FanFic Forum
Review by Geoffrey
First Impressions
The first thing I notice on your site is your pleasing design. I definitely get a writing/book feel from your theme and it fits your niche. The prominent register and log in box are helpful and create a nice 'call to action' for guests. I suggest adding a welcome message somewhere 'above the fold' to introduce your site and convince guests to join. What do you have to offer? Why should someone join your site? Don't make people scroll down through your layout, as concise as it may be, to find your selling point. Make it easy for them.
While I like your design, your logo needs some work. It's plain font and it's not very memorable given that your name "Fan Fic Forum" is generic. While the name is great for SEO and getting in search results, it's not great for branding. It's worth investing in a custom made logo to represent your forum. Check out some logo designers on Fiverr; they have some great options for $5 (Maybe more if you get the extras). Like I said, it'd be worth it to have something your users can connect with.
Good
Site Statistics
Looking at general activity, you have posts made this week in almost all of your forum sections. This is great to see and it shows you've put some thought into your layout so you don't have empty/pointless sections. You do only have 11 members right now though, which isn't the best. Given that you opened on August 31st (according to your "live" announcement, at least), you've been open for about 11 days. One member a day is decent but it could be better. Reach out to existing writing/fan fic communities and get some exposure for your forum that way. Something you can use to draw in people is the fact that you are smaller, and therefore members can get more personal feedback on their writing than in a larger community with lots fan fics posted/updated daily.
As far as overall posts, 133 posts isn't the best even for a forum that is only a week or two old. You won't draw in people to join if you have content. You have 59 topics posted, which is a start, but you should have closer to 500 posts by now (or earlier than this). If you can't do it all yourself, request some packages, do some exchanges or even look into PostLoop for a short time. Get some content and content variety on your forum so when you do get more exposure, you can convert clicks/guests to active members.
Average
Originality
Originality is where you can thrive. Your site is very 'niche' and you can use that to your advantage. Like I said, I recommend finding similar niche sites and subtly advertising your own site to them (within their rules of course). Being this focused can also hurt you, since a lot of communities (like this one) only have a handful of people interested enough in the topic to want to join and be active. Because of that, you can't really rely on just a couple promotion forums to get the word out. You have to get creative and branch out of your usual circle.
On the site itself, it doesn't look like you have much more than what I'd expect on a fan fic forum. While the idea itself is original, the execution within the niche isn't the best. Start some fun competitions, have some themes for writing fan fics together, etc. that gets the community involved and collaborating rather than just posting and discussing fan fics.
Good
Final Remarks
You've got a novel idea and a decent start on the execution of it, you just need to be persistent and follow through with what you've got. Branch out and get creative in your external marketing and internal set up.
Your Score
