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Have a forum? Top 10 Forum Promotion Tips
seorefugee.com — A list of tips to help give your forum a boost of activity
msaleem- 518 diggs
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- eKstreme, on 10/12/2007, -0/+10My favorite is "Show your appreciation" as it captures the essence of a forum: it's a community and a moderator/owner really needs to understand that a forum without its people is nothing.
- Skitzzo, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4That's one of the easiest things to do and has such a good affect on your forum, and yet, a surprising number of administrators/moderators treat the members like a nuisance. It baffles me.
- alteratti, on 10/12/2007, -3/+311. Give out freebies
- jinglee, on 10/12/2007, -2/+3As an owner, have a lot of fake profiles..In the first few weeks, you need to make a conversation on the subject using these different fake profiles...Others will start chipping in when the discussion starts getting irresistible for them not to join...
- Gowmars, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I agree. My forum actually was born from another forum that I was a member of. The admin and mods treated us like ***** so we left and started our own forum.
I like these tips, I have been all about doing these kinds of things on my forum since it opened up a year ago and let me tell ya, this stuff works!
- taron, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I guess most of the points nicely go around a single idea: be yourself on the forum. Let people know you and know them. That's what the forum is about, right?
- Skitzzo, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2when it comes to interaction with your members, yes. However, many times you need to go outside the forum to promote it and the rest of the tips address that.
- jimbocook, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I think every forum has a "voice." It's a combination of the topic, members, moderation style, look and feel, etc., etc.
I think part of being successful is learning to hear that voice and respond to and reflect it.
Hope that's not too metaphysical. - ers35, on 10/12/2007, -3/+511. Submit the fourm to Digg.
- jamble, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3haha .. yeah, the "write an aticle on how to make your forum more active" approach works well.
- wikro, on 10/12/2007, -1/+0None of the things on the list would work. Because there's an elephant in the way.
- idigital, on 10/12/2007, -2/+0I have this feeling this blog post on forum promotion was created because the last one on the same site was also dugg to the frontpage.
- mad5, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2You would be correct. It even says so in the article.
- aboyd, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5Were those really promotion tips? They seem more like day-to-day management tips. Wouldn't promotion tips be something like:
1. Post regularly on complementary (not competing) forums, and be sure your own site is featured in your sig.
2. Post good comments on complementary blogs, and be sure to use the "your website" or "your URL" field to link back to your own forum.
3. Give swag to your most active members -- this both rewards them, and provides them with more ways to promote your forum.
4. Create some kind of badging system. NOT a cash/points system, as that's just a number. What you want is a system that awards a graphic icon to the active members, and you need to be sure that they are able to feature that badge on their own Web site, or in their sigs on other forums. The badge should, of course, link back to the forums or their profile. Writing.com has tons of badges (I think they call them patches), if you want an example of a site that has done it insanely well.
5. Apply an SEO or URL-cleaning mod to your forum (typically, these modify a .htaccess file with a URL rewriting scheme). This typically rids your forum of query strings (the "?id=5&blah=blah" stuff), making each topic/thread/post into what looks like a standalone page. This is like candy to Google, and it will index your pages many times more. Better index = more visitors.- inthe80s, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I agree... that really was more along the lines of "running a good forum", nothing to do with promoting one. Your tips 1,2,and 5 are along those lines. 3&4 are more "running a good forum" like the linked article. All good tips either way, it's stuff I know I've been doing for years and I have a pretty decent sized forum.
- franks12, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1Posting good content about your forums which attracts in the groups like Yahoo groups, Google groups or MSN groups is one of the best technique to promote a forum website.
http://www.desiclassifieds.com/index.php?catid=13 - rexb, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Lots of good tips here for forum boosting. Some of which I've written myself:
http://www.leedodd.com/category/in-the-beginning/ - Foamator, on 10/12/2007, -1/+012) Start one of those chain-messages, like the ones on YouTube at the moment, like:
"One night, 2 twins were murdered by their crazy father. If you don't visit this forum now [forum link here], your dad will move you all into a secluded hotel, where he'll start to go crazy, and you'll have to warn your mother by writing REDRUM everywhere in lipstick. Just so you know, your daddy will have an axe. Oh, if you visit the forum, eveything will be fine. If you, however, also pass this message on to every page on Digg, then create a load of fake accounts to digg up your comment for all to see, you'll get laid tonight".
Never underestimate the gullibility of, well, gullible people. RRREEEEEEEEEDDDRUUMMMMMM - bloodylip, on 10/12/2007, -1/+113. Don't go to gentoo forums to spam your forum.
- monkeyman1, on 10/12/2007, -1/+114. Have someone on your forums make a top ten list. Then submit the list to digg.
- azzuora, on 07/08/2008, -0/+0Forum Promotion is important. Check out http://www.forumstars.com/forum_promotion.html if you run a German or English forum and need some traffic.
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