Tips for Gaming Forum success.

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Hey guys!

I have a gaming forum called The Gamers World. It's been going about a month now and has over 1500 topics.

However, I'm failing to attract people's attention. I've advertised everywhere but it's not working.

Could someone please visit my forum and tell me what I'm doing wrong? Coz I'm sure that I've got to be doing something wrong.

I know I've got a lot of competition as a gaming forum but I should still be attracting some attention.

Please help me. Thanks in advance. 😀
 
The first thing is MAKE YOUR TOPICS VISIBLE TO GUESTS.

No one will register at your site if they don't know what's there, and Google won't be able to find any content which is the #1 way of getting hits - search engines.
 
Get a new phpBB theme, your using one that looks really plain and similar to the default style.

Add a background to the 'Who's Online' area at the bottom so visitors can actually read how many posts and members you have.

Top half of your forum is overloaded with stuff, the stats at the top isn't needed as it's at the bottom so you could take that out.

You are a gaming forum yet you have more general chat forums than you do gaming, either cut them down or merge them with other forums. If your wanting gamers, give them some gaming forums 😉
 
Thank you John1.

I realise now that there's a lot wrong with my forum.

As for the style I made that myself using ColorizeIt...however you're right. It's not techie enough. I'll look into changing it for sure.

The problem I have though is that my mods only work on prosilver-based styles.

And you're probably right about the general chat stuff too.

I'm unsure though as to what gaming forums I could offer apart from the ones I already have.

I'm open to suggestions though. Please help me. 😀
 
From what I can tell, you have too many forums, and many have 0 posts in it, making the forum look inactive.

Also, you seem to have two suggestion/feedback sections.

also, I agree with John1 about the style and forums.
 
Thanks so much guys!

Okay. I've cut down on the useless forums now.

I've also got a new style...more gaming like. 😀

Plus I've edited the colours.css theme file a bit and put what I think is a really cool background image...it's taken from Call of Duty. 😀

But tell me what you think guys? I'm still open for suggestions...

Anyway, check out The Gamers World now and see what you think of the changes I've made. 😉

The stats at the top of the screen is called a "Welcome Index" mod. It was suggested that I remove this...so I went to uninstall it but I got an error. I installed using AutoMod without any errors but am now unable to remove it unless i FORCE UNINSTALL it. Last time i force removed something I got serious database errors. 😕

Therefore I've left the "Welcome Index" mod alone for now.

Anyway, tell me what you think guys. 😀
 
Much better than before, but I still think you could make the forum more unique. I also suggest a better logo. Kik here at FP is a great person to ask for graphics, that's where my logo at www.planetclans.com came from. You can also have a look over there for some hints.
 
Thanks John1 :great:

In what way can I make my forum more unique?

Btw...thanks for the info on logo designers. I also know someone personally who's very good at logo design. I'll ask him. 😀

But please tell me how I can make my forum more unique...I've been puzzling myself about that for ages. It's difficult with a gaming forum you see...especially seeing I use phpBB.

If only I could afford vBulletin I would use that. 😕

I really want a gaming arcade but the phpBB ones don't work with the latest version of phpBB. vBulletin have a really nice arcade called v3arcade. 😀<br /><br />-- 21 Aug 2010, 20:10 --<br /><br />Thanks John1 :great:

In what way can I make my forum more unique?

Btw...thanks for the info on logo designers. I also know someone personally who's very good at logo design. I'll ask him. 😀

But please tell me how I can make my forum more unique...I've been puzzling myself about that for ages. It's difficult with a gaming forum you see...especially seeing I use phpBB.

If only I could afford vBulletin I would use that. 😕
 
I mean more unique for the theme side of things. It's just plain and many forums use it. Add some of your own colors and images, take some stuff out, add some stuff in and I don't just mean MODs.
 
I've only just started web designing less than a month ago. I'm not sure I'm skilled enough to do all those fancy things. I wish I was though. 🙁

Do any of you guys know anybody who might be able to help me. I'd be more than prepared to make them an administrator.

