HELP: Starting up a forum.

[bbott]

I run a web design & development company and we are starting up a new forum for our site:

http://ewebdevelopment.net/forum/

Feedback would be appreciated, thanks! :)

[HumorBug]

You could also start sharing some of the experiences and information you have pickedup along the years. Most people come to forums to share information and ideas, you have to seed your new forum with article like posts, that either have great info, or a somewhat contriversial.

GoodLuck,
HB

[bbott]

[QUOTE=HumorBug]You could also start sharing some of the experiences and information you have pickedup along the years. Most people come to forums to share information and ideas, you have to seed your new forum with article like posts, that either have great info, or a somewhat contriversial.

GoodLuck,
HB[/QUOTE]

Thanks, some good ideas.

Anyone else have any ideas ?

[wyrickj]

Content Content Content and member members and members.

It takes a while for a forum to pickup in members. I have a few members from here at my forum since I run an SEO / Webmaster Forum it's related to what's here so I asked some members here to join. Others have found me via search engines also. Make sure you post great content like articles, news, etc. I would also find members willing to post a lot too.

Take a look at my forum as an example - http://www.mi-websolutions.com/forum. I have posted good content, news, etc.

[bbott]

[QUOTE=wyrickj]Content Content Content and member members and members.

It takes a while for a forum to pickup in members. I have a few members from here at my forum since I run an SEO / Webmaster Forum it's related to what's here so I asked some members here to join. Others have found me via search engines also. Make sure you post great content like articles, news, etc. I would also find members willing to post a lot too.

Take a look at my forum as an example - http://www.mi-websolutions.com/forum. I have posted good content, news, etc.[/QUOTE]

Yea, im' trying to get some orignial content.

I'm also offering the top 3 users w/ the most posts, once our forum hits 100 registered members, 6 months free advertising on our forums. Hopefully this draws in some people. Think this is a good idea?

[seo guy]

Best way is to hang out at really highly populated forums like this one, seochat etc and post really helpful posts and have your forum in the sig, people will check it out. Dont self promote like wyrickj just did, although I am tolerant many forums would get very upset if you were actually mentioning a forum with identicle or similar members on it, they consider it member poaching. Might want to take note mi-

[seo guy]

Not to mention in this instance the posting of his forum was relevant to the topic, most times those "check out my forum" posts arent

[bbott]

UPDATE: We decided to go with 2 promotional ideas. They seem to be working. We're up to 24 members in 6 days :)

[bbott]

anymore feedback on design, layout, forum categories, etc ?

[chhchung]

Offer some free stuff related to web development, Like offer free geoip web service for forum member. provide free web template, Professional Web review. Keep answer user's question. They will appreciate your job and give you a hand

[wyrickj]

SEO Guy I was not trying to self promote. I was trying to give him an example. Was showing him the way I had things and showed him content that might help him to get members. If it was not related I would have not posted.

Also another thing is to add your sig link on all forums you visit - I know you got one here but not sure of the others. I have gotten a few people from here to signup for my forum with a sig link here and also at Blue Gecko Netowork forums.

[bbott]

[QUOTE=wyrickj]SEO Guy I was not trying to self promote. I was trying to give him an example. Was showing him the way I had things and showed him content that might help him to get members. If it was not related I would have not posted.

Also another thing is to add your sig link on all forums you visit - I know you got one here but not sure of the others. I have gotten a few people from here to signup for my forum with a sig link here and also at Blue Gecko Netowork forums.[/QUOTE]

Hey, I have the forum listed in all my sigs ;)

[wyrickj]

OK good - lol my forum not all that active but the best thing you can do is to rank it for a very large keyword such as Web Design or SEO ya know. That's my goal.

[bbott]

[QUOTE=wyrickj]OK good - lol my forum not all that active but the best thing you can do is to rank it for a very large keyword such as Web Design or SEO ya know. That's my goal.[/QUOTE]

Hey, i just checked out your forum. It's pretty dark, maybe ad some lighter colors into it? :D

[handry]

hi.... I think your SEO for ewebdevelopment are not bad coz you had post in many forums... I appreciate your efforts to do that plan.

Keep you good work.. Hope you success.

