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How to build a successful forum

Started by Noddegamra, August 23, 2007, 09:47:41 AM

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alex30

sremick you have a gaming community, my advice for you is to make more professional banner, gaming banner. Second change board icons to gaming ones, add icons to every board, on the side of description.

In order for guests to register on your forum they have to see that your forum is different from other ones. Do you know how many forums use default theme? Yes, a lot, so in your case I would customize your forum a bit to make it more unique.

Hope it helps you.

TurtleKicker

Quote from: alex30 on June 19, 2009, 09:11:56 PMmy advice for you is to make more professional banner, gaming banner.
Great idea! Are you offering? ;) Because I'm not a graphic artist.

Until I have some users who are, or I have enough users that generate enough advertising that I can contract one out, I'm sort of stuck.

QuoteSecond change board icons to gaming ones, add icons to every board, on the side of description.

I tried to install the mod to do this but it had problems. I posted to the support thread for the mod but was not able to get help, so I gave up on it. But yes, I'd really like to do this.

See here:
http://www.simplemachines.org/community/index.php?topic=126263.440

QuoteIn order for guests to register on your forum they have to see that your forum is different from other ones. Do you know how many forums use default theme? Yes, a lot, so in your case I would customize your forum a bit to make it more unique.
I'd love to, but there are some things in the way of that:

1) I'm new to SMF, so I don't understand the customizing of themes all that well.
2) I'm not a graphics or theme artist anyway
3) None of the available free themes are to my liking
4) Until I have enough users, paying someone $50-$100 to make a custom theme is a waste.
5) No point in paying for a 1.x theme when 2.0 is out soon
6) The way SMF 1.x works, mods only apply cleanly to the custom theme, so unless you're very proficient at manual editing of themes (requires understanding the themes well, see #1), a newbie to SMF using mods will have a very bad experience if they deviate from the default theme. This should improve with SMF2.

I don't mean to be dismissive and I do appreciate your advice, but these are things that are a bit much for a new forum by someone new to SMF on top of that. However they are all things I've thought about and would love to do.

ShadoWind

This is definitely a good thread and I'll definitely be visiting this particular section for advice on how to build my forum once it goes live... :)

TurtleKicker

For what it's worth: I sat down and made a new banner/logo. Although I don't really have good computer graphics skills.

hachouchi

Hi i'm new to making forums and i don't have a forum can i make one on this site?? if not where can i make a forum like this one???  Thank you

Arantor


joseph09

advice

had a very succesful  forum but after a nuclear  fallout and massive money spent. got involved and had to redo it.

have not added  theme yet as I am new to this software came from Vbulletin.

how and what is best way to get members.

hxxp:isaiah601.com/Forum/index.php [nonactive]

tips and suggestion

Utech22


seomul

Its very usefull information thanks for providing.

perplexed

Quote from: sremick on June 23, 2009, 12:52:50 PM
Quote from: alex30 on June 19, 2009, 09:11:56 PMmy advice for you is to make more professional banner, gaming banner.
Great idea! Are you offering? ;) Because I'm not a graphic artist.

Until I have some users who are, or I have enough users that generate enough advertising that I can contract one out, I'm sort of stuck.

QuoteSecond change board icons to gaming ones, add icons to every board, on the side of description.

I tried to install the mod to do this but it had problems. I posted to the support thread for the mod but was not able to get help, so I gave up on it. But yes, I'd really like to do this.

See here:
http://www.simplemachines.org/community/index.php?topic=126263.440

QuoteIn order for guests to register on your forum they have to see that your forum is different from other ones. Do you know how many forums use default theme? Yes, a lot, so in your case I would customize your forum a bit to make it more unique.
I'd love to, but there are some things in the way of that:

1) I'm new to SMF, so I don't understand the customizing of themes all that well.
2) I'm not a graphics or theme artist anyway
3) None of the available free themes are to my liking
4) Until I have enough users, paying someone $50-$100 to make a custom theme is a waste.
5) No point in paying for a 1.x theme when 2.0 is out soon
6) The way SMF 1.x works, mods only apply cleanly to the custom theme, so unless you're very proficient at manual editing of themes (requires understanding the themes well, see #1), a newbie to SMF using mods will have a very bad experience if they deviate from the default theme. This should improve with SMF2.

I don't mean to be dismissive and I do appreciate your advice, but these are things that are a bit much for a new forum by someone new to SMF on top of that. However they are all things I've thought about and would love to do.

