My friend and I just created a health forum with simple phpbb (we are no IT geniuses by any means)... and I've been reading all over the place about getting more traffic to your site/forum.

We tried this before, but we just got spammed out of control. We want genuine users, and thats it. It seems like all the "solutions" are not solutions at all, they are just quick fixes to spread your site name, and they don't attract anyone.

I know it takes time, but we have had this forum up for about a month, and we have been posting, along with some of my friends about real topics and intriguing convos, but no one has joined. I don't know how to even start.

Please pardon my ignorance or lack of knowledge, but that is why I am posting on here, I want to learn, and grow my site. Thanks in advance!

All I can suggest is not to give up. A month is nothing. It took daily posting on DaniWeb nearly a year before the site took off, but look where we are today, after hard work and persistance.

That's the golden rule, never give up

It takes hard work to take off, but after that is really nice to see the results

Thanks for the comment... I guess I'll just keep waiting. It is frustrating when no one has even visited the site. I don't even know how to get traffic!

Don't lose hope,what is the name of your site,let me visit it..

PM'd


**hint**

You can see my site from reading my posts lol

Hey guys... Thanks again for the information. So far we set-up adsense and tried to add more features and are currently working on a blog format for the phpbb forum.... But still... we got one user...who posted once... but never posted again...

what gives!!!!

all we want is users...we dont even care about google or money or anything!

When that one user who posted, did you instantly reply to the post they made? Did you answer any questions they had? Did you send them a welcome message? Did you invite them to come back? In the beginning, it's incredibly important to be proactive.

Tips I used when starting off..
1, Content, ensure you have regular new content
2. Keep the number of forums to a minimum until you have traffic to populate them with content
3. Controversy- everyone likes a small disagreement/debate/arguement, one devious trick is to create your own "discussion" using two usernames, as people start to join in let one drop away
4. be "Niche" just creating a set of general forums in the hope of attracting everyone will only put you up against the Big Boys with lots of cash to spend on marketing,
5. Have a clear set of rules of what is permitted, and what actions will be taken against users if they transgress
6. Keep at it, my forums started 7 years ago, it took me 3 years to build up any sort of traffic, a further 3 years before anyone in the niche industry took much notice of it, last year I sold it to a major publishing house and now get paid to babysit it
7. keep your expectations of traffic reasonable, in the first year I was pleased to have 100 registered members of which 25 were regular posters, this year, despite changing boards in year 4 and losing many registered members(couldnt afford to get the database converted at the time), we have just under 7000 members and do about 6.5 million page views a year

Another reason to be niche: General forums, or forums that cover all of your own varied interests, seem to lose focus. Visitors don't understand what they're expected to get out of them, and confused visitors are not sticky visitors.

In my first year, I was happy to have one new member a month!