Forums and Message Boards - Increase Your Traffic

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Do you have a Forum or Message Board?

It's not easy to get a lot of members to join your forums and message boards. Having an active board is fun if you are lucky enough to have one. I've had a board for almost 10 years and fortunately, it's going strong. And I started a new one about year ago with almost no activity. So I know how frustrating it is to get started and maintain an active board.

This lens will be a place where you can add links to your forums or links to forums where you participate and would like to help them get more members. Also, I will try to help out with tips and recommendations to keep your forums fresh and active.
Stumble It!

How do I get my own Forum? 

Whippet Talk Forums


There are a lot of different Forums out there. Some you pay for (ad free) and some you don't. I pay and have one of my forums hosted and the rest I don't. Here are a few links to forums that I like and have used or are currently using. It's your choice to buy a domain and have it re-directed to your forum. I like to do this because I think it looks more professional and it's easier to find. But you can just as easily create a Squidoo page and include a link to your Forums as I did on my Paranormal Normal lens.
Invision Power Services
This is a hosted community and has a cost associated. I use this service for my WhippetTalk Forums.
ProBoards.com - Free Message Boards
This is a Free Message Board. I use it for my Paranormal Site Forums. You can customize a few things like the backgrounds and colors. But it does display banner ads. You can remove them, but you have to pay for that.
InvisionFree
Invision Free is a Free version of InvisionBoard. It's very nice actually. I use it as a backup board if my WhippetTalk Forums are down for some reason.
Bravenet Free Web Services
Bravenet offers a lot of fantastic stuff for Free. Including a Forum.
ZetaBoards: Free message board hosting
ZetaBoards are free!

Keep Them Coming Back for More 


The first difficult thing is to get the members to join your forum. The second is to retain them. In fact, I think it's tougher to keep them than it is to get them to sign up. What is it about your community that will keep the members there and happy? There's a lot of competition out there on the web. You have to make your forum the best and unique.

Being the Administrator of a forum is work. You have to welcome new members and keep your membership happy and engaged. If you ignore your forum you will lose members. Contests and chats can help. Offering a photo album to members is a way to get them to share and link photos to thier posts. There are lots of tools on the web to make your page interactive and fun. And best of all, many of these items are free.

These are some suggestions I have to make your Forums stand out:
  • Create an Entrance Page
    Though not required, I recommend you get a domain and a website that you can use as an entrance page to your Forums. Why do I recommend this? Because if for some reason your forum are offline, you can post a quick note on the main page to let your users know this. You can also post images of photo contest winners or information about your subject on the "main page" of your Forums. I use the World of Whippets as my gateway into the WhippetTalk Forums. This is a free page I got on Bravenet.
    Bravenet Free Website

  • Add a Toolbar
    Offer your membership a free toolbar that includes links to your board and other popular sites on the web, a radio, a chat room, gadgets and more. WhippetTalk Forums uses a free toolbar and you can get your own custom toolbar at Conduit. The toolbar is free and when people use the search function, you get a small commission. It's one way to generate income from your forums. Here's an example of what my Toolbar looks like:
    Have you tried my toolbar?

  • Create a Chat Room
    As mentioned in the Toolbar, you get a chatroom with it. The drawback is, only members that download the toolbar can use the chatroom. So I use a different option for chats.
    Bravenet Free Chat Room
    AddOnChat Free Chat Room

  • Add a Guestmap
    Have your members leave a pin in your guestmap so everyone can see where everyone is from around the world.
    Free Guestmap

  • Offer a Photo Gallery
    The photo gallery you see on my WhippetTalk Forums are a component I pay for add to the hosted InvisionBoard software. It integrates well and I only offer it to the members who support the board. However, you can include a link to a free photo album where members can submit their photos.
    Photo Gallery/Album

  • Provide a Newsletter
    Depending on how much you want to work and the subject of your forums, you can provide a newsletter to your members. WhippetTalk offers a quarterly newsletter to it's members. Winners of photo contests have thier photos appear in the newsletter. A newsletter can include articles, poems, classified ads and whatever you want. It's a great way to communicate with your membership and gives them something other communities may not.
    Send out a Newsletter

 



Forums and Message Boards - Increase Your Traffic


Other Ways to Promote Your Forums 

Just like Squidoo lenses, you have to get those backlinks out there to promote your lenses. And at the same time, not appear to be spammy. Create a lens about your board, use social bookmarking sites, a blog, etc. This lens about Increasing Traffic works for forums as well as Squidoo lenses.
featured lens Do You Twitter, MySpace or Mixx? Increase your Traffic!

If you are like me, you are trying to find ways to get your lenses noticed and increase traffic. I have been surfing around the various lenses looking for networks and ideas to try and increase the amount of quality traffic to my lenses. And I don't...

 

Lensmaster

Matt Harrin wrote

Nice informational lens. It IS difficult getting a forum going, I can attest to that. I have a new "multi-topic" forum which I believe is harder to grab members then a forum having a specific
subject, say a "sewing" forum. It takes time and a lot of advertising of the forum, non-stop, before you start to see a rise in membership. Right now, until I have a sufficient member count, anyone can post their comments as "guests" (no need to sign-up) over at my forum. Feel free to join, I have lot's of categories for you all to choose from. Even a "Pets" forum where the author here can start a discussion about Whippets!
Thanks again for the information on building traffic to a forum. Again, you're all invited to visit my general talk forum and join in the conversations.

Matt
Admin
BlabTalk.com

Reply Posted July 02, 2009

Lensmaster

Matt Harrin wrote

Nice informational lens. It IS difficult getting a forum going, I can attest to that. I have a new "multi-topic" forum which I believe is harder to grab members then a forum having a specific
subject, say a "sewing" forum. It takes time and a lot of advertising of the forum, non-stop, before you start to see a rise in membership. Right now, until I have a sufficient member count, anyone can post their comments as "guests" (no need to sign-up) over at my forum. Feel free to join, I have lot's of categories for you all to choose from. Even a "Pets" forum where the author here can start a discussion about Whippets!
Thanks again for the information on building traffic to a forum. Again, you're all invited to visit my general talk forum and join in the conversations.

Matt
Admin
BlabTalk.com

Reply Posted July 02, 2009

Lensmaster

mrsnicolaray wrote...

Good work and great info. More please!

ReplyPosted July 01, 2009

Lensmaster

MyContractorListcom wrote...

Thank You,

MyContractorList.com
A network of Contractors & Their Company Profiles

ReplyPosted June 05, 2009

Lensmaster

yahoocr

www.IndianRockerZ.com

ReplyPosted May 03, 2009

Lensmaster

Elena wrote

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Sorry if i disturbed someone

Reply Posted March 27, 2009

Lensmaster

kiwisoutback wrote...

I don't personally have any forums, but I contribute to a few regularly. I don't know the first thing about creating my own! If I ever do, I'll definitely be using these resources. Nice work!

ReplyPosted March 07, 2009

Lensmaster

textadexchanges wrote...

I Love Your Lens! 5 Stars! My Web Traffic Robot

ReplyPosted February 01, 2009

Lensmaster

enslavedbyfaeries wrote...

These are great resources and definitely something I should try to spend more time on. Since Halloween, my lenses have taken a bit dip in traffic and I need to build it up somehow. Thank you for the great ideas!

ReplyPosted November 10, 2008

Lensmaster

tashad17 wrote...

You have some great ideas here,forums are a great place to get the word out. Thank you for the comment you left on my Avon page, feel free to shop with me anytime!
http://www.squidoo.com/meetavon

ReplyPosted October 23, 2008

 
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