[brownbob06]

Ok, so I'm currentl trying to generate traffic to my forum, but does anybody have any ideas how to convert the people looking at my page to become actual members?

thanks

[rogercbryan]

Think of it like this... if you walk into a bar at 11pm on a Firday night and there is no one in the place... do you sit down and spend a few hours there? The answer is normally no... my advice to all new forum owners it to create a sense of activity. Give the people someone to talk to and something interesting to talk about.

You and a friend need to create 10 or so fake accounts... now spend all the time you can finding interesting articles and creating conversation about those articles. Do this until you have about 1000 posts and then start marketing your forum. Now this wont happed over night. Be ready to commit to 30-90 days worth of work. This is not a formula for gauranteed success... this is just a step that can be added to your marketing to increase the probability that you will succeed.

Good Luck... people want other people to talk to... so make a few people up and start some conversations... and please... make it interesting!

[meaghannf]

I agree with Ryan, and this is from the experience of trying to find forums, not necessarily trying to run them. I've come across forums that seem to have really great topics but are absolutely empty and there's no chance I'm staying there, even if I have something to add to the topic.

On the flip side, I've seen crowded forums with just junk posts that really turn me off of the forum itself. You need to have a good mix of strong topics AND a community of users. Good luck!

[CIsaac]

Creating a topic would be a good place to start...

[brownbob06]

^^^ not sure what you mean, I already started a few topics in the forum,but I think it's a good idea to make it look active, I've been trying to get my friends to do that, but they're not very reliable, haha.

thanks for the ideas! Also, I changed the setup of the site so that I can put a blog on the front page to get more people to like my site.

[Mega B]

This could be a cheap way of filling the site out till it gets going Get Paid to Post - Forum Posting Service i dont have any connections with this site but a few friends have been in the same situation and for a small amount of money and i mean small amount it will start to fill the site out for you.There is nothing worse than seeing a empty forum.

[Denis3721]

All I have to say is have patients! Optimize you forum so its very easy to find on search engines!

and also post every thread on digg! If you're lucky and the thread is very interesting you will get a lot of views from digg members and therefor perhaps even get some members!

since your blog is about staying fit make sure you go on exercise/health blogs and ask if they could link to your forum. Just keep trying hard...update everyday and you will succeed in making a great forum! Keep the visitors happy, try to answer their questions and listen to what they have to say.

[brownbob06]

Hey, this is all GREAT information! thanks guys!

Also, I'm learning quite a bit from this forum itself. It seems that when I first post something, they don't get answered for about a day (like this one) then once one person gets involved alot more people start to post on that topic. Thanks alot guys!

Now I'm going to do some research on blogging, because I've never done that before either.

[veikoh]

Search Engines for any community cannot be the first source of members. Those will become much later.
What you need is to establish your community from personal contacts and then increase it.
BTW, if anyone is willing to put their pictures to my community site, I would be more than happy - Free community dating online service with local photo personals

[himalayan]

Use it in signature and post comment in forums, create an article about your forum and post it to article directories, Social bookmarking is also good source of connection.

[brownbob06]

What do you mean by "Social Bookmarking?"

Also, I added a front page with a feed from a Wordpress Blog that I am starting, but would rather just have the blog on the front page of the site, is there a way I can do this without using wordpress, but still be able to have the blog posted to different sites, like Digg and spurl (Basically the same things at the bottom of our posts) and all that to gain visitors?

[Achiles-Teradali]

The one thing that I noticed after viewing your home page was that it was empty. You need to beef up what your visitors first see, because let me tell you making a good first impression is really important, especially for websites. And I totally agree that you need more posts in your forum. Then market the crap out of your website.

[zharlene]

As weird as this may sound, you could always start it off by creating multiple accounts for yourself and then posting on several boards with these accounts. Nobody has to know that all these accounts are from the admin!

Believe it or not, an empty forum will scare away people. People want to join forums that will benefit them. So if you have lots of relevant information, stick to one niche, and if you have some spare cash: pay some people to post all over your boards just to start it off.

There are lots of other ways. Check this out: Effective Way To Get ‘Targeted Traffic’ in Your Forum | The Rawpinions Weblog

[stockmarketreviews]

Create a blog .. post articles related to your niche and add your forum link in end of each post . it gives results once your posts listed in search engine

[Gxq786x]

brownbob, pm me I will get you on right track.