1. Include your forum link in your signature but don’t just put “xyz forum” make it more of a tag line like “I like to xyz all the time” or even find a famous quote that uses a word that describes your forum. And don’t link the whole phrase but rather the anchor text that describes your forum the best.

2. Optimize your signature link by changing up some colors, adding some punctuation, changing up the font size, using bold, or throwing in some italics. The whole point is to draw attention without being spammy. Do it tastefully.

3. Think about your thread titles. This is the probably the most important part in gaining more views to your thread which in turn means more views of your sig. I suggest you read this blog to get more information on headline writing.

4. Don’t write a 2 line post but make it more of a paragraph 5-8 sentences and ask a bunch of questions to stimulate readers into posting a response.

5. Keep it personal, throw in a few tidbits about yourself. Heck, your not only there to gain members but to learn more about your demographic and what they want and like. So the more you get to know other people the better. People tend to underestimate popularity a lot!

If you keep those 5 points in mind when trying to gain new members I think you will notice a large increase in conversions. I know from personal experience you will get more PMs from members asking questions about your site. But remember, keep it ethical or you will feel the wrath from the members and from the staff.

Rex
www.cruiselinefans.com

Most Admins tend to forget that people who aren’t Admins are probably not all that computer savvy and are trying to find your forum and trying to register so why not make it easy for them? Why not put a big sign in the header that says “Register Here” or in really large letters have “Register Here” with a few bullet points under why a person should register and the same goes for the forum link. Make it stand out a bit.

Take it a bit further for your members. They are more than likely going to be in the forum posting and inside their UserCP doing other things, so make sure they can easily see the link to that area.

Being an admin not only means you need to admin just for the members, but think about the guests that are viewing your site. Make it easy for them to move around your forum. They will appreciate what you have done, and you will gain more members by doing this!

Rex
www.cruiselinefans.com

Now I’m just using two as an example but it could be more than two. What I mean is before you even start a new forum do one of the following.

-Find a partner willing to split cost / time with you.
-Find a team to help you start your forum.

I know what your thinking, give someone else my idea and split the profit with them. No way! But let me tell you how much easier it is for 2 people to start a forum versus doing so by yourself. Of course the obvious benefit is splitting costs but the best benefit is in the law of numbers. Now you have 2 members! This is 2 members that have an active interest in the forum, and 2 members that have a different set of friends and contacts.

This is the easiest way to start up a new forum and to get activity boosted quickly. Heck, those 2 members can create 2-4 fake members between them which makes 4-8 new fake members! Now do the math and think if you start with a larger team, maybe 4-6 partners. The odds just go up and up.

Now I’m not saying you can’t start a forum on your own because you can, but I really believe the odds go against you and you might not be able to speed up the process of growing your forum with just yourself operating it.

So thats my .02 on this issue.

Rex
BloggerSkills.com

Last week Juan and Lee talked about giving users a reason to register at your community. An incentive if you will. Private messaging, posting, searching, and chatting just aren’t enough. You’ve gotta have more! You’ve got to give members access to something exclusive. Something they won’t find at your competitors site. Laura talked last week about giving out free email addresses, this is a wonderful idea. But take it a step further. Megan from http://www.webmaster-forums.net offers 3 free months of hosting for new members. You may be able to work out some sort of deal with a company in your industry to offer free magazine subscriptions, coupons, an eBook, entry in to a giveaway. Depending on the topic of your community, you may be able to turn these incentives in to another revenue stream. Finding a company that will give free trials to your members and give you a percentage of the resulting sale. After you find an incentive remember to include a call to action. Just telling them about the incentive isn’t enough, get them to follow through. You want them to REGISTER right?! Nice big red letters “Register today and get 3 months of free hosting! Click Here”, “Join Our Community Now and Get Our Exclusive eBook!”.

No matter what you do, keep trying new things. You can’t maximize your monetization unless you are constantly trying new things! Don’t ever stop trying.

