I have recently started a forum and was wondering what the best way to drive traffic to it is. I have seen many "pay to post" companies out there, but I am worried that all that will accomplish is filling my board with meaningless clutter. I have not started a forum for myself, but I have managed several larger ones. Is patience the key? Or should I be more pro-active? Any tips would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

I think if you are patient you will end up with an old website with few users. I am experiencing a similar problem myself regarding new forums; it seems you have to reach a certain critical mass of users for it to sustain itself. I have seen programs where you join a group of people who all post in each others forums but I agree with you that seems like a recipe for a forum full of BS. I signed up for Google ads two days ago so I need to give it more time to see how it turns out.

What is your forum going to be for?

try private messaging loads of users on other forums as they will most certainly at least take a look at your new forum

The most positive spin I can put on that maneuver, would be to call it impolite. How would you feel if someone used your website to pull your hard earned forum members to a competing service? At least with advertising, the competing forum gets something out of it.

The site will be a community for a site called Moola. There is only one other one out there, so I'm hoping to make mine a lot better and more inviting than theres...

HI,

If we PM users to send invitations to our own forumns does not that sounds like SPAMMINg? will admin not block you right away.?

Here is an article on tips for growing a forum: http://www.forumrank.net/article-Top...g+a+Forum.html

Hi Wilson

That was cool, If we ask moderater of other forum like you yourself, to join our forum will that be fair for forum owners?

provide free services

What type of services. At present we are offering

$5 and/or Free hosting and have competitions as well. Still dont see that punch like on this or other forum.