Well you seem to be doing OK in the last few months, lots of posts and members, well done :)

TurtleKicker

Quote from: quiteperplexed on December 17, 2009, 06:31:55 AMWell you seem to be doing OK in the last few months, lots of posts and members, well done :)

Yeah really slow, and not as fast growth as earlier this year, but it HAS been doing moderately well. We're not dead yet. :)

Still, I'm nowhere near where I want to be. I'm working with a theme artist to get a new custom theme. We're both anxious, but the biggest problem has been the delays of SMF2 and the lagging support from mod authors. A number of my "critical" mods don't support SMF2 RC2 yet, and several other mods I use and would want to continue to use have never seen any SMF2 support ever. Meanwhile, SMF2 final seems forever away and approaching at only a snail's pace. I have to wonder if we'll be seeing it by next xmas? I'm not trying to be a jerk... remember: this time last year, SMF2 Beta 4 was out. So in one year's time, we've only had 2 more releases: RC1 and RC2. So if there ends up being an RC3, then at this pace we won't see SMF 2.0 final until December 2010. :(

If SMF2 would just come out and the mods support it, we could have the theme done in a few weeks. Instead, I feel like my forum is rotting in the stone ages due to not being able to update and modernize. But you can't paint a moving truck.

Joeh1

Hi, thanks for the info it is very useful.  However I guess it all comes down to traffic.

No traffic, no members, no forum postings.

Have not started my forum yet a bit worried how much time it will take to moderate


Cassiel

Well for any new forum it's gonna take a lot of time and dedication. All of the effort is up to you (and any of your partners if you have any) and so you need to plan to put in the time or else it's gonna reflect in how much your site grows.

xynder

hi, im new to smf. thanks for your advice in building successfull forum!!

adbrad

Quote from: Noddegamra on August 23, 2007, 09:47:41 AM

Adding your Link to Signatures in other Forums
A great one this. You can get people to know about your forum/site for free, simply by joining other forums and having your link in your forum/profile signature. An added bonus to this is that search engines like Google can see these links, and it will help boost you in search engine results.

However! Please be careful about this. I have seen people join up to forums and do a huge advertising spam post about their website in hope to get clicks. THIS DOES NOT WORK!
In actual fact, it ruins the reputation of your forum. It makes you look like a worthless, desperate spammer. Who wants to sign up to a forum run by someone like that? No one!

The best technique is to join other forums with a positive attitude. Have a link to your site in your sig, but try to make 10 or so really great posts each day or week (whenever you have the time to spare). If you get a great reputation on the forum, people will check out your link. If you are a really cool person, it is highly likely that someone will join your forum. People like to join up on sites run by really great people.

OK this one didn't work for me i joined up to a forum and put my link in the sig like i have done here and then made a post introducing my self. never mentioned the website and with in less than a day i had posts asking why i was advertising a forum on there forum i did this on a similar forum to mine as it is the target audience for my forum. personally i would not recommend this if any one wants to see the posts, i will link to them.

Uhura!

You have to be careful with siggy lines on other people's forums - especially if they are related to yours. Some people take offense...It's seen as stealing.
:) Our Parenting Spot is an online parenting community for fathers, mothers, grandparents, teachers, and family service professionals. 8) We also provide low cost advertising options for authors, family service providers, and businesses with family friendly products and services. ;D Visit us @ www.OurParentingSpot.net!

adbrad

Quote from: Uhura! on January 09, 2010, 09:28:34 PM
You have to be careful with siggy lines on other people's forums - especially if they are related to yours. Some people take offense...It's seen as stealing.

i can see that point of view but if people are active on a forum and are well known there it's not like they are going to leave the current forum.
if some one was to start a new smf support forum how many people would leave this one to go there.
it was aimed mostly at people just browsing round and if they happened to check out my forum then so be it.

ufumes

I believe the contents matters a lot. if it promises to be interesting , people will naturally sign up

ɔɔɔɔɔɔuɥoɾ

Quote from: ufumes on January 22, 2010, 06:06:03 PM
I believe the contents matters a lot. if it promises to be interesting , people will naturally sign up


Its all about the content, your forum must frequently change, not static, just make sure google is indexing your forum use webmaster tools there is some good tools in there to help boost your forum traffic, but remember things take time, its not a instant member filled forum, just wait and see :)


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cutelover007

dear sir,
  what i do in my forum to increase my forum members..i have only 29members..so dear sir what i do.....please sir also give me tips for increasing my members....
my forum is..

  www.megafunxone.cz.cc

  sir please give me some useful tips to make my forum nice and increase members...

http://gupshupclub.cz.cc" title="GUPSHUP CLUB" target="_blank">






www.gupshupclub.cz.cc

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