by Chris Kenworthy @ Ackfoo.com

• Money – In the business world, these are people who are motivated by financial rewards. If they work harder, they’ll make more. In the forum world, members motivated by money are the ones who participate in contests. Or contribute when there is some sort of monetary reward involved. Since most of us aren’t paying our members or staff, you have to find ways to cater to the money motivated individual. Start discussions about money related topics. Offer content to help these members advance in their careers or businesses. But most importantly, conduct contests on a regular basis to keep these folks around. Most people have some form of money motivation, but there is a small group that could care less about contests, giveaways, etc. Often times these are members who fall in to the self-worth category.
• Self-Worth – Members who are driven by their own self-worth can be the best thing because it involves little or no effort on your part. These are the folks that put “self motivated” on their resume and mean it! They’ll go out of their way to help, contribute, and participate and don’t expect or even want a “Thank You” or a fancy member title. They are usually modest and would prefer to stay out of the lime light. It’s best just to send these members the occasional “Hey, just wanted to say thanks for everything you do” type PMs.
• Recognition – We all love a little pat on the back from time to time, but members motivated by recognition need that pat constantly. They want the special member badge and the fancy title. They love the “Thanks Yous” and “You Rock!” messages and they want everyone to see that. It’s pretty easy to motivate this type of person. Create some special member groups, give out awards or member badges. Anything to set this person apart from the crowd.
• Advancement – One step past recognition is advancement. In business, this is the employee who is always striving for that manager position or trying to get a promotion. They’ll work their butts off to get it, but if they never advance, they probably won’t stick around. These are tough in the forum world because you can’t make everyone a moderator. Find other ways to advance these members with special member groups. You might give them some basic privledges if they deserve it. Keep advancing them and they’ll stick around and continue to contribute to your community

So those are the 4 motivators and the people that fall in to them. Once you can identify things to motivate each of these individuals, you’ll be on your way to a bigger and better community. One of the best things you can do is talk to people. Get to know your regulars and find out what motivates them. You want to keep them around don’t you?!

See a Need, Fill a Need.

See, I told you it was painfully simple. But trust me, if you follow this mantra, you will greatly increase your chances of success. If you spend any time on message boards that deal with starting forums or making money online (this concept should be applied to ANY business – online or off), you probably see groaning new admins complaining about their dead message boards that have been ghost towns since their fairly recent launch. “Why aren’t people joining my board? I spent all this money on a cool skin and vBSEO, yet I can’t get people to join and start talking. What do I do!?!”

My first question would be, “What keyword research did you do? And what did that yell you?” Often, they did none. They simply wanted to start a board on that topic. If you build it, they will come, right? Well, my friend, that just isn’t good enough in 2006. With around 50 million registered dot coms, you need a LOT more than just an interest in a topic to do well.

If people aren’t coming to your board (provided you have some rankings – which aren’t hard to get in MSN or even Yahoo!), or if they are coming and not staying, you probably are trying to fill a need that isn’t there. I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but it’s fairly black and white.

Okay, so let’s say you haven’t started your board yet – how do you make sure you are filling a need? It’s actually a fairly simple process. That, however, deserves its own post since for me, that part is lots of fun.

You are at the point where your forum theme is established in thought, but is not yet visually appealing. I have a wavering opinion about this and for the most part it has to do with your board, the competition and what you are looking to accomplish. You have the school of thought that says design isn’t important, especially in the beginning. People point to some of the long standing “Big Boards” and show you how some of them are using the stock forum skin, whether UPB or VB or a bland custom look. I understand that this is the case, but we are in a different time today. Many experts say that you have but a few seconds to grab a visitors attention with your design elements, a recent study said it was but miliseconds. I believe a design is important and in today’s world of online communities it will help to stand out and aim for uniqueness with your forum’s design.

There are a variety of ways to find good designers, an I recommend Talk Freelance (free to post a contest or design request) or Site Point (a cost of $9.95). You need to remember that a good design will likely cost a minimum of $100-$200 and that you need to make sure to set money aside for the coding of the skin/style as well. I have seen a vBulletin style coding job run from $150 – $250. These are the cost of doing business, something which you need to consider from the very beginning if you are looking to build something that will really grow and become special.

Question: I just started my forums, I have it setup with nice features and a good looking skin. Now how do I get members? And don’t forget I don’t have any money (hehe) !

1. Of course the first and easiest solution is putting your site link in signatures at other forums. I’m going to assume you know what that is. But signatures can be very powerful. Not only can they advertise your site for you, but they can also be counted as IBLs (Inbound Links) although this could be debated. But remember when putting your site in your sig don’t just use your URL, use a text targeted link. Like I use “Cruise Reviews” . And try to keep it to a phrase that people may type in search engines. You might want to do a search here inventory.overture.com . Now don’t just do that at your current forums you participate in, start registering at any and every forum you find. I probably have 100+ forum accounts that I post on, and every time I do I am giving my site that chance to be seen by others that might be interested. Just think how much time it takes to make 10 posts on a forum, not very much. So the more sites your making 10 posts a day on the more your going to be seen.

2. Kind of like sigs you have Top Site Lists. Now you may or may not get any traffic from these but anything is worth a shot. You are just starting your forum so you should try everything. There are tons of Top Site Lists out there so just do a search and enter in as many as you can. Any publicity is good publicity.

3. Newsgroups. Join lots of newsgroups. This is kinda of like joining a lot of forums and using a sig. Do the same thing with news groups. But remember nobody likes spam, so make good lengthy posts with you site after your name. This is another easy FREE way to mass broadcast. I must add that this is a very valuable and underused option. Not only do people read newsgroups directly but they also subscribe to them, some sites even grab their feeds and publish them. This method can really boost your visability, just remember to keep the posts informative and “sneak” your link in there.

