How can I increase traffic to my new forum?

[netsavy006]

I know for the past month and a half, I've been giving lots of advice and getting help from lots of people and I appreciate all of it, so here's my situation.

My blog is now earning a decent amount of traffic each day, which is great in my eyes. In the 1.5 months it's been up, I've received 2.2 thousand unique visits.

But I've recently created a forum, which is on my domain, which is an extension of my blog.

What I'd like to know and I'm willing to take almost any answer that works, is how do I promote my new forum? (I know I need to get a logo for it, I'm working on that step)

What I've already done is place a link to my forum in my header of my blog so that blog visitors can easily navigate to the forum.

What more can I do to help get traffic to my newly created forum?

Thanks to everyone. I appreciate your responses.
Andy.

 

[Fergal]

Andy, first of all congratulations on all the traffic you have received to your blog, that's great for such a short space of time.

One thing that strikes me is the difference in appearance between your forum and blog. I'd suggest that you give them both a similar theme that your visitors will associate with your site and branding.

Visitors that go to your forum now are unlikely to join and may not even make a return visit. That's because most of your forum sections only have one post and obviously the lack of content and activity doesn't look attractive to potential members. I'd suggest that you do some post exchanges or reward / pay people to post until you have built up a good level of activity. Only then should you start really promoting it.

You might also want to amalgamate some of your forum sections, so that you have more posts in each individual section, giving your community the appearance of being more active and busy.

Good luck with it.

 

[InfiniteJest]

Try some traffic exchanges? They get me like 400+ Uniques a day.

 

[iOXZ]

In my forum I have a VIP members group. They get a special colored name and access to a new section. The catch is, they need 5 referrals to get this. You could do something similar.

 

[Fergal]

In my forum I have a VIP members group. They get a special colored name and access to a new section. The catch is, they need 5 referrals to get this. You could do something similar.

Nice idea, do you require the people that they refer, to have made a certain number of posts, before they are counted as a referral.

 

[Grumpy]

Andy, first of all congratulations on all the traffic you have received to your blog, that's great for such a short space of time.

One thing that strikes me is the difference in appearance between your forum and blog. I'd suggest that you give them both a similar theme that your visitors will associate with your site and branding.

Visitors that go to your forum now are unlikely to join and may not even make a return visit. That's because most of your forum sections only have one post and obviously the lack of content and activity doesn't look attractive to potential members. I'd suggest that you do some post exchanges or reward / pay people to post until you have built up a good level of activity. Only then should you start really promoting it.

You might also want to amalgamate some of your forum sections, so that you have more posts in each individual section, giving your community the appearance of being more active and busy.

Good luck with it.

100% agree with absolutely everything that was said in that post, very, very well put there Fergal.