Got Tips?

Spend some time thinking about and answering the questions below;

Who are your target members - age group, sex, country, interests / hobbies, books / media they read, TV they watch and other sites they visit? Having an understanding of who will use your site is vital to it's success.

How will they benefit from being a member of your forum?

What can your forum offer that your target market can not get elsewhere?
 
I agree with Fergal, target a certain niche, and you will succeed. Its because you have a focal point, a purpose and so making your forum appear catchy for that niche will serve you better.
 
I'd also suggest referring people you play on LIVE with to go check out your forum, word of mouth is real and on LIVE it may be ever more of a reality!
 
Cant see, your blog and forum isnt appearing on the search engine? The webpage "forum4gaming.co.cc" cannot be found
 
Forum Pioneers Forum Promotion Starter Guide​

Credits: MrJohn​

Disclaimer: You are free to post this wherever you would like as long as the forum you post it on adheres to the MyBB general TOS and the TOS of the forum that you are posting it on. We do ask that you leave the link at the bottom as it is our little reward for going through all the trouble to get this starter guide up and running.


Intro: So you decided to make a forum, well it takes a lot of work to get it noticed. You are going to need to get it optimized for search engines, increase your Google Pagerank, and get it set up to target your audience. In these next few sections I have compiled my techniques for promoting a forum, which has helped me very much over the last few years. I am not saying they are going to get you tons of members, just some of the basics to help you get started.

  • SEO (Search Engine Optimization)- First things first, you created a forum and need to get it set up correctly so that search engines such as Google, Yahoo, and others can find you easily. Meta Tags are a good place to begin, they allow your site to be properly indexed by search engines.

    Meta Tags: For your index page you should have someway to edit the HTML. Some softwares might have it set up differently, but usually a Index Template. Once you find that, you will need to locate this section of it near the top: <head></head>. Once you have found that, next step is to make a brand new line ( Note that some pages might all ready have the title line), or edit the one that is all ready there. Just like this: <title>Forum Pioneers- Admin Resources and Discussion</title>. On the next line, remember you may need to create a blank one, You should insert the following: <META name="description" content="Enter your forums description here"> On the next blank line you will need to add the keyword part of the meta tags like so: <META name="keywords" content="testing, blah, keywords here, example"> . So in the end with it all together it should look something like this:

    Code: 
    <head>
<title>Forum Pioneers - Admin Resources and Discussion</title>
<META name="description" content="A place to discuss forum software, forum promotion, and hang out with other forum admins">
<META name="keywords" content="forum, resources, administrator, admin, discussion, software, advertising">
</head>

    Search Engine Submission: Now you need to submit your forum to search engines, one of the simplest ways to find new members is for them to find you 🙂 Here are the submission links for some of the popular search engines that you should do right away:

    Google - http://google.com/addurl/
    Yahoo - http://siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com/submit

    Another popular tool that I like to use is Submit Express. It submits your forum automatically to most search engines. You do have to link back to them but its worth it. You can just add their affiliate image at the bottom of your forum or on your affiliate page.

    http://www.submitexpress.com/submit.html

  • Google Pagerank- Your next step in promoting your forum should be to increase your Google Pagerank. The more your pagerank goes up, the better effect it will have on search engine listings. Google decides your pagerank, for the most part, based on how many links you have coming into your forum. This means that the more links you have on other sites linking to your site, the higher the PR. But you shouldn't just have your forum's link placed on just any site, you want to hit up sites that have a high pr. The better their pr is, the better yours will be.

    Directories: Here is a site that I use that is a directory for directories. All you have to do is submit your forum to all the ones with a decent pagerank and you should be pretty well off. http://www.bestdirectories.org/ They will show you all of the free directories to submit to and what their pagerank is.

    Affiliates: Another good way to get some links to your forum on other forums is to simply affiliate with them. Trade links with each other, especially if your forum has a similar subject matter. Try to affiliate with some forums that have a decent pagerank.
  • Advertising/Promotion Forums- This is one of the easiest ways to get your forum noticed. All you have to do is go register at these forum and make a topic in the right section promoting your own forum. Some might have a requirement of posts before you can promote your forum, but its worth it. Here are a few major ones you should definitely hit up every now and again.

    Forum Promotion - http://www.forumpromotion.net
    Promotion Source - http://www.promotion-source.com
    ForuMansion - http://www.forumansion.com
    Infinite Results - http://www.irforums.net

    Also since these forums usually have a decent pagerank you can put a text link in your signature and kill two birds with one stone. Amazing! lol.

  • Similiar Topic Forums- This is a biggy for me, what you have to do is find forums that have the same subject as you. I am sure there are plenty no matter what your forum is about. Then you register on their forums, stick a neat text link to your forum, and post around a bit. This gives the users of this community a look at your forum and a look at you and your knowledge of the subject. This idea will attract members trust me. Also you can affiliate with them, and you get a backlink in the process. Three birds with one stone, AMAZING again! lol.
  • Patience- Also please remember that patience is a virtue, no forum is going to grow overnight. It takes time, but if you follow the previous steps you should be well on your way to getting some good members for your forum.

Thank you for taking the time to read our starter guide to promoting a forum. If you like what you read, or just want to stop by our forum, its http://www.forumpioneers.com
 
@uraF0x said:
I want this Xbox 360 forum to be big! I just want your guys opinion and some tips to make my forum big! Please don't mention TLD. I will get a top level domain soon.

http://forum4gaming.co.cc/ << Blog
http://forum4gaming.co.cc/forum/ << Forum

The link listed above, those domains are unofficial.
Click to expand...

DOMAIN:
OK I have to urge you to get that real .com domain name. You can't get it fast enough.

You wont be ranking high in Google or Yahoo with a .co.cc free domain. I have nothing against them personally, but they just don't get a lot of love from search engines.

Note: If you can't get a .com, go with .net or .org

Since you want it to be an Xbox 360 forum I recommend having the keywords "xbox360," "forum," and/or "xbox" in the title. Prolly go with xbox since it'd still work if they came out with a new version in the future.

Don't do anything else until you get your domain!

BUILD A BLOG:
Once you've got that domain, set up a blog.

I'm sorry, but it's just plain fact that blogs are more SE friendly and go viral waaayyy more than forums. Build a blog and start covering the news in your niche (Xbox 360 and 360 games).

This will allow you to get targeted traffic based on the keywords you use in your blog posts.

VIRAL TRAFFIC:
No offense, but your niche is filled with people who spend hours on youtube. Use this to your advantage!

Upload videos of new 360 games, do video reviews, or just point a camera at the TV while you're playing a game. Brand your youtube account and use it to drive traffic to your blog, which then builds dedicated readers, who you can then get to join your forum and become lifelong members.

CONTESTS:
It would be so easy for you to go to Walmart, buy a game, and then give it away as a contest.

Come up with a contest that encourages regular visitations and encourages people to tell other people about the competition. Both will help increase traffic and build credibility for your site.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
I think this is enough to get you started. If you have any questions or need more info feel free to ask. :great:
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

About Us

Since 2007, Forum Promotion has specialized in providing advertising solutions to webmasters looking to promote their communities. We pride ourselves in being the bridge that connects forum administrators, bloggers, and more.

Sponsors

Affiliates

    Universal Gaming The Coffee House

Stay Connected

Back
Top Bottom