what makes a forum sucessfull

[isao21]

What do you think makes a forum sucessful?

Is it the niche, or is it the SEO?

 

[Venom]

Hardwork, dedication, Effort a passion/like for what your doing, and what your forums are about also a good attitude.

 

[NoLifeNerds]

I believe how well a forum is promoted is based on a few factors.

• Promotion - How well a forum is promoted shows how professional the forum is. If you just went around on different forums for promotion and typed things like, "Hey can u go 2 my forum pls!!!??", then obviously people will not go, since it seems that your forum is unprofessionally built and it is desperate for members.
• Content - It seems that the best forums have tons of content already added. If your forum only has maybe 2-3 members and most of the posts are days, even weeks, old, it's going to turn off some users. It's always best to gather a group of trusted people to help fill it with content before promoting. And if you do this, it will appeal to more people which means more members and greater activity.
• Design - Look at Square Enix's community board, even GaiaOnlines and ForumPromotions, what do they all have in common? Good design. Most of the successful forums have an amazing theme and design, one that attracts members to keep coming back. If you have just a plain theme with plain solid colors, like proboards starting theme, then it is going to turn away members because they might want to be a part of a forum with a better design.
• Community - In my opinion, I believe that community is the key factor in running a successful forum. If the majority of your members, even staff, are immature people that like to torment users, harass them, basically just making their stay horrible, then you're forum is gonna go nowhere fast. People are not going to want to have to deal with someone posting on their threads saying things like, "Hey fa**ot! Y dont u click on this link b**ch!? (insert pornographic link here) hahahaha!", it really drives people away. You count as a member of the community as well, and people who deal with idiots like this expect you to act up and do what you think is right, so if you just ignore it and let them do what ever they want, you should just close the forum right away.
• Lastly, activity - Members on ANY forum expect to see activity, without activity then your forum is gonna go to waste. You need to find some way to make your forum interesting and exciting for others, so that they will continue to come back and fill that amazing forum with content that will make the site active. Imagine the community like your stomach, and the forum a restaurant. You're stomach is going empty and soon you're going to need to fill it with things to not make it empty anymore. So you go to the nearby restaurant, but the everything looks empty and bland, you don't want to be the only one to eat there, so leave and find the next big restaurant. The restaurant sees this and thinks of ways to make the restaurant active, and soon enough, your stomach is going to be empty again and you're gonna see that same restaurant and decide to eat there. You, the restaurant owner, will be happy as you watch all these active members fill up their stomach and exchanging talk along the way.

That is my list, maybe someone else thinks differently?

 

[zackredsox]

Dedication mainly. How hard you willing to work, and how productive you are when you do.

 

[master412160]

I believe how well a forum is promoted is based on a few factors.

• Promotion - How well a forum is promoted shows how professional the forum is. If you just went around on different forums for promotion and typed things like, "Hey can u go 2 my forum pls!!!??", then obviously people will not go, since it seems that your forum is unprofessionally built and it is desperate for members.
• Content - It seems that the best forums have tons of content already added. If your forum only has maybe 2-3 members and most of the posts are days, even weeks, old, it's going to turn off some users. It's always best to gather a group of trusted people to help fill it with content before promoting. And if you do this, it will appeal to more people which means more members and greater activity.
• Design - Look at Square Enix's community board, even GaiaOnlines and ForumPromotions, what do they all have in common? Good design. Most of the successful forums have an amazing theme and design, one that attracts members to keep coming back. If you have just a plain theme with plain solid colors, like proboards starting theme, then it is going to turn away members because they might want to be a part of a forum with a better design.
• Community - In my opinion, I believe that community is the key factor in running a successful forum. If the majority of your members, even staff, are immature people that like to torment users, harass them, basically just making their stay horrible, then you're forum is gonna go nowhere fast. People are not going to want to have to deal with someone posting on their threads saying things like, "Hey fa**ot! Y dont u click on this link b**ch!? (insert pornographic link here) hahahaha!", it really drives people away. You count as a member of the community as well, and people who deal with idiots like this expect you to act up and do what you think is right, so if you just ignore it and let them do what ever they want, you should just close the forum right away.
• Lastly, activity - Members on ANY forum expect to see activity, without activity then your forum is gonna go to waste. You need to find some way to make your forum interesting and exciting for others, so that they will continue to come back and fill that amazing forum with content that will make the site active. Imagine the community like your stomach, and the forum a restaurant. You're stomach is going empty and soon you're going to need to fill it with things to not make it empty anymore. So you go to the nearby restaurant, but the everything looks empty and bland, you don't want to be the only one to eat there, so leave and find the next big restaurant. The restaurant sees this and thinks of ways to make the restaurant active, and soon enough, your stomach is going to be empty again and you're gonna see that same restaurant and decide to eat there. You, the restaurant owner, will be happy as you watch all these active members fill up their stomach and exchanging talk along the way.

That is my list, maybe someone else thinks differently?

I couldn't agree more with you but you missed one vital point:

Concept. For some type of forums this is more needed to have then for others but yeah you know what I mean with it I hope.