Running a niche forum[article]

[cpvr]

I thought I'd share this article[well some of it, in a summary], running a niche forum:

This is a point that can’t be stressed enough. Even if you’re good with SEO, marketing, connections and all the other business sides of things, if you’re going to start a niche forum you had either better be interested yourself, or find some interested people to help you run it. Niche audiences can tell when someone isn’t genuinely part of their group, and the community will feel the ramifications of your outsider status. Someone who isn’t much of a gamer can start up a successful enough gaming forum, but if you want something more specific like one for visual novels or virtual pets, you’ll never see your full potential realized if it’s nothing more than a cash grab to you. These sorts of sites live and die by their staff. It’s how they go from mere discussion areas to a second home.

What do you guys think? Are niche forums hard to run?

 

[JayJACKEL!]

Niche forums are harder to kick off, but will get bigger in the end.

For example, DigitalPoint. It's a webmaster's haven now, but I imagine that the first year wasn't looking too fantastic.

 

[Rich Edmonds]

Depends on the competition completely, how much traffic you are able to raise, what your activity is like, and how determined you are to succeed. Forum PRomotion is huge now due to lack of, I remember in the old days when Mokata was alive and kicking, there were literally hundreds of popular forum admin communities.

 

[Acorn]

In my opinion and from my observations, these days, niche forums are the way to go when you are just starting off. They are not the only way to start a successful forum but it is easier to start up a niche forum than a general one because the general topics have forums for them already, many of which are thriving. Later on as your niche forum grows you have more options to expand into related topics and become more general if you want to.

 

[freebird]

Niche forums are pretty difficult to start off. You have to knock on a lot of internet doors in order to get a website going even if it is a great site. When it is more specific even more people have to see it in order to find the interested ones. Either way there are plenty of forums with specific categories that do very well. It is interesting how broad any specific category can be.

I have heard one argument that niches are easier to get up on the top of google but I'm not so sure. If I google games I get tons of stuff but if I google games and xbox it gets more specific but that wouldn't mean that having ps3 in there somewhere would necessarily hurt.

 

[cpvr]

Niche forums are harder to kick off, but will get bigger in the end.

For example, DigitalPoint. It's a webmaster's haven now, but I imagine that the first year wasn't looking too fantastic.

I agree. DP was created as a support forum for its tools.

Niche forums are pretty difficult to start off. You have to knock on a lot of internet doors in order to get a website going even if it is a great site. When it is more specific even more people have to see it in order to find the interested ones. Either way there are plenty of forums with specific categories that do very well. It is interesting how broad any specific category can be.

Ya, it just takes times - and a lot of dedication, but hardwork pays off in the end.

In my opinion and from my observations, these days, niche forums are the way to go when you are just starting off. They are not the only way to start a successful forum but it is easier to start up a niche forum than a general one because the general topics have forums for them already, many of which are thriving. Later on as your niche forum grows you have more options to expand into related topics and become more general if you want to.

I agree. Niche forums can bring various discussions out though - I know, our community is about "virtual pets", but we also have artists that work for the games - so they also come to our community to talk to other artists, and sell art. We never intended for that to happen, it just did.