[wyrickj]

hehe I know my forum is dark. It was made to be a dark skin. I am currently making a XPish Skin.

[handry]

ic... Dark forum are more difficult to read. Do you know that?

[wyrickj]

Hmm I can read it fine. Like I said I am in the process of making a XPish skin for visitors.

[jlknauff]

[QUOTE=wyrickj]Hmm I can read it fine.[/QUOTE]Gotta think of the visitors, not yourself :cool: But I know you are redesigning a skin ;)

[handry]

do your skin can improve your traffic?

if it can improved it. No problem at all..

[jlknauff]

not traffic, but it will affect the number of people that stay around

[wyrickj]

Well it needs some mega backlinks pointing to it that's for sure lol. I am working on buying a couple of links maybe this weekend.

[handry]

yes.. but also

how the people stay around to your web if you dont have traffic to your site?

[wyrickj]

Well the problem is I think my links are sandbox or something as I have a lot of links from other sites. I checked The Logo Creator's allinanchor and I am about the same as they are. I think my problem is the links are sandboxed and that I can't control.

[bbott]

[QUOTE=wyrickj]Well it needs some mega backlinks pointing to it that's for sure lol. I am working on buying a couple of links maybe this weekend.[/QUOTE]

Why are you going to buy them? You can get them for free!! :)

[wyrickj]

I'm thinking of buying due to the competiviness of the keywords. I was thinking of buying links for my main site but now I may not due to I am ranking pretty well for allinanchor so I may skip buying links for my main site. Now for forum and my new internet marketing pages I may or may not as I have already have around 400+ links to the internet marketing page in my sig due to forums, places I admin at, etc. So overall I may hold off on link buying if I fail emailing, getting links myself.

[CMA]

Good day mates.
I am running 2 boards as well, they are not running great ;-) so I wont link them.
Just some things that are very important and that you can learn about boards.
*You need quality, quality, and quality. It is not mass, not member numbers, it is quality of the postings. The longer, the more info for users, and for Spider
*You need great moderators, that really know what they are talking about
*You need some topic related backlinks, when your board has the things i just mentioned, quality, then you will recive non recip links all your way from members

Wish you great luck getting your boards rockin ;-)

[handry]

If you put to much more efforts to promoted by paid links promote tools. I think That would be wise that you use quality programs like adwords campaign and made it more efficient.

It just a matter of time that your web would be visible at SEs indexed site.
Create a community of a qualified Peoples and Targeted anchor text link. I think it be wise things to do and improve more of your page rank.

But your promotions program was not bad and keep it going.

[bbott]

Yea, I may start an adwords campaign. Anyone know the price per click for the following terms:

forum
webmaster forum
web design forum

?

[smindsrt]

Bbot-

I just want to say you have a nice forum. I checked it out the other night, you are off to a great start! :D

Good Job!

[smindsrt]

[QUOTE=bbott]Why are you going to buy them? You can get them for free!! :)[/QUOTE]

Sometimes you need both! I have a site that is going after very, very competitive KW and it helps to buy, rent and exchange.

[hex1848]

If you are thinking about buying text links, I would seriously consider giving the Free Coop Ad network a try. I went from ~50’s in the google SERPS to number 7 for “Cigar Forum” in less then a month.

Basically you sign up for the service, put some code in place (php and asp examples avalible in the ad network forum) and give a site wide link or 2 for use by the network. I actually use 7, because I have enough room and it gives you extra weight, take a look at the bottom of the forum in my .sig for an example of what the ads look like.

Your site gets verified and you create an ad or 2 that goes out to the network and gives you tons of in bound links with the anchor text of you’re choosing.

Free Ad Network (http://www.digitalpoint.com/tools/ad-network/?signup=279).

The above link takes you to the informational/sign up page. I used my referral code in the link (mainly because I don’t have any right now ;)). Referrals give you more weight, the higher your rate, the more times your ad will appear in the network.

Hope this helps

[bbott]

[QUOTE=hex1848]If you are thinking about buying text links, I would seriously consider giving the Free Coop Ad network a try. I went from ~50’s in the google SERPS to number 7 for “Cigar Forum” in less then a month. [/quote]

I think i'll pass. We're going to do a Google adwords compaign.