Anyone else having trouble

Hi

Is anyone else having trouble getting members?

I have advertised on google and still do now and again,when I can afford it. But I notice I get lots of guests,but no one registers.I feel my forum has everything it needs and has all the topics it needs. I have done my best to make it look good.But cant understand why I am not getting the traffic I thought I would.Although it says I have 70 members,Only around 7 actually posts...others who registered and never came back.Others posts once or twice and not seen again.

I feel a failure in my forum

how old is your forum? it might be becuase your forum is too old.

Hello.

Actually, some of them who never came are spambots... I recognized some of them when I checked in your memberlist (phenhere, KilkaSerko, Joseph25h077, vcemprevet, and I suspect a few others to be bots). This is one of the risks of having the forum getting known. These spambots register only to post adverts for online pharmacy websites, porn websites, casino websites, mortgage websites and any other commercial links... and often have a @gawab.com, @web.de, @agolubi.org, @yandex.ru, @ajiex.info, @onlymail2007.com or any other weird email address. Depending of the fields wich are compulsory at registration, they can be recognized by their birthdate which is always 28 March 1983 and they often put a country name in the "location" field.

We currently have this problem here, Tristou has to delete 2 or 3 accounts a day because of this invasion.

blimey

luckily I have only had one actually post about adverts on my forum and deleted it straight away...all the others have'nt posted even.

My forum is around 2 months old now,so should be picking up more really.But it is a vicious circle because you get people join and see it is'nt busy and dont come back and obviously you have to start somewhere with getting the first lot of members to post alot.

Katt wrote:Hello.

Actually, some of them who never came are spambots... I recognized some of them when I checked in your memberlist (phenhere, KilkaSerko, Joseph25h077, vcemprevet, and I suspect a few others to be bots). This is one of the risks of having the forum getting known. These spambots register only to post adverts for online pharmacy websites, porn websites, casino websites, mortgage websites and any other commercial links... and often have a @gawab.com, @web.de, @agolubi.org, @yandex.ru, @ajiex.info, @onlymail2007.com or any other weird email address. Depending of the fields wich are compulsory at registration, they can be recognized by their birthdate which is always 28 March 1983 and they often put a country name in the "location" field.

We currently have this problem here, Tristou has to delete 2 or 3 accounts a day because of this invasion.

aha thats it..thats why i have some of it on my darkportal..thats why no one going to post on my forum..

there are some

dodgeit.com
and like that..

hey katt ...

do you think they are bots..pls look on my forum
www.darkportal.heavenforum.org
shall i delete them...

reply asap...

I am wondering if its the fact I have too many topics that frightens people off when they visit?

maybe...
maybe be the rules you post..if i am right..

i was goning to turn my forum to a strct rules forum like a forum that i know...

is this okay to you guys???

Hello,

To me you have plenty of members, on my forum, I have only got 14 members but hardly much traffic, I'm doing as much as i can and I manage to get at least 1 member a week / month, as the admin, try and keep posting as much as you can.


Hope it works out
Dragon Man

skorpy wrote:I am wondering if its the fact I have too many topics that frightens people off when they visit?

no, it is not the spambots. they have nothing to do with it.

all you need is to have CHARISMA.
Charisma is the ability to inspire enthusiasm, interest, or affection in others by means of personal charm or influence.

As you can see, even if our forum is up-to-date, full of glamour, complete information but without charisma, our forum will be just as the same as a picture hanging on a wall. What i mean, we have to pursue ourselves to have a good accomodation for our members.

pauldemonteverde wrote:

skorpy wrote:I am wondering if its the fact I have too many topics that frightens people off when they visit?

no, it is not the spambots. they have nothing to do with it.

all you need is to have CHARISMA.
Charisma is the ability to inspire enthusiasm, interest, or affection in others by means of personal charm or influence.

