Weycrest Knowledgebase

A forums, especially a targeted forum, based around a specific topic (such as a football team) can be an excellent addition for any website It attracts visitors to interact with the site and to return to the website frequently, thus making your website “sticky.”

Also search engines like forums, as the content is dynamic and being constantly updated by the forum members (hopefully!)

However adding a forum addition to a website does not guarantee success. A new forum with no content and no members or little in the way of active discussion is like an empty night club. People are always reluctant to step onto a “dance floor” devoid of people!

Building a successful forum can be a challange. It certainly requires some time, patience, and
hard-work. Why? There are several important factors to consider so that you don’t scare away
visitors.

You have to remove these factors in order to convince your members to stay, read, and then start posting and joining in the discussions.

Obviously when your forum is starting out, there are no discussions taking place. Here is our five point plan to kickstart your forum and over come this “chicken and egg” situation:

• 1. Write some good content and request feedback.
• 2. Offer “free” incentives. These can include advertising opportunities such as banners or text links on the website and in the forums.
• 3. Exchange posts with other forums, but don’t spam other forums as that is bad etiquette, and unpolite to the other forum admins. You could however include your forum URL in your “sig.”
• 4. Pay for posts. This pre supposes a web site budget, but a good place to find pay for posters, is at forums.digitalpoint.com, under “Buy, Sell or Trade” but get reference on your potential posters.
• 5. Talk to yourself. This is perhaps the least recommended option, and only if you have no budget to spend on your forum.