I have a forum right? I need some more people on it. Could someone please share their tips, how they got their members, how many, etc? Maybe OpaQue could give me some advice. I am trying to offer some services people will like, really basic hosting, maybe games, support. What else? Ideas anyone? My goal is to get to about 5 signups a day, which is really small. Any programs out there? Thanks!

Note: I was going to put this in advertising, but it doesn't fit any forum there. Maybe someone could put this in the right spot, if it isn't already

Try adding a big, prominent link in your sig. Include like one or two small details about your forum. Maybe try something like this (an example using my site):

The Bus Stop
Computers and NYC Transit at your fingertips
Register now!

Something like that may get you some more members (and this post may help me out as well, I only have about 10 members).

This post has been edited by michaelper22: May 12 2006, 07:46 PM

I would advertise on other forums or BBSs. That usually gets a lot of attention, especially if your forum is one of only a few.

But again that may either get the hosts of the other forums upset, or they may not care. But usally forums have a section devoted to advertising or promotion of your site.

Try that

I usually promote my site on other forums. Post it iny uor signature, because a lot of people look at signatures. Also post it in a showoff or web showcase forum. The, use addme.com for free search engine submission to fourteen search engines. Thats what I did and it usually works.

Good luck on getting mor members,

husker

I agree with other members that a SIG is important in a forum. Almost everyone puts a signature in the forum and as michaelper22 said that putting a big signature like that may work for you.

Another thing is that you could have given the link to your forum in this post - there was no harm in providing the link of your forum...or was there? What I mean to say is that make this your habit, if your forum is new then make good posts in it and then mention about what you said in that post in more popular posts for e.g. you talk about religion and I think your forum is also related to religion then when making next post over here..try to link it to your post at your forum.

You can post your link/buttons on Plugboards on certain sites. There's alot of sites with this plugboard thing, plug yourself there. Another thing is to comment blog sites and sorts. You can post your forum link on a Free Traffic Site thing that makes people click on your site.. thats my advice... hope it helps.

pay per click always helps

Getting people to sign up to a site is always a difficult thing to do. Check your stats and see how many people are actually visiting the site, but not signing up. If you aren't getting many visitors then you need to get the site known, tell people what you do and most importantly, why should I go to your site, when there are others that do the same? What are the plus points, and what makes you stand out from the crowd? If people ask you questions, always reply and try and be more personal, use their name rather than Sir/Madam, and speak to them in a friedly way in emails.

If you have the visitors, but they are not signing up, then they need an incentive to. This does not mean you set your entire forum so that it is only visible to registered members. Let them see the annoucements, general disucssion and set up a guest board. Then encourage people to sign up, so they get access to extra features that are actually useful to them and that they might need. For example, another site I use has a tutorials board on it, that you can only access after a certain number of posts and you have been at the forum for 2 weeks. The tutorials are written by expert users of the software and are very well written, so people are willing to sign up to get access to them. Adapt this theory to the services of your own site.

Definitely post it in your signature and make the link bright and catchy. Search the web for forums that have to do with the topic that yours is about, and advertise on there (if they permit it). You could ask friends to link to it on their own websites, etc, etc, etc...

Follow rvalkass's advice too, that sounds very good.

Good luck!