As you can see, even if our forum is up-to-date, full of glamour, complete information but without charisma, our forum will be just as the same as a picture hanging on a wall. What i mean, we have to pursue ourselves to have a good accomodation for our members.

wowo i gonna use a charisma..to gety interest in each memebers oh ojkay..ei kuya paul pls help me naman ! there to get interest in my forum

I think it's also important to be individual and unique, but good at the same time. No one's going to want to go to your forum, if there are loads of forum's with the same theme, that are better than yours.

The site where I'm staff has a wonderful admin, who is constantly thinking up new and innovative ideas and events for the member's to participate in. And it's a Harry Potter forum as well - which is a hard niche to crack.

Also make sure that your site looks visually appealing - a nice banner and a nice colour scheme is more likely to attract new users than clashing colours and mismatched buttons.

An organised index page is also a good idea, and if you don't have one - installing the portal might be good too. Think of the portal as the 'book cover' and the index as the inside of the book - the portal is the first thing they see, so make it look good. It's a harsh thing to say, and you shouldn't 'judge a book by its cover', but the fact is, people do.

I would also suggest promote your site by wearing your site's button in your signature's at other places you post, advertising on site's that allow it (such as www.get-a-link.com), affiliating with as many sites that you can, and submitting to search engine's.

In the end, I think you have to be dedicated to your site, to try and make it better, even if you think that it's as good as it can be. Look after your current members, send them an e-mail newsletter every month to keep them updated on what's happened on your board, listen to their comments and suggestions.

That's all I can think of for the moment, and hopefully it's helped some!

to marx: first of all, make your post clearly.
Please, avoid using SMS language.

marx123 wrote:ei kuya paul pls help me naman ! there to get interest in my forum

in English translation: hey, brother paul, please help me to make my forum interesting.



------------------------------------
Now, to answer you:

Why don't you have a group dynamics with your forum moderators? or either with your members? and talk about development for your forum.

And one other thing for a forum to get members, you need to offer them help etc. this forum is popular because it helps people with their forums.


A good forum is a helpful forum.

I have the forum as I like it and think it looks good imo hehe.

I have my signature in all the forums I visit.I did how ever get a pm from a member as I asked for opinions and she said that having too many topics can be daunting to look at.So I have deleted the ones which have'nt been posted in and merged others.So it is now smaller then what it was. I have all the topics I require for what my forum is about,so I cant see there not being anything that would not interest guests.The only thing I can think of is the fact it does'nt look busy with many posts etc.But hey we all have to start somewhere.

skorpy wrote:I have the forum as I like it and think it looks good imo hehe.

I have my signature in all the forums I visit.I did how ever get a pm from a member as I asked for opinions and she said that having too many topics can be daunting to look at.So I have deleted the ones which have'nt been posted in and merged others.So it is now smaller then what it was. I have all the topics I require for what my forum is about,so I cant see there not being anything that would not interest guests.The only thing I can think of is the fact it does'nt look busy with many posts etc.But hey we all have to start somewhere.

now you see, you'd answered your own query.

Which is why I cant understand why I havent got more people joining.I may think its good,but will other people. I cant think of anything I have left out from what xaphania said,so must be ok.

But asking if anyone else is having this problem

Perhaps your forums subject is one people experience for themselves and won't probably look for help on it. I don't mean to offend you but it might be the reason.

Just keep going and it might be a popular subject

It's certainly an important one because we wouldn't be here today.

Katt wrote:Hello.

Actually, some of them who never came are spambots... I recognized some of them when I checked in your memberlist (phenhere, KilkaSerko, Joseph25h077, vcemprevet, and I suspect a few others to be bots). This is one of the risks of having the forum getting known. These spambots register only to post adverts for online pharmacy websites, porn websites, casino websites, mortgage websites and any other commercial links... and often have a @gawab.com, @web.de, @agolubi.org, @yandex.ru, @ajiex.info, @onlymail2007.com or any other weird email address. Depending of the fields wich are compulsory at registration, they can be recognized by their birthdate which is always 28 March 1983 and they often put a country name in the "location" field.

We currently have this problem here, Tristou has to delete 2 or 3 accounts a day because of this invasion.

