Simple Machines Community Forum

Customizing SMF => Building Your Community and other Forum Advice => Topic started by: trebul on March 25, 2010, 06:51:23 PM

Title: Trebul's Community Building Guide
Post by: trebul on March 25, 2010, 06:51:23 PM
Welcome to Trebul's (Ethical) Community Building Guide.

Some basic background information about me. I have used forums for many years and I'm still active at some that I first started out using. Out of those I have registered at some have become very popular while others become abandoned or ultimately shut down. I have 3+ years experience administering my own site(s). I list sites because at one point I had three running, I later realized that I was stretching myself too thin. I have a part time job and I go to college, so my forum is my hobby. These are my experiences that I encountered building my community, I hope they will help out fellow SMF members.

Time / Dedication

Before you start your forum you should know that forming a community will take a lot of time. If you want to grow you will have to put in the effort. You will need to tend to it almost daily when you are first starting out. There might be a slight chance that you picked a booming niche and will grow quite quickly but for the majority of us it will require a lot of time invested in order to grow.

Creating an Identity

Giving your site a unique identity is a great way to get started. Some might say that people have created successful sites using a default theme. I would argue that branding your site gives your community a much better chance by setting it apart and making it noticeable. This can include but is not limited to finding a custom theme (http://custom.simplemachines.org/themes/) and creating a logo / banner. An often over looked part of identity is making clear what your site's purpose is. Guests may not know solely based on the url, so inform them and capture their interest.

Setting Up Forum Categories

When I was starting my site I had way more categories than I have today. I quickly learned that it was easier to keep the site looking more active with less categories. For instance you have a site A running 20 different categories versus a site B running 5. Say you make 25 topics, A might have 1 or 2 topics per category while site B will have 5. Now taking a look from a guest's perspective site B is clearly more active. So minimizing the number of categories will help make things seem more active than if spread over a huge number of categories.

Increasing the Number of Posts

This is often one of the most frequently asked questions. "How do I get more posts on my forum?" or "How do I get my members to post?" We'll we will first look at some ways that I consider unethical / useless and should be avoided.


Now enough with what not to do, lets focus on things that will promote a more active community without harming your reputation.


Gaining Members

This is by far another hot question. "Where do I get more members?" or "How do I get them to sign up?" Again we will look as some good options and some that should be avoided.


Some good options to gain those hard to get members.


Choosing Moderators

Eventually you will want some help in keeping your community in order. Honestly by the time you need moderators you should have a really good view of how your members act. Those that are always active make good candidates as are those that are always friendly and helpful. You want to choose someone who really adds to the community in a positive way. If guest sees a mod that is always negative you probably won't be to keen on joining the site. I choose my moderators by my gut feeling and it has worked out pretty well. There have been no issues that I can report on.

Once chosen I set up a Staff Only forum section, viewable only by staff. I opened up a staff section and gave them a period to test out the different forum functions and helped prepare them for what their duties actually were. Clearly, outlining these duties can help prevent abuse of their new powers.

Just the basics of what I outlined:


Directories

What is a directory? A directory is a listing of numerous websites divided into many different categories. There are also some directories that focus on certain niches, for instance Pets. So before submitting your site you should see if your site qualifies. Some directories require a payment or reciprocal link (meaning a link from your site to theirs) in order for your site to be listed. Other directories have free listings. Ideal to find a directory that has free links that doesn't require a reciprocal link.

Why should I submit my site to a directory? The most important reason is to increase your site's back links, which in turn can help your site show up higher in the search engines result pages. If you submit to a niche directory you may get some traffic but usually directories won't supply you with any significant amount of traffic.

A few directories to get you started
If you want a directory added send me a pm


Another little tip about directories, some people offer a paid service to submit your site to thousands of directories, stay away from these. Most of the time your site ends up on link farms which will actually harm your site's rankings.

Disclaimer: What works for Trebul may not necessarily work for you. :)
Title: Re: Trebul's Community Building Guide
Post by: alex30 on March 25, 2010, 06:56:09 PM
There is some good advice, thank you for sharing with other members.
Title: Re: Trebul's Community Building Guide
Post by: Cassiel on March 26, 2010, 09:45:02 AM
Wow, this is a very nice guide. Good job Trebul! :)
Title: Re: Trebul's Community Building Guide
Post by: cutelover007 on March 30, 2010, 12:10:26 AM
its nice....:)
Title: Re: Trebul's Community Building Guide
Post by: Xarcell on March 30, 2010, 09:06:29 PM
Very nice guide. never tried yahoo answers, I give that a shot. I can help someone, give them a little info, then give them a link to one of my posts that is more detailed.

Title: Re: Trebul's Community Building Guide
Post by: cutelover007 on April 01, 2010, 01:00:13 AM
thanks for sharing with us,,thanks alot...
Title: Re: Trebul's Community Building Guide
Post by: Afro on April 01, 2010, 05:53:25 PM
Weldone. most of them worked for me.
Title: Re: Trebul's Community Building Guide
Post by: trebul on April 14, 2010, 05:31:37 PM
Thanks, I will continue on updating this from time to time. I just added a little bit on web directories.
Title: Re: Trebul's Community Building Guide
Post by: RagingHippieHost on April 15, 2010, 03:30:33 PM
QuoteYahoo! Answers

Another potential place to find members for any niche is Yahoo! Answers. You have to becareful not to just post a link to your site, it will look like spam and people will report it. You want to answer the question that has been asked and refer to a specific topic / message that is the source of your answer. Sometimes you will get lucky and find people looking for a forum in your niche.

This doesn't work anymore because of the fact that most Yahoo! Answers users are spam nazis and don't like their precious site degraded by your links.

QuoteOut of those I have registered at some have become very popular while others become abandoned or ultimately shut down.

Rethink that sentence structure, mate! :P

Other than that, I think the guide is really good. You should submit this stuff to Hubpages and make some dough off of it.
Title: Re: Trebul's Community Building Guide
Post by: OnlineFunCorner on October 05, 2010, 10:09:52 AM
totally agree with you