Lothy's Ramblings

Get the Word Out

So you've got yourself a board and you're looking to spread the word and get advice on how to be successful. You're already off to a great start just by taking the initiative to look for info like this!

Every forum needs members in order to keep it going. If you want to keep it fresh, you also need a steady stream of new members, which requires advertising. Here are some of the ways I have found most effective for drawing in new members. They have been tried and true for me since 2004, they should work for you too!

2. Word of Mouth: Start telling people you've made a board and you would like for them to come check it out. You have to talk before people will listen. Go to every forum of which you are a member and put a button and link to your board in your signature if they allow it. Every time you post, people will see the button and may get curious! Remember not to over-do it though, that can have the opposite effect of what you want. PM advertising on other forums is always a big no-no, so keep your board's reputation clean by using official methods of spreading the word.
   
   
3. Directories: If you have an InvisionFree or Zetaboards forum, make use of their directory system in your Admin Control Panel, it works! This is a very effective type of advertising that puts your name out there where people are specifically looking for your content. Directory forums also exist. These are more interactive and can really draw people in.
   
   • RPG-Directory - A really great resource for RPG forums.
   
   
4. Networking Boards / Webrings: There are several other types of websites that provide free advertising services for you. Networking communities, like most boards, tend to be involved in helping you so take full advantage of any reviewing or tips they offer. A similar type of website exists, called a Webring. It allows you to list your website on their advertising bar so long as you put the bar on your board too, but they are not typically personally involved in any other way. It's kind of like the bare-essentials version of networking.
   
   • Planet Nexus - The best networking board for InvisionFree and ZetaBoards forums. Includes extra board features and a webring.
   
   
5. Advertising Boards: There are also communities driven toward letting you post your ad for other people to find. It has been my experience that putting your name out there is never a bad thing, but it may be easy to find your ad lost among many others at an advertising-only board if it's not organized into a directory. If an advertising board is strictly geared toward letting you advertise and doesn't have its own community or a member base that is also looking to join advertised boards, this is going to be a very short-term solution.
   
   
6. Topsites / Top 100 Voting: There are a lot of these out there, most often based off of genre - so if you are an RPG board you will want to find an RPG Topsites. Try googling for options, using your genre as a keyword. Registering at a topsites puts your board in a list of other websites, and it ranks you either by how often your members vote for it, or by keeping track of how many people visit your board. It keeps track of visitors by having you install a little image in your wrappers, which is very unobtrusive, and it usually displays your rank so that your members can see how well you're doing. This also gets your members involved in forum promotion, so remind them to vote for you!
   
   
7. Google Indexing: Every admin needs Google on their side! If your board has Google ads, it is being continuously indexed by the Google search engine - which means it's doing a lot of work for you. Even when you don't have ads, Google should still be crawling your board so that potential members can find your content. Make sure that most of your board is visible to guests so that Google can anonymously collect as much as possible.
   
   
8. Alexa Traffic Ranking: Alexa is the leading traffic ranking website on the internet. It keeps track of how many people visit your board and how active it is, and ranks it against every other website in the world. This requires a little more involvement on your part. I highly recommend installing the Alexa Toolbar - this is how Alexa collects usage statistics for websites. Who better to report activity for your board than you, the person who should be the most active? Once you install it and get it running, all you have to do is let it sit there and collect data. Your usage alone will greatly boost your ranking, and if you encourage your members to use it too you should be golden.
   
   • Check your domain's current traffic ranking by going to:
     http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/YOURDOMAINNAME.COM

I hope these tips work as well for you as they have for me. Feel free to share other methods of "spreading the word" that you have found successful.

1. Add new comment:

   Post Comment