Built the site, got members by google adwords, now what?

[dj bill]

Well, Stated my site in late May/early June. Have been running Google Adwords and have had quite a few visitors and even have 258 members to date (which I think is not too bad)

But I have since shut off the Google adwords since that was getting spendy, visitors are low and the 258 members have only about 10 members who are kinda active (including my 4 moderators)

So I am stuck...thought if I could build it they would come and they did but they did not stay. Not sure what I can do from here on out to keep interest alive.

I am thinking of needing to start doing more linking with other sites similar to mine (reciprical links) and some other SEO things to hope to get more of a steady flow of traffic...

Any other ideas you can think of? My site is a online community for Reality TV shows and there are a bunch out there but they all seem to be thriving and mine just seems to still be in its infancy.

Hope to hear a bunch of great ideas and thoughts from everyone here!

Peace,

DJ Bill

[yni420]

targetted ads is the way to go.
some contests........and encouraging people to post by offering them something if they reack say 500 posts or something or maybe even 1000 posts would get the current lot a bit more active.

[AuctionMan]

Isn't there a points for post hack that can be installed so that everytime someone makes a post they get points and then you can use points milestones to offer incentives or prizes etc.

Make sure you set some ground rules however as there are always gonna be the 'idiots' that just post rubbish to get points etc etc.

Have you tried any offline advertising? flyers/posters et al to highlight the site..does your local school/college have a student paper you can put an ad in....

Your idea to focus on traffic is right, linking with other sites is a must to raise your sites profile.

[aboyd]

I have since shut off the Google adwords since that was getting spendy, visitors are low and the 258 members have only about 10 members who are kinda active (including my 4 moderators)

Well, I just posted a checklist of things to do to spark up a forum (in another thread), so I won't rehash all that here. However, I will suggest two things.

First, it may be possible that you're catering to a dying market as interest in reality shows starts to wane. Or it may be that you've jumped into a highly competitive market where other big players are going to win from sheer mindshare. In either case, I wouldn't paint a hopeful picture for you. But, I don't know that either of those possibilities are real, so let's keep it in mind, but talk about a second option.

Second option: fire the ads back up and try MUCH harder to make your site more sticky. Consider it a lesson learned -- you got 250+ members, and very few bothered to stay, so you know you need to take active, deliberate measures to keep the next 250. If it helps, think in terms of your wallet. No one likes to lose money, but you pretty much did waste money on 250 members that never came back. Ouch. Believe in your mind that your next advertising investment will go much more in your favor.

So, active steps. You have to be SURE that your forum emails members when they get private messages, and when someone responds to their posts. Don't switch the 250 members that have already set their preferences. But make sure that the default is set to ON, so that every new member is getting email by default. Of course, they can switch it off, but most people go with the defaults. And that email is very useful. People love getting responses, but people are lazy too. The email will be a reminder to them, a prod that helps them come back.

Keep going with ways to make your forum sticky. If you haven't already, get your board setup or modded to allow users to subscribe to topics they haven't posted in. Also, get a mod that allows users to email their friends about topics they love. You see where I'm going with this? We're finding ways to remind people about your board when they are not on it. Offer an RSS feed. Or start a monthly newsletter, and add an option in the preferences (defaulted to ON) for people to get the newsletter email. Then write up something short & useful each month, and always end the message with a link to your forums.

Good luck. Best wishes.

-Tony