What are some effective ways to create a growing, thriving online community?

[boeing767]

I wonder what are some good ways to build up a "members database" within my website. Adding fresh content is great but I find that people rarely register because they can access the content anyway. How do content-based websites do it, especially with forums?

Somehow, creating a forum alone and expecting people to register and talk does not work.

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[boeing767]

Bump for some input.

[TylerBakerllc]

I understand your frustrations... This can be tricky for a site such as this. However, it can be done. By the way, I like the idea and your site, you could be on to something if you get the right combination going on.

In order to turn visitors into subscribers, there has to be a couple of factors. 1) There has to be a tangible benefit to subscribing. The subscriber must get something in return, either once or on an ongoing basis, for giving you their info. The offer has to be easy to read, short, and beneficial. 2) It has to be a short and easy process. 3 fields of info max, with good size font, in plain view.

I will have some ideas for you soon. I just need to think about it for a little bit.

-Tyler

[Wayne Liew]

Building an online community is hard. You should allow certain areas of your site to be accessible without registration so tha search engines can index your content to bring search engine traffic.

On the other hand, you should close up certain portion of your site and this is the "premium content" that motivates someone to register on your site.

[boeing767]

Thanks for the tips. No short cuts I suppose.

[Aletheides]

Yes setting a certain section of the forum to private is a good idea. Making downloads and attachments available to registered users only is pretty normal. But all in all creating an active community takes a ton of work. Consider attaching a blog to it and adding articles so you can start getting natural search traffic. The more traffic you're getting the easier it will be. Also, if your forum is completely dead consider hiring a decent paid forum posting company to kick it off.

[discountedclothing]

Make some sort of promos or contests. This can make your forum to get active once again.

[Xanifur]

Word of mouth, and existing communities like myspace and facebook. Send a message to all of your friends and email contacts.

Also do some research in viral marketing strategies.

[TheRule]

Well, I can tell you this much: Whenever I've joined an online community (forum) it's been through running a search for the topic I've wanted to learn about. Many of the communities I ended up staying with for 5+ years.

[boeing767]

Word of mouth, and existing communities like myspace and facebook. Send a message to all of your friends and email contacts.

Also do some research in viral marketing strategies.

Your website reads like a scam. Typical too-good-to-be-true claims, followed by a long string of "testimonials" and finally selling something at the end of it, all on one page.