How could I promote?

[Jay]

Are there any ways of promoting you guys can share with me to increase my chances of making Just GFX successful? I know that this isn't going to happen overnight, and I am very dedicated to this project. I just need to be guided in the right direction when it comes to promotion. Any tips and tricks for me?

Link to forum: www.justgfx.com

 

[KMRock]

Check out a list of promotion forums that allow free advertising.

Also here are a few quick ways that you can get your forum started.

> Promote it on as many forums as possible and keep updating those topics ever 24 hours or so 🙂.

> Submit news updates to the news bulletin/update sections regularly to keep people interested.

> Put your link/image in your signature and stay active so people see your link.

> Promote you site over social networks such as twitter and facebook.

> Participate in post exchanges with other members to gain activity.

> Submit your forum to web directories and link directories to gain backlinks and traffic.

> Add your link to topsites and regularly vote to gain higher ranking on the toplists.

> Post quality guides and services on other sites and link them back to your site.

> Post articles in article sites/directories to gain backlinks and traffic.

> As it is a graphics site, post tutorials through other graphics sites and link the tutorials back to your site.

> Also offer some free .psds to get members there. You can advertise the free .psds on other sites.

 

[Yehya]

You may be promoting right but your forum is bad.
Renders, tutorials yea yeah, i know better forums. Most inactive but i still visit every now and then.


Your forum takes a while to load


Well, i used to visit over 5 gfx forums daily. They all used to have core staff members that stayed there for over a year. They all had the same group names (almost all).
They all had sections i don't see in your forum.

(Not saying you should follow the following steps... that would be copycatting others but giving you ideas.)

Battling against other (add a battle section) - The main battle forum can be divided to sub-forums "New", "Medium" and "Advanced".... Not saying you should you use these names. More like "Beginner", "Novice", "Moderate", "Intermediate", "Semi-Professional" and "Professional". Or something along these lines. Don't make 3 or 4 ranks. 5 Or 6 is okay. Having 3 ranks won't guide your users in a good way. 4 Won't make it easy either. Higher will give your audience a better view of how good they are. Make 100% sure the users can find their way to the guidelines where they know what each rank is. State it somewhere. Beginner on someone's forum may mean just started yesterday and another forum it may mean s/he knows his way around Photoshop/or the software used etc. (Give an example, crappy image for beginner, some pro image for professional etc.)
Classing section... read the above paragraph again. (same thing starting from ""Beginner", "Novice", "Moderate", "Intermediate", "Semi-Professional" and "Professional"." - Bolded above.)

Make an open battle section, meaning someone in novice or any other rank can battle someone in professional or any other rank.

Get hardcore staff, very important this one. Hardcore staff are needed to class people, comment on people's work, give advices, create tutorials, complete others requests, create renders both free will and when requested, organize battles and manage SOTW.. another suggestion
Signature Of The Week - the name suggests it all

Make a request section for forum cash.

move the "The Lounge" section to the bottom.


Add more renders and more tutorials. Much more tutorials. Sort them by whatever ranks you assign your forum to. This will help users get tutorials for their level and higher.


Make sure every rank member is having fun. Being bad at graphics doesn't make you unworthy of posting on a forum.

Add "thanks". Helps a ton in GFX forums.


Make sure criticism isn't welcomed. Instead constructive criticism.

Also your theme is not bad, but you have a GFX forum. Invest in a better theme. Use a brighter background one.


One forum category to add but not now as you don't have a huge member-base. Gift section, to give GFX to others. Because you love them so much, i say wait about 9 months before adding this section. Before that it will look empty because your members won't know one-apart.


Promote after doing these changes and see if there is difference.