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My forum is not growing -- and I'm tired and drained literally
I know that there are many people out there who will suggest paid advertising with Adwords or some other company, but there are two things that prevent me from going with paid promotion schemes:
1. I do not have a credit card.
2. I live in India where exchange rates are unfavourable and advertising even in the cheapest programme will cost me a considerable fortune.
3. Another issue is that my forum is not going to be of any financial benefit to me. So I am very chary about investing more money into it apart from the initial cost of a domain name and hosting space.
I have done everything else possible. Tried to exchange links, made my forums search engine optimized and also contributed a lot of content by posting regularly with interesting discussion topics. I've worked hard at improving my site by adding new features and now I feel literally drained and tired after seeing very poor response to all this.
In two and a half months of its existence my site has only 24 members (including myself and a test account which I created) and feeble activity of about 1 to 2 posts per day (some days go without any posts at all).
I have got many hits recently through search engines, but none of them are converted into new members or posts. Recently activity has dropped off so much that I am afraid that even the regular members so far will go away from my site.
How do I remedy this situation? As I said before, I cannot pay even a small amount for advertising for very good practical reasons because I do not have a credit card and cannot pay online.
1. I do not have a credit card.
2. I live in India where exchange rates are unfavourable and advertising even in the cheapest programme will cost me a considerable fortune.
3. Another issue is that my forum is not going to be of any financial benefit to me. So I am very chary about investing more money into it apart from the initial cost of a domain name and hosting space.
I have done everything else possible. Tried to exchange links, made my forums search engine optimized and also contributed a lot of content by posting regularly with interesting discussion topics. I've worked hard at improving my site by adding new features and now I feel literally drained and tired after seeing very poor response to all this.
In two and a half months of its existence my site has only 24 members (including myself and a test account which I created) and feeble activity of about 1 to 2 posts per day (some days go without any posts at all).
I have got many hits recently through search engines, but none of them are converted into new members or posts. Recently activity has dropped off so much that I am afraid that even the regular members so far will go away from my site.
How do I remedy this situation? As I said before, I cannot pay even a small amount for advertising for very good practical reasons because I do not have a credit card and cannot pay online.
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Ok, I took a look at your site and well I think you need to look at a little redesign. It isnt all that welcoming and the first page is so busy and cluttered it made me want to look away. Anyway answer me two things and I will try and help. Why did you create your forum and what do you hope to achieve from it?
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My suggestion would be to find a list of the most popular books in the market today. Like top 500 or something. Make a thread with that book title as the subject and just ask a simple question in the actual post. Do this for any book you can find. Then sit back and wait for google to index those pages and people to search and get your forum.
Next I would go to inventory.overture.com and figure out which keywords get the most hits for the context of your forum. Then do a little google search and find out how many IBLs you might need to get a top stop, and put in the time and effort and make it work.
It's all about work, work-work-work.
Next I would go to inventory.overture.com and figure out which keywords get the most hits for the context of your forum. Then do a little google search and find out how many IBLs you might need to get a top stop, and put in the time and effort and make it work.
It's all about work, work-work-work.
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As someone said that I do not know the name of.......
Rome Wasn't Built in a Day
Don't expect much to happen overnight.
Rome Wasn't Built in a Day
Don't expect much to happen overnight.
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Ok, I took a look at your site and well I think you need to look at a little redesign. It isnt all that welcoming and the first page is so busy and cluttered it made me want to look away. Anyway answer me two things and I will try and help. Why did you create your forum and what do you hope to achieve from it?
The reason I created the site was because I am an amateur author and a book lover and I wanted a place where people can discuss and review books. I also created the site so that I can use it as a platform later to market my own books as well.
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As someone said that I do not know the name of.......
Rome Wasn't Built in a Day
Don't expect much to happen overnight.
0
Okay first things first.
Lets work onyear Page Rank. Using your keywords find sites with the same ones (Use both Google and MSN Search). See if you can link exchange with those sites.
Make a poster - go to local book stores and ask you they can display the poster where people will see it.
Find other Communities simular to yours on the net, post regualry and become a memner on there forums, have a simple link and/or picture in your signature to your forum.
The accoucments are off topic - get some book reviews up on the main page. And display a bit, with the read more link - make people register to see it
Looks for a better phpbb skin.
Run a content - give away prizes!
Just some stuff
Lets work onyear Page Rank. Using your keywords find sites with the same ones (Use both Google and MSN Search). See if you can link exchange with those sites.
Make a poster - go to local book stores and ask you they can display the poster where people will see it.
Find other Communities simular to yours on the net, post regualry and become a memner on there forums, have a simple link and/or picture in your signature to your forum.
The accoucments are off topic - get some book reviews up on the main page. And display a bit, with the read more link - make people register to see it
Looks for a better phpbb skin.
Run a content - give away prizes!
Just some stuff
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Originally Posted by Atomica
Okay first things first.
Lets work onyear Page Rank. Using your keywords find sites with the same ones (Use both Google and MSN Search). See if you can link exchange with those sites.
Make a poster - go to local book stores and ask you they can display the poster where people will see it.
Find other Communities simular to yours on the net, post regualry and become a memner on there forums, have a simple link and/or picture in your signature to your forum.
The accoucments are off topic - get some book reviews up on the main page. And display a bit, with the read more link - make people register to see it
Looks for a better phpbb skin.
Run a content - give away prizes!
Just some stuff
Link exchange? That's a tough one. I'm not sure of how to approach the bigger websites with the idea. But yes, I am trying to exchange links with some sites.
Yes. I have links in my signature on every forum I have registered.
The skin is fine. I created it myself and I like the light colours. Not sure what is wrong with it. Can you be more specific?
As I said - I am a poor guy. I cannot give away prizes. If I had enough money to advertise in the first place, I would have done so. Again, I do not have a credit card account so I cannot pay online.
Making people register to see content is a bad idea. Not only will I end up with a lot of registered inactive users, I will also not be allowing the search engines to crawl my content.
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Designs are great, but people visit sites for their content. So make sure there is always fresh content. You can do this by POSTING YOURSELF! Ask thought provoking questions, make comments, comment on things that people will just naturally want to answer or reply to. Post 5-10 of these types of threads every single day. If someone replies, be sure to reply back to them as soon as you see their post.
Forums spread by word of mouth. If a site looks dead, it can be saved by replying everytime someone posts as soon as they do so. If people see their own posts are being replied to quickly and with good advice, they'll be back to post more.
Forums spread by word of mouth. If a site looks dead, it can be saved by replying everytime someone posts as soon as they do so. If people see their own posts are being replied to quickly and with good advice, they'll be back to post more.
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Originally Posted by cscgal
Designs are great, but people visit sites for their content. So make sure there is always fresh content. You can do this by POSTING YOURSELF! Ask thought provoking questions, make comments, comment on things that people will just naturally want to answer or reply to. Post 5-10 of these types of threads every single day. If someone replies, be sure to reply back to them as soon as you see their post.
Forums spread by word of mouth. If a site looks dead, it can be saved by replying everytime someone posts as soon as they do so. If people see their own posts are being replied to quickly and with good advice, they'll be back to post more.
Some very good advice.
Yes. If you see my forums now, more than 40% of the posts are mine.
Also since mine is a book reviews and discussion community, basically writing reviews frequently is very tough unless many members contribute. And I cannot be doing it all the time. I agree with all your ideas, but getting fresh content in a site like mine requires more work than a normal "chat-type" forum, if you get my meaning.
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