Forumotion Interviews : Today "Madden-School"

by **Shadow** January 19th 2010, 9:30 am

Forumotion Interviews : Today "Madden-School"

Hello,

To help our users better manage their forums, we will launch a serie of interviews with owners of our big forums.
The aim is to learn more about these owners, their forums, but also the key to their success.

We will start today with the forum http://www.madden-school.com which currently has 123,000+ posts and 14,300+ users.
How did they manage to achieve these great stats? We'll find out with the interview of its founder, Modrewgnu.

1. Tell us about your forum. What do you think is the secret of its success?

My forum www.Madden-School.com was created to give madden nfl series gamers on xbox 360 and Playstation 3 a place to share free tips, strategies, and find cheat free games. The key to madden-school's success (and in my opinion any websites success) is offering something that isnt offered anywhere else on the internet. In our case it was free tips. We offered tips and strategies for free while our competitors charged for everything.

2. After its creation, what are the tools that you deem necessary and that you were lacking to advance and publicize your forum? Then, what strategies have you followed to solve this problem ? And which of these methods have been the best?

After the creation of madden-school we encountered a lot of problems. However, the good people at forumotion helped us out with the constant updates. One thing I’d like to see in the future, is a better way to publish content onto the portal.

3. What are the major decisions that have really improved the popularity of your forum? Do you have tips, ideas, methods you use to maintain interest, activity and loyalty of your members?

Madden-School came to a point where we had to decide whether we wanted to be a forum that gave our users free tips and to improve everyone’s skill level, or turning it into more of a competition forum, where our members come to play against each other. I didn’t think we could do both successfully because users wouldn’t want to share their tips and strategies with people they would play the next day. After a lot of thought, I couldn’t decide which one to do, so I figured that I would try to do both at one time. It was a big risk, but thankfully it worked out well. Our users still share tips and strategies with each other while playing the same people they help all the time.

4. How much time do you spend per day to take care of your forum? You get help?

I spend about 3 hours a day taking care of madden-school. I have lots of help from one of the best forum staff’s around. I am now at a point where I spend the majority of my time with helping the forum grow by making link trades and marketing my forum in other places. I have a staff of about 10 users who keep everything running smoothly on madden-school and keep the users happy.

5. Based on your experience, what advice would you give other webmasters who wish to see their forums as active and successful as yours?

Hard work is the key to getting any forum up and running. You have to do the little things that no one else wants to do. Also, you want to offer something that no other website offers. In my case, it was free madden tips, but it can be anything.

6. What would you have done at forum creation (a thing which you may not think in the beginning by lack of experience) that would have made you gain time and traffic more quickly?

In all honesty, I would have chosen a different domain name. When I started madden-school, I had absolutely no webmaster experience at all. I just had a good idea and wanted to get started with it as soon as possible. I rushed and choose the domain name www.madden-school.com I didn’t know that the ”-“ in the domain name hurts your results in search engines. A common mistake that webmasters make is rushing into choosing a domain name. Remember, your domain name lasts forever. Spend at least a month thinking and brainstorming different domain names that are available for your forum. Make sure to use keywords in your domain that relate to what your forum is about.

Thanks to Modrewgnu for this interview, we hope this will be helpful for all your forums!
Don't forget to check out his forum : http://www.madden-school.com

Best,

Forumotion Team

by Russel January 19th 2010, 10:09 am

Wow thanks to Modrewgnu! Thanks also Typlo.

by Doctor Inferno January 19th 2010, 11:03 am

Cool feature, hope to see more comin' Smile

by **Shadow** January 19th 2010, 11:22 am

For users who wish to be interviewed, you can contact me by PM.

by Linda2003 January 19th 2010, 1:27 pm

Thanks info .

by Codyy January 19th 2010, 2:28 pm

Intresting. Typlo, is there any post/users requirement about these interviews?

by **Shadow** January 19th 2010, 3:18 pm

Submit me your forum and I'll check it it's eligible.

by 5aled January 19th 2010, 8:20 pm

thnx typlo

great interview

Smile

by modrewgnu January 19th 2010, 9:40 pm

Thank you typlo for the interview, i am truely honored. If any of you have any questions at all for me, you can just reply to this thread, pm me on here, email me at modrewgnu@madden-school.com or aim me: modrewgnu

Again, i want to send out a big thank you to forumotion for helping me start the forum of my dreams.

by MrMega January 19th 2010, 10:36 pm

I sent my forum Wink

by Ziggy V January 20th 2010, 10:15 am

This was a great idea! Thanks to both Modrewgnu and Typlo for this. Very Happy

by ngocducqtk32 January 21st 2010, 10:00 am

that a great info ! Thank you Typlo, and thank also Modrewgnu! I think my forum isn't eligible. but i can submit it on this topic :

my forum http://sinhviendalat.net which currently has 21,666+ posts and 2,380+ users.
That is a smaller statics which http://www.madden-school.com. but.. i must going to get it !

by *Mare-SBK™* January 22nd 2010, 12:15 pm

this is the very good idea!!Thanks Modrewgnu and Typlo......... Smile

by alffian January 23rd 2010, 5:41 am

check it out http://www.sioloon.com .. got 11480 registered and messages in 13331 subjects

by kevincentius January 25th 2010, 7:49 am

Wow, "Make sure to use keywords in your domain that relate to what your forum is about."
I never thought of it. I use the acronym of my site name instead ;/ .
Now I know! Very Happy

If I'm gonna make another site I will choose better domain name. Thanks a lot Modrewgnu and Typlo thumleft

by meo786 January 26th 2010, 7:21 am

Dear,

Check it for

http://meo786.forumotion.com/

by Tropica February 9th 2010, 7:44 am

started at 08 Oct 2008, our forum now has about 170,000 posts and 13,500 users and still growing up faster month by months than the first year.

I think it is mostly because our scope is niche. Our forum is gay friendship forum in Indonesia whenever the gay relationship is not well accepted in our real life. And this make us happy and feel free to talk much via online / forum.

Thanks to forumotion and hope for the future, forumotion give more feature such a social networking integrated to the forum service, eg. phpfox, etc.

Our sincerely,
www.gayindo.forumotion.net or www.gayindoforum.com