Why your forum is failing

[The Elite]

I honestly don't mean to offend anyone with this, but I have some spare time at the moment and feel that I should give some advice to new webmasters. As I just said, I do not mean to offend anyone. If you think that my honesty WILL offend you, then please stop reading, if you keep an open mind and you're willing to withstand my opinion as to why your forum is failing (if it's not, stop reading! 😀 )

Why your forum is failing!
Lets think of your forum more as a resource, not as a forum. IF you ever plan to make your forum succeed, your traffic will NOT be from advertisements, your traffic will be from GOOGLE (and Bing, if anyone uses that :shrug: ). Your forum is not something where you should tell people to join it, it's something that people should WANT to join. You need to imagine your forum from the point of view of a random visitor, not as a owner. YOU want your forum to succeed, THEY want something they can rely on for information. Therefore, instead of mindlessly begging randoms to join your forum, you need to offer something unique. No one wants to join your forum with 3 posts, 5 members and a countless number of empty forums. Your visitors would be more inclined to see forums where they're all filled with SOME content and some members. This can mean you posting countless threads, either way, that works. Making accounts (around 5) and having discussions between accounts is also a good way to generate traffic.

Read the rest of the article here.
http://crueltruth.com/?p=6

 

[Kaiser.]

Rofl great article, gave me a good laugh.

 

[The Elite]

Rofl great article, gave me a good laugh.

Glad you enjoyed the article, thanks. 🙂

 

[Kaiser.]

Rofl great article, gave me a good laugh.

Glad you enjoyed the article, thanks. 🙂

Yea no problem, you outlined some very good points..

 

[The Elite]

Rofl great article, gave me a good laugh.

Glad you enjoyed the article, thanks. 🙂

Yea no problem, you outlined some very good points..

You're free to post it on your forum if you want to, I'd just want a link back to this post.

 

[MissTake]

Thanks for your contribution Elite, a humorous but useful insight into the world of forms. A lot of what you say actually makes sense 😉

 

[The Elite]

Thanks for your contribution Elite, a humorous but useful insight into the world of forms. A lot of what you say actually makes sense 😉

Thanks for the kind comments MissTake, highly appreciated.

 

[Kaiser.]

Rofl great article, gave me a good laugh.

Glad you enjoyed the article, thanks. 🙂

Yea no problem, you outlined some very good points..

You're free to post it on your forum if you want to, I'd just want a link back to this post.

Here you go 🙂 http://adminbb.org/threads/funny-articl ... ling.2566/

 

[The Elite]

Rofl great article, gave me a good laugh.

Glad you enjoyed the article, thanks. 🙂

Yea no problem, you outlined some very good points..

You're free to post it on your forum if you want to, I'd just want a link back to this post.

Here you go 🙂 http://adminbb.org/threads/funny-articl ... ling.2566/

Thanks, I really do appreciate it.

 

[bretttina]

Really good points and no offence taken 😉

Thanks.

 

[The Elite]

Really good points and no offence taken 😉

Thanks.

I'm glad you were able to gain some knowledge from the article. :cheer:

 

[Cam]

Excellent article. Humerous, but still helpful for many.

 

[LunarScorpio]

Wonderful article! Amusing and very informative.

 

[Fergal]

Interesting article with some great points that new and older forum owners could learn from.

The Elite, just to clarify your point in relation to general discussion forums, are you saying that due to the existing competition, that it is impossible to create a new successful general discussion forum?

 

[D]

Great article, my forum is green and blue 😛

 

[The Elite]

Excellent article. Humerous, but still helpful for many.

Wonderful article! Amusing and very informative.

Glad you two enjoyed the article, I'm also happy people caught on to the humour in my post.

Interesting article with some great points that new and older forum owners could learn from.

The Elite, just to clarify your point in relation to general discussion forums, are you saying that due to the existing competition, that it is impossible to create a new successful general discussion forum?

I'll be frank, rarely any experienced webmaster with the right arsenal of skill will attempt to execute a forum based on such a saturated niche. I can't say it's impossible. I myself started a forum based on a gaming topic that's been overused, yet I seem to have succeeded (in my own opinion). Therefore, it all depends on what one clarifies as difficult and one's opinion and perspective on what success is.

Great article, my forum is green and blue 😛

I checked your forum, green linking doesn't really count. I'm glad you enjoyed the article though.

 

[TheNavigator]

Awesome article, pal! +Rep 😉

There's one more thing that I'm wondering about. How do you know that your forum failed and that you've to close it?<br /><br />-- 16 May 2011, 16:30 --<br /><br />Awesome article, pal! +Rep 😉

There's one more thing that I'm wondering about. How do you know that your forum failed and that you've to close it?

 

[AnAccount]

Interesting article with some great points that new and older forum owners could learn from.

The Elite, just to clarify your point in relation to general discussion forums, are you saying that due to the existing competition, that it is impossible to create a new successful general discussion forum?

Yeah, that part doesn't make sense at all. I myself run a general discussion forum, and while I don't see it as a success just yet, I don't exactly see it as a failure either. And trust me, I am not the sort of person who runs around begging people to join my site. One thing that pisses me off more than anything is when new promotion forums come out with a PM Advertisement service. Basically all you do is request the service (much like you would any other service) and then a mass PM gets sent out to all the members. Not sure if this is monthly, weekly, or bi-weekly that these hateful PMs get sent out. Now, requesting a service like THAT is what I call desperation. I mean, really, if you have to go the route of requesting a PM advertisement service, then honestly, I actually feel sorry for you, really. Because for one thing, on a lot of promo forums that have been around longer (here for example), PM advertising is actually frowned upon and can actually lead to a ban in some cases, and secondly, imagine how you would feel if you were to log on to one of these newer forums only to first thing find a PM from the staff practically begging you to join someone's site. I've had this happen to me before on a newer promo forum, and it pissed me off to no end because really, not only are the staff members wasting their time just trying to run a PM advertising service, but their also wasting ours (the members) time as well, because instead of posting on the forum first thing like a lot of us like to do, we have to run to our PM box and delete a PM for a stupid advertisement. In fact, I am so much against this service that if I'm browsing a new advert forum, and I see that they offer this service, I won't even join, because I got other things to do than read PMs all day thank you.

Sorry to go off topic; I had to rant there. Aside from your bit about the general discussion forums, I really like your article, you do make some fairly good points there. I have been on some successful general discussion forums in my day, and yes, while they might not exactly be appealing, as there isn't much going on like say with a promo forum, I myself chose this genera as it's the easiest one to work with and it's also one of the more laid-back generes, which makes it more easier for me on the whole.

 

[USHost247]

Great article! +Rep.

Will be posting it if I find it fit on other places, will include linkback.

 

[Fiona1964]

Great write up
Looking forward to reading more when you get around to adding it