4. Yahoo! Chat. This option is spammy but what the heck, you need members. I even used this option before. Go onto yahoo chat and talk with people and every now and again do a blatant Spam post with your site. This way people see you are real and not a bot, and they get to see your site link. Again, FREE IS THE KEY.

5. Exchange links with anyone willing. I don’t care if there site gets less traffic than you, exchange links. I don’t care if the site is relevant or not, exchange links. The more incoming links the better. The more your site name is out and about, the more people will see it. But try to setup a link directly from your site, this way you can keep all links one one area and off your main content.

6. Do a press release. I think the site is prweb.com. Do one everyweek. Ok now I know this option isn’t cheap but I reccoment the $80 option. You will get picked up by all the major news portals and if your write up is interesting you will get gobs of traffic. But remember nobody likes spam so you have to make your PR less about your site and more about information. Write something up that somebody may have interest in, or a tip of some kind and include your links right after your name. They even have pay for professionals that will write something up for you, but they are not cheap.

7. Many sites love people that write articles. So get to writing and submit them to other sites. Again you put your site link in the article and boom, instant advertising.

8. Make use of digg.com. While you may not have anything worthy of getting a top position it’s always good to get your name out there from time to time. Again any traffic at this point is good traffic.

9. Post exchanges. There must be 1,000’s of other startup forums on the net right now. Get to know these people and establish relationships with them. Mention that they get involved on a 1 on 1 post exchange. This way you help them out and they help you out. It’s a simple idea that can go a really long way. I remember doing this in my early days.

Anything that is free is worth doing. And do it until you can’t stand it any more. If you want success you have to do anything to achieve that.

Remember it’s always good to know other people in the forum business. These are the people that been through this before, so take their advice whenever you can.

This is the very basic beginning for those that are just starting a forum, but of course it doesn’t hurt for those old timers either.

Rex Bowden @ CruiseLineForums.com

phpBB
This forum software is the most widely known and used forum software on the market (by a large margin). It is likely the best free application you can use. Since it has been around the middle of 2000, you will have the advantage of a wide base of hacks, mods, skins, etc to choose from. For a free solution, you have plenty of options at your fingertips. On the positive side, the admin panel is easy to use, hacks are relatively simple for even a newbie to install, there is a decent amount of flexibility for customization, and the support forums are active so you can typically find plenty of help with any issues. The downside of this software lies mostly in its stability or lack thereof. I know of more phpBB boards that have been totally ruined than I can count on both hands. This is something the developers are working to prevent, but it still remains a major concern in my eyes.

vBulletin
This is my personal favorite, what I believe to be the best of the paid forum software solutions. For $85 a year, the price of a leased license, or $160 for a lifetime license, I feel this is the best of what is readily available. Regarding hacks, flexibility, technology, styles, and a knowledgeable user base there is none better im my opinion. The positive side is full as vBulletin gives you outstandint and lightening fast support, an extremely secure backend, tremendous flexibility, and all the hacks you can think up. Since vBulletin is a true leader in forum software, there are many great sites providing valuable resources for your vBulletin forum. I can’t say enough good stuff about vBulletin software and I back it up with the fact that I own 7 licenses. Regarding leasing versus the outright purchase of the license, I always say just buy the thing. Yoou are in it for the long haul with your forum, no need to pay more to lease the license.

Invision Power Board
This is is similarly priced paid solution, very comparable in pricing to vBulletin. The yearly license will cost you $185 and the yearly (rented) license will run $70 a year. I have the least amount of experience with this particular software. It was once a free software like phpBB until late 2004 when they moved towards their Premium Software label and began charging their users. This is a solid and stable forum software. While it is behind in sales compared to vBulletin, there are many that say it is a top notch software.

SMF – Simple Machines Forums
The last of our forum software overviews happens to be another free forum software package from the folks at SimpleMachines.org. This is a much newer forum software that first came on the scene in Beta format in December of 2003. It really didn’t begin to gain in popularity until early 2005. It has now become one of the players in the free forum software realm. Installation is simple, finctionality is decent (always improving), support is okay as well. Nothing is particularly fantastic about this software, but it is still in its youth. At this point, if you had to choose between free softwares, this would rank as my 2nd choice behind phpBB. It has less to offer along the lines of skins, mods, hacks, etc.

When making a choice between forum software, think about your financial resources and your goal. If you plan to have the forum grow, profit, and be something you are still working on 1-2 years out, then I would say invest in a lifetime vBulletin license. If you are unsure of your goals or your desire to make your new forum concept work, then try a free provider like phpBB as you can always upgrade to a paid solution down the road.