Thats what i am strugling with https://help.forumotion.com/viewtopic.forum?t=1419

Dragon Man wrote:Perhaps your forums subject is one people experience for themselves and won't probably look for help on it. I don't mean to offend you but it might be the reason.

Just keep going and it might be a popular subject

It's certainly an important one because we wouldn't be here today.

No offense taken

With my forum it isnt based on one thing .You will be surprised at how many people want opinions and help with my topic

pauldemonteverde wrote:to marx: first of all, make your post clearly.
Please, avoid using SMS language.

marx123 wrote:ei kuya paul pls help me naman ! there to get interest in my forum

in English translation: hey, brother paul, please help me to make my forum interesting.



------------------------------------
Now, to answer you:

Why don't you have a group dynamics with your forum moderators? or either with your members? and talk about development for your forum.

well
i have been talking to some of my mods and other admins and you too brother paul..we should put a thread for devel;opment of a forum...
but no one still replying...some arent gong back

i dunno theyve been offline
other ideas..maybe you can make a new rule for our forum
as you can see we going to make our forum hightech right?

i made a forum a few days ago and I have 3 main struggles:
1) Getting members

2) Picking a unique and suitable theme. Today I severely altered one of the premade themes to suit my forum and boy did it look tacky so I had to start again..

3) I have way too many categories and forums.

What I plan to do after I pick the colour scheme is to register about 12 more accounts (I currently have 4 registered users- all created by me) in hope of making the forum look used...

If it has not been mentioned before, you could try joining web/net rings that are related to your own forum's theme. For babies and delivery, I found the following:

• Everything but the Baby Webring
  
• Pregnancy & Motherhood WebRing
  
• Pregnancy, Childbirth, Parenting WebRing
  
• Baby's World Webring
  
• All About Waterbirth and Waterbabies
  

Most webrings use the same service (i.e. webring.com or ringsurf.com). The list I just gave is mostly from webring.com. Some rings have voting systems and such just for fun, to help with community bonding. It is a nice feeling to know that your own forum is part of a larger community. I would think that goes double for maternity sites. Remember to visit the other sites of the webring. Just as you are looking for exposure, so are they. It is only common courtesy.

Here are a few more advertising tricks:

• Post on various free, online classified ads. So many to choose from, and they are FREE. Might as well copy and paste an ad into them all.
  
• Work with the locals. If you have a forums site titled, "Life is made better when cake is involved!" then maybe you can Email a few bakers around your town? Most often, the most popular businesses will have the flashiest telephone directory ads and will most likely have a website (leading to public Emails). So then, find the phone numbers and/or public Emails of those bakers. You could ask them if they don't mind sharing your cake-lovers site to a few pastry regulars. You can also offer some sort of advertising deal for the bakers. (Whether you charge or not for advertising is up to you.) Email and local calling is free, so what do you have to lose? For the baby site, I would suggest looking up local clinics and/or hospitals. Maybe the local hospital has a newsletter that you can ad your forum to?
  
• Associate with others "in the biz". ("In the biz" is slang for "in the business", for those that did not know.) For skorpy's baby forums, it would be nice to know a few gynecologists and/or delivery nurses that would be willing to market the forums to the patients. Just make sure that it does not violate any policies in their own workplace (most hospitals have strict policies regarding outside vendors/contractors/advertising/help).
  
• Try to affiliate yourself with another site. The more popular the site, the better for you. Usually, affiliate sites will agree to advertise your site if you advertise their site. Nice trade-off, eh? Going full circle with the suggestion of joining a webring, visit the other sites of those same webrings and try to affiliate with them. That would be double the exposure.
  

I hope this helps everyone.

I have told a few friends about it and they just laugh and tell me to give up!

For you, Friskybear, I found the following webrings that might help:

• Australian Television Webring
  
• Directory of webring.com webrings related to games
  
• The Boardgame Webring
  
• Moviescripts and Screenplays Webring Home Site
  
• Movie Quotes Webring
  

That is just for starters. I hope that helps!

wow thanks petal

You are very welcome, friskybear!

