Forum Development - Do you own a forum?

[atwellpub]

Do you own a forum? Is it successful? Was it a complete failure? If you do share it on this thread and mention something about your experience with it.

[howinfo]

We recently added a forum to our website. As the main website was doing really well we thought that adding a forum would be a good idea. We have never run forum before, so it is a big learning experience. It is still early days and we have about two hundred active members but overall it is still very quiet. At this point we can not say yet if it is going to be a failure or a success.

[MJ Sterling]

It took a while to build my forum into a powerhouse but it was worth it.

I started off with a normal site and as the traffic increased over time I increased the level of user interaction.

At first there was none bar a contact form, when I started getting feedback from visitors on a regular basis I added a comments form on each page (moved to a blogging platform).

Then when the site began getting a fair few comments each day I opened a forum, just a couple of boards to start with and as they became busier I expanded the amount of boards.

Now the entire site is 100% user generated, with a great team of mods keeping things under control I don't have to touch it anymore.

[Sparhawke]

Originally Posted by howinfo

We recently added a forum to our website. As the main website was doing really well we thought that adding a forum would be a good idea. We have never run forum before, so it is a big learning experience. It is still early days and we have about two hundred active members but overall it is still very quiet. At this point we can not say yet if it is going to be a failure or a success.

Holy crap Howinfo, I am not suprised your forum is quiet when you expect people to wade through so many subforums...the chances of anyone seeing a particular topic is next to nil lol

Starting with so many subforums is the one rule with building a forum that you have broken and I am not being nasty in saying that, it is a fine balance that you have to get used to, I would see that forum of yours and not even bother lol (which I suspect people are already doing, coming in to get one questio answered and you will never see them again)

Start with about 5-10 main forums and expand from there, getting ideas and feedback from those actually posting over the course of a few weeks.

If someone asks if you can start a subforum for "How to start the apocalypse" you will then be able to figure out if people really want it or if you have a possible nutter on your hands.

By having it spread out so much you have effectively killed any growth, the best forums are those that are compact until necessity drives them to become larger.

Start with:

"How to: Financial"
"How to: Computers"
"How to: Health"
"How to: Jobs"
"How to: Entertainment industry"
"How to: Internet Marketer"
"How to: Law"

And expand on them as time passes.

Good Luck

(I do not own my own forum as yet but I am an admin on one of the larger gaming fansites and everyone would probably agree with me lol)

[duncanb]

If you can select the right niche, a forum can grow organically whcih is great, but choosing that nich is the difficult thing!

[Intrepreneur]

TV show niche forums seem to do wuite well on the basis of getting regular news users. Also technical forums but the thing is getting them off the ground.

[Brad Gosse]

In my experience forum building is the hardest at the beginning. Consider employing friends and family to help populate the discussion. You need to have an active forum for the very first user to want to participate.

[duncanb]

Forums relating to a particular industry do well, but there may be heavy competition whcih can be discouraging.

[Akin Alabi]

I own 6 forums with an average of 4,000 members each. It's a lot of work but I'm enjoying it.

I have a marketing forum, will not do no self promotion here although my forum is 100% ad free... It is small but the members are the greatest and we all help each other out when someone ask for help.

This is not the first time I owned a forum but forums are one of the hardest things to get going. Depends upon how much time your put into marketing it.. I do not push mine that hard as I love it as it is, nice and small and a place we all can call home...

James

[howinfo]

Originally Posted by Sparhawke

Holy crap Howinfo, I am not suprised your forum is quiet when you expect people to wade through so many subforums...the chances of anyone seeing a particular topic is next to nil lol

Starting with so many subforums is the one rule with building a forum that you have broken and I am not being nasty in saying that, it is a fine balance that you have to get used to, I would see that forum of yours and not even bother lol (which I suspect people are already doing, coming in to get one questio answered and you will never see them again)

Start with about 5-10 main forums and expand from there, getting ideas and feedback from those actually posting over the course of a few weeks.

If someone asks if you can start a subforum for "How to start the apocalypse" you will then be able to figure out if people really want it or if you have a possible nutter on your hands.

By having it spread out so much you have effectively killed any growth, the best forums are those that are compact until necessity drives them to become larger.

Start with:

"How to: Financial"
"How to: Computers"
"How to: Health"
"How to: Jobs"
"How to: Entertainment industry"
"How to: Internet Marketer"
"How to: Law"

And expand on them as time passes.

Good Luck

(I do not own my own forum as yet but I am an admin on one of the larger gaming fansites and everyone would probably agree with me lol)

I have been thinking of doing something like you suggested but I have not figured out the way to do it that I would be happy with.

I know the forum looks extensive at the fist glimpse but I think it is quite easy to find what you looking for , plus it is in alphabetical order. If I was to make only the categories you have suggested then it would make it harder to find what you looking for as it would all gets mixed up.

Also I was planning to remove the categories that will not take off in the future.

One of the reason I have done it this way is how I use forums myself.
For instