Driving traffic to a forum

[SEODinosaur]

I am building a forum and its a general forum, what are the best practices to gain users/members. I dont expect to rank for every category in the SERP's. Doe's anyone here have any experience in gaining traffic/members to a forum?

[KeriMorgret]

I'd say you need to have a reason why your forum is better than what is already out there, and why a broad forum where any topic goes is better than a niche forum.

I'm at the opposite end of the spectrum from you. I run RC Naval Combat, a forum that is devoted to RC warships that shoot and sink each other. We have a custom design warship registry where you can show off your boat and list details about the scale (1:96, 1:144, etc), class (USS Iowa, HMS Revenge, etc), type (battleship, cruiser, destroyer, etc), local club, and more. We have a number of subforums for various aspects of the hobby.

That site has more activity and members than the warship combat subforum of a couple of major RC hobby forum sites. Those sites are much bigger, but look at us as the crazy people who shoot ball bearings at each other and sink each others ships. There can be helpful advice in the other subforums, but they just don't have the experience with fully submersing a ship and how we need our things set up differently in many cases.

Think about what exists out there already, and what you can do better. You're going to have this battle in many subject areas I would imagine. You need a value proposition about why people should come to your site for their discussions. It could be ease of use, mobile friendly, unlimited image uploads, a way of doing something way better than most everyone else is..but it's more than a build it and they will come proposition.

[Xee]

I'm in the same boat as you although my forum is more of a niche. One idea that's been recommended to me is creating a contest of some sort for a prize, with the stipulation that you need to make X posts to enter. Granted, you'll mostly have people posting to meet the threshold but it will at least get them into your forum and you might have some people who decide to stay.

Another tip is, if you have access to OSE here, add your competitors and see who's linking to them. I've found some directories that I didn't know about that my competitors were getting traffic from and made sure to add my site to them as well.

And of course, as I'm sure you'll hear a million times, try to make sure you have good content. When your website comes up in a search engine you want to make sure people click on it.

Another tip not so much in regards to attracting people but keeping them, is to keep the number of subforums you have minimal. If you're just starting off the worst thing you can do is have 15+ subforums; your users will never interact. Better to make those as the need arises.

Finally, a really good resource is The Admin Zone, a forum about, well, forums. There's a lot of information there that can help generate traffic. Here's the URL: http://www.theadminzone.com/

Good luck!

[smstv]

I have found using LinkedIn Groups to generate an awesome buzz. I would try starting there, and enter a group.

Let me  know how it works for you!

Cheers!