By the way, here are a few other advertising tips:

• Advertise through blogs. The most famous of them all? Myspace.com. If you have a blog already, then create a link to your forums board. Otherwise, create a blog dedicated to showcasing your forums site. Either way, make sure that your blog is viewable to the public. (If you do not want your personal blog made public, then it is best that you create a separate blog for just your forums site.) Then ask a few friends with blogs to add your blog to their "friends list" for even more exposure. Most blogs are free. So why not create a blog in as many services as possible? Just to name a few:
  
  
  
  • MySpace
    
  • Blogstream
    
  • LiveJournal
    
  
  
• Get acquainted with others in chat rooms similar to your forums' theme. Introduce yourself. Add your forum board's website address to your personal information. You do not have to blatantly advertise your site. In fact, I BEG you not to do so. Most of us can attest that advertising in a blatant fashion (the worst being spam) can be very annoying and will most often result in the exact opposite of your goal. So try to plug your site into normal conversation. If someone asks for your Email, suggest that maintaining your forum keeps you busy and that the best way that anyone can send a message to you would be through a private message in your forums (subtly suggesting for them to register in order to send a private message). Or if someone asks a question, perhaps you could reply, "I will ask the others in the forum and see if anyone knows." That statement not only makes the others in the chat room aware of your forums, but it also opens up the possibility of someone asking, "What forum?". Aha! Now comes an opportunity to introduce it.
  
• Along with joining webrings, join internet groups. Same concept. A few to suggest:
  
  
  
  • Yahoo! Groups
    
  • Google Groups
    
  • Flickr Groups
    
  
  

It comes down to networking. Before internet, businesses survived in the world with meetings, handshakes and good relations. Online, its still meetings, handshakes (albeit virtual) and good relations. The more individuals that are acquainted with you, the more exposure your forums may receive. Simple curiousity in you will lead them to wanting to know the other aspects of your life. And if your forums site is the most interesting thing for you, then they will naturally drift to it.

I passionately HATE annoying spam or pushed advertising. So I never encourage that. Just spark friendly acquaintances, if not friendships, and the rest should follow.

I hope that helps everyone!

Petal wrote:For you, Friskybear, I found the following webrings that might help:

• Australian Television Webring
  
• Directory of webring.com webrings related to games
  
• The Boardgame Webring
  
• Moviescripts and Screenplays Webring Home Site
  
• Movie Quotes Webring
  

That is just for starters. I hope that helps!

\
hey about me

mt forum is MMORPG FORUM
can talk about games and disscussiions and etc

look www.darkportal.heavenforum.org

For you, marx123, so many possibilities exist that I do not know where to begin! How about the following to start you off? This list is in no particular order:

1. Visit the following webrings. Try to introduce your site to the other sites associated in the same webrings (affiliate with them).

• RPG Webring
  
• RPG Ring (This is a different site from the first.)
  
• Ultimate Online RPG Webring
  
• RPG-WebRing (Yes, this is yet a different site.)
  
• The All RPG WebRing
  
• MMORPG WebRing
  
• Online Roleplaying Chat WebRing
  
• Forum Based RPG
  
• Rom and RPG Webring supported by www.gamelegacies.com
  

2. Try to affiliate your forums with the following sites:

• MMORPG.com
  
• PC Gamer
  
• MMOSITE.com
  

3. Introduce yourself to anime fan clubs. Go through search engines and type in the words "anime fan club". I promise you that you will be overwhelmed beyond happiness.

4. Get acquainted with others in the following chat rooms. Please be careful not to spam and ALWAYS be courteous.

• MMORPG.com chat
  
• n00bstories.com
  

That should keep you busy for a bit.

gee thanks....
well.im trying myself to llok my forum hightech have you seen my forum...is it ok??

Petal wrote:For you, Friskybear, I found the following webrings that might help:

• Australian Television Webring
  
• Directory of webring.com webrings related to games
  
• The Boardgame Webring
  
• Moviescripts and Screenplays Webring Home Site
  
• Movie Quotes Webring
  

That is just for starters. I hope that helps!

About webrings, where do I put the code? I put it in the Homepage but it didn't recognize it!