Most members here think that word of mouth is the way to get your forum big board status. I can tell you now that's wrong. Promoting your site on here and other admin related sites will help, but the backlinks will help more in the long term.
You guys need to focus on SEO a lot more as it will get your site "out there" so much more than just telling people like at promotion sites, and in your signature etc.. Backlinks are useful, but you should also go elsewhere to do that. Promotion site should only be one part of your advertising campaign, for some of the people here it's the whole thing
Read up on SEO, it'll be a long process but it'll be worth it. Of course word of mouth is the most useful thing when your site is <6 months old, but when you start to progress those SEO things you've been doing for a while will start to make sense. Content, backlinks. Remember it.
The chance of people googling some random search term and finding one of your threads is MUCH more likely than them browsing promotion forums.
Google succeed from word of mouth when they began. They didn't have the resources we have today, and yet they have now become the biggest thing on the Internet.
Random example there. Google came before anyone used search engines, or before the Internet is as big as it is today. The fact is that people will usually come across forums via search engine, rather than looking through promotion forums and so an effort should be made to be as SEOptimized as possible.
Google wasn't the first ever search engine made. It still had to be searched by another search engine to be discovered. However, with promotion from word of mouth, it became known as a reliable source for finding information thus increase in popularity and a chain of events began.
But yes, word of mouth is not the 'only' way for success, but television advertisements are a somewhat word of mouth (as it's TV presenters promoting, rather than just a plain text ad) and it has become a major advertising tool for the Australian Yahoo network.
I think you're being a little silly here... comparing new forums to Google isn't exactly how things go and while you CAN create a new forum and advertise just by word of mouth, and probably do fairly well, it's unlikely that you could reach enough people who'd be interested or want to use forums to make your site as successful as it could be if you were using search engines for traffic.
When Google was first created, it was a new site. That's a fact. The creators had links to people on the other side of the world. They could then promote Google through various techniques, but their dominant technique was word of mouth. You cannot say that when Google was created, it was the most popular thing on the Internet. That would be silly. The way to approach techniques have changed, due to time of course, but the frame work of the technique is still there.
If I had a connections to Matt Cutts, I'm sure he would consider telling people about my site and thus this chain of promotion becomes my source of traffic, but it still started from word of mouth.
Word of mouth is a bit vague though. It really is conveying a message person to person. TV ads aren't expensive if you are part of that network. It was just an example though.
Like I said, it isn't the only method, but it is a great way to start off promoting, as it leads on to another source and another source. It usually isn't the source of advertising which is the most important thing, rather the way it is utilized to gain more traffic etc.. I can gain backlinks, and that's great advertising to some extent, but why not optimize them for SERPs, and then with that, look for PR sites. The chain from a simple backlink to an optimized backlink, to a recognized backlink is much more important than the fact that it's still a backlink.
David, what you're saying is exactly what I've tried to put across in this thread.
You: "Like I said, it isn't the only method, but it is a great way to start off promoting, as it leads on to another source and another source."
OP: "Of course word of mouth is the most useful thing when your site is <6 months old, but when you start to progress those SEO things you've been doing for a while will start to make sense."
Mr. Green, the fact is that most people still don't bother with SEO here and only use promotion forums. Knowing these things is fine, but putting it into practice is better.
But what about SMO? I'd think having one site with an Alexa rating of 2, one with a rating of 3, and one at 11, then yes, I'd think social media is important as well, wouldn't it Jonathan?
Mr. Green, the fact is that most people still don't bother with SEO here and only use promotion forums. Knowing these things is fine, but putting it into practice is better.
I am starting to rely on SEO a lot more now. The only problem is I can only do the free search engine submission sites as I don't have money or any other funds to do anything big. but even free search engine submission is a start I think.
You can do much more for free Ashley. You can look around for a dofollow blog search engine and comment with a link to your site - instant backlink. Even better if the blog is relevant to your site's topic.
Word of mouth only works then you make it to the point where one user refers another, who refers another, who refers another. It works with businesses A LOT. It's why Google succeeded, it's why most MMORPGs succeeded, and it's why a lot of websites succeeded. When people talk about a website in real life, then you know it's getting successful. Search Engines only work when you have a ton of interesting content. First a user will Google "How to ___" and find something on your website. then he will run into it three or so more times. Finally, the next time he can't find a question on Google, then he will register, to ask it.
Also, look at facebook.
"Yo, dawg, did you see mah new pics on mah faaace boooook?"
Many social networks have the ultimate referal system working for them. Since soooo many people have facebooks, it's a topic for discussion in real life, not just over the interwebs. People have facebooks who don't do anything else online. No on googles "social network".
Points Cosmic, but you'll find the vast majority of traffic, on larger sites, comes from organic search engine terms. Word of mouth is still useful and depending on the niche of your site can be the most useful.
I think you're more likely to share a cool game with a friend than a forum though. That said, on my site I have a father/son and two brothers.
Yeah, forums won't see quite as much of this effect, but still, I'd say that probably 25-50% of all permanent traffic for forums will be from referrals (assuming it's a big, 500k+ forum). I got referred here myself, not via a link, but via a (online) friend. The only problem with search engines is that it's hard to keep permanent traffic. It gets you clicks, sure, but it may not get your posts or registrations very quickly.
I'd agree that a lot of the active and dedicated users will come from referrals, and will come to the site because their friends are there and have said good things about it but at the same time I feel SEO is extremely important for getting new users, especially for larger sites. Some forums rely completely on SEO, I know some of my competitors do.
Often it does get traffic more than users though as you said. They search for something then find what they search for and leave - that's the nature of the internet. Converting them is tricky but some previous forum users might sign up.
This is why ZX is targeting keywords like 'community' and 'forum' so when people search for Xbox communities, message boards or forums they will hopefully find us - relevant traffic to get us users
