Tips for Success

Guest · Posted: Thu Mar 23, 2006 5:52 pm Post subject: Tips for Success

Hey,
Yes everyone knows it, there are literally millions of message boards out there. Each one is competing with one another for the ultimate goal, high levels of traffic. But what exactly seperates the big dogs from the little dogs? By keeping the following points in mind when creating a forum, you website will have a better chance on becoming more popular.

1. Make it unique
Like I said, there are lots of other websites out there that are offering the same thing as you. Create a reputation for yourself. Give users a reason to come back.

2. A Creative Design
An interactive website will make visting your forum a joy. Everyone has arcades. Get a professional design and top it off with some interesting hacks.

3. Be friendly!No one likes a cranky webmaster. Be nice to your members, they are all good people!

Mike W Cool

burfi · Guest

I would like to create a forum for bloggers. A place where all the bloggers can discuss news, articles and pictures. Maybe even podcasts. And share ideas to optimize their blogsand troubleshoort any technical difficulties that they might be facing.

NicoleJLeBoeuf · Posted: Thu Apr 13, 2006 4:01 pm Post subject: Re: Tips for sucessful forum

GeorgiaGirl · Joined: 15 Apr 2006 Posts: 7

Hello Nicole, its Tina off AW Smile

Happy to see you here girl!

The best advice I think I could give someone on starting their own forum is realise that you can't make everyone happy, so try to make yourself and the majority of the visitors happy. You can't be everyone's friend, or their mom. Find something that you can stick with and do it that way, else lose the respect of your members. That way, you can at least sleep at night and not worry about irking someone in the process of following the guidelines and rules that you yourself put into place.

NicoleJLeBoeuf · Posted: Sun Apr 16, 2006 9:49 pm Post subject:

Hi back, Tina! Glad to see I'm not the only AWer trying this out.

Good tips, too!
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Nicole J. LeBoeuf : actually writing blog

Cognito · Joined: 23 Apr 2006 Posts: 6 Location: Pacific Northwest

NicoleJLeBoeuf · Posted: Sun Apr 23, 2006 11:14 pm Post subject: Re: Tips for Success

Traveller · Joined: 22 Jul 2006 Posts: 12 Location: UK

sir_jamed28 · Joined: 16 Aug 2006 Posts: 9 Location: Sta. Cruz, Laguna

This is on my on point of view.... (But actually i do agree with those guys above...)

1. IN-TREND - it will be very catchy if it is in line with the current trend.
2. INFORMATIVE - a memeber can share relative informations
3. RATED PG - available to people of all walks of life.

hope you like it guys..

cheng · Joined: 15 Oct 2006 Posts: 27 Location: Germany

Hi Sir james,
It?s nice to hear that ur from the Philippines...

Yeah, I agree with your tips!!!!

Some forums are not relevant enough, and it must not be!
_________________
It is important to adapt one?s cultures and traditions, otherwise you will not enjoy what life brings to you...

DNSimmons · Joined: 08 Jun 2006 Posts: 14 Location: Chicago

I've tried offering forum blogs, competitions, member awards... very little seems to work, outside of forum wars. And I wouldn't recommend those. I just don't know what I would have to do to get constant membership. I mean, what are people looking for in a forum?

puchchu · Joined: 23 Apr 2007 Posts: 35

Get ready yourself to response your visitor. Regular update is most important thing. However, you must have interesting and useful stuff in your site.

praveen_puchala · Joined: 10 Jun 2008 Posts: 5

Thanks for the information!

kalu · Joined: 04 Jul 2008 Posts: 13

Though i am not a successful fellow .But,i think labour is the greatest tip to be success.

TheGamerGrid · Joined: 22 Jul 2008 Posts: 5

I agree to a point with what the OP had to say. I do think that every new forum needs to look into some nice mods/hacks for their forum, and the admin should definitly be a nice person! However I do think that an arcade is a great idea as people love to compete with others in the community. A great design is eyecatching and will attract users but you also don't want too flashy of a design, because you will slow down page load times which is a big no no for forums.

trose7 · Joined: 27 Jul 2008 Posts: 5

Remember to advertise a lot. It's very frustrating at first with very little activity, but it will pay off. And never think that your forum will be "self-sufficient". You always need to be posting in your community. Welcome new members yourself and make people feel at home. Never leave a question unanswered or a suggestion unconsidered. Just talking to the members makes them want to come back. Get to know them and let them get to know you. The more welcome they feel, the more they will post.

victel · Joined: 01 Aug 2008 Posts: 5

I think it is important to keep the forum fresh. Add plenty of new content. A lot of it might appear on other forums too but plenty of content should mean plenty of readers and contributors. There might be 100 "cat care" forums out there but only a few are doing excellently and that's because they look professional, have good content and are easy to use.

Another thing is not to go too heavy on the advertising. If there are flashing ads everywhere it's likely to put people off or send them running to another forum instead! When the forum is doing well, that's the time to introduce advertising, not before, and never have more advertising than content! Rolling Eyes

Samurai Jack · Joined: 24 Aug 2008 Posts: 16

I've operated a couple of forums and moderated a few more. I find that it's best for mods and admins to keep their posting to a minimum and allow the members to do most of the posting. Some members can feel a bit intimidated by having a spirited discussion with an admin for fear that if they post something that might upset the admin they will be banned from the board. Mods and admins should try to stay neutral at all times and act as regulators.

It also helps to have a variety of sections with different topics so that members can discuss many differnt things. It's not necessarily bad for forums to be centered around certain ideas or topics, but a bit of variety keeps things fresh.

Modifications are fun but the more a forum has, the more likely it is to have technical problems. Every mod changes the tables in the database and some can conflict with others. No one wants to go to a forum that is down because of tech problems all the time.

Just a few suggestions from someone who's been there.