing wrong with asking friends, family and colleagues to
post their own thoughts/content in your forum: This way you get additional
content that is (usually) obviously different from your own style to make
it look like there is genuine use of the thing (And if it's a decent enough
place, your friends/family/colleagues will keep coming back to add more :)
)

Hope those are a little help. Good luck!

--
Marc Bissonnette
Looking for a new ISP? http://www.canadianisp.com
Largest ISP comparison site across Canada.

Charles Sweeney

2006-08-23, 6:54 am

universalsid wrote

> Excuse me if i have posted the topic in wrong place.
>
> Can anybody suggest how to promote a forum?

Advertise it during the Superbowl?

--
Charles Sweeney
http://CharlesSweeney.com

Citizen10Bears@gmail.com

2006-08-23, 7:00 pm

good answer!
maybe an idea of budget may have helped :-)

Charles Sweeney wrote:
> universalsid wrote
>
>
> Advertise it during the Superbowl?
>
> --
> Charles Sweeney
> http://CharlesSweeney.com

Charles Sweeney

2006-08-23, 7:00 pm

wrote

> Charles Sweeney wrote:
> good answer!
> maybe an idea of budget may have helped :-)

Thanks for taking it in good humour!

You ask a simple question, but the answer isn't simple. Basically you
want people to know about your site, that's you and 50 million other
webmasters!

Does the site consist only of the forum, or is the forum attached to the
site? If it's the latter, then I think it would be easier to get
contributors on the forum because you already have visitors to your
website.

What is the forum about? If it covers a niche area, then I would think
it has more chance of getting used.

I think you should be looking at search engines, word of mouth,
advertising (not necessarily in that order).

--
Charles Sweeney
http://CharlesSweeney.com

Phil Payne

2006-08-23, 7:00 pm

> I think you should be looking at search engines, word of mouth,
> advertising (not necessarily in that order).

The conventional press can be handy, too - most of them have online
versions and their links can be very powerful. It has to be
particularly noteworthy, though, to get their interest.

Basically, as has been said, work HARD at getting it known.

Charles Sweeney

2006-08-23, 7:00 pm

Phil Payne wrote

>
> The conventional press can be handy, too - most of them have online
> versions and their links can be very powerful. It has to be
> particularly noteworthy, though, to get their interest.
>
> Basically, as has been said, work HARD at getting it known.

Which reminds me of one of the best, write a press release. If it's "yet
another forum" it might be difficult to make it sound like news!

--
Charles Sweeney
http://CharlesSweeney.com

Concreteman

2006-08-24, 6:57 pm

universalsid wrote:
> Excuse me if i have posted the topic in wrong place.
>
> Can anybody suggest how to promote a forum? As in the beginning a forum
> can hardly contain any substantial content but for few empty categories
> which in anyway not going to get traffic from search engines.

All the suggestions are good, I personally like the press release idea,
you can write one and have it published rather cheap... I didn't see a
budget but apparently Palmala Handerson and the Superbowl are out...
there are companies that promise pay to post, which for a certain
amount of money, they will provide people to come in and make x number
of posts. I haven't tried any of these, but a large boost of people
posting may help bring others, and they may bring others.

Now that we have discussed it, and you have broke the ice, how about
you post the URL and perhaps we could look at it, maybe get a couple
posts or suggestions you may not have considered...

Charles Sweeney

2006-08-26, 6:31 am

Concreteman wrote

> All the suggestions are good, I personally like the press release idea,
> you can write one and have it published rather cheap...

I have never used them, but PR Leap look quite good:

http://www.prleap.com/

They offer a free distribution service for your press release, and good
advice about writing a press release.

--
Charles Sweeney
http://CharlesSweeney.com