I know I shouldn't have really started up a new forum with so little prior knowledge. It's just a personal project I've set myself whilst I'm waiting for college to start...I'm only 18 you see. I'm hoping to go in for web design but I'm waiting for my course to start at the beginning of next year.

Therefore I rather daringly decided to teach myself a bit of prior knowledge but it's turning out more than I can chew.

Is anybody willing to help me. I'd really appreciate it. Thanks guys! 😀

UPDATE (22/08/2010):

I have set up another forum...this time using vBulletin. One of my mates is shutting down his site and gave me his old licence. I've registered the site in his details as if it was his site (so that I don't get in trouble with vBulletin).

I've kept the old phpBB forums too. The old forums can be located at http://www.thegamersworld.co.uk/upload

and the new forums can be found at http://www.thegamersworld.co.uk/forum.

At the moment I'm still using the phpBB forums as my main forum coz the other one isn't really set up yet.

But can someone please check the new forums and tell me if my choice of forums are better chosen than last time. - Click here to visit new forums.

Thanks a million. 😀

Gosh...I'm so lucky to have vBulletin. It was very generous of my mate. 😀

The only problem I've got is how the hell do I transfer all the data from the old forums to the new ones coz the vBulletin conversion tool only works with phpBB 3.0.3 and I'm using phpBB 3.0.7-pl1. Any ideas? Coz i don't want to lose it all. 🙁

Thanks a million. 😀
Click to expand...
 
vBulletin and theme is much much better. You might aswell just delete the phpBB version, just space it's using up.
 
Thanks guys for all your help!

You've been so helpful! Btw I managed to convert all the posts and users across luckily. I got in touch with the vBulletin team and they were very helpful. 😀

Btw ZachS...The Gamers World Forums is an original name. It's number 2 on google....that's why I chose it. 😉

John1...you said that my choice of forums should be more "gamer-like". Therefore I've changed the forums completely. I've now got loads more gamer-specific sections. I've also cut down on the rubbish. I've still kept the funstuff and internet videos as it's nice to have some extras. But as for all the other junk....i've removed most of it.

What do you think of my new choice of forums?

Btw guys...I'm still open for any more suggestions.

Please don't moan about the styles though...I've only just started using vBulletin. Give me a little time...I'm on to it. 😉
 
Maybe you need to make contests and try maybe to give some Free games, Search for sponsors who are willing to help you out in your contests.

Best of Luck,
 
The enw choice in forums is much better. You actually have more gaming forums now 😉
 
Btw I've changed the name to Elite4Gamers. It might improve my google page rank as my mate owns a forum called Elite4Gaming....where's as he offers game downloads I can offer the gaming discussions. Fingers crossed it'll work. 😀.

Thanks for all your help guys...you've been stars....especially you John1. 😉
 
Wow I see you are now on VB and claiming your style is made by you .. Which right in the bottom left it has the true style makers name on it.
 
oh crap. that was copied over from my old phpBB forum where the style was designed by me.

I better remove that. Thanks. 😉

UPDATE (24/08/2010):

Okay I've removed the false copyright notice. Soz about that guys!

I've also got a brand new style....and have upgraded to vBulletin 4.0.4 from 3.8.4. 😀

The style is the same as my signature below.

Mind you I have to get a new logo as I've changed the forum name to Elite4Gamers....the logo still reads The Gamers World. I'm just waiting for my logo designer to log into MSN....that's how we communicate. They're offline atm...but as soon as they're online I'll fix up a new logo. 😀

I've also bought a new domain name called "www.elite4gamers.co.uk". It's registered with 123-reg.co.uk but I am waiting for the namer servers to change to Justhost.com! That should be done within 24-48 hours. 😉 Until then I'll use the old domain - "www.thegamersworld.co.uk".

In case you're wondering I didn't buy the domain from Justhost.com coz they're double the price! 😱
Click to expand...

I've also added a gaming arcade with over 300 arcade games to choose from...it's powered by something called v3arcade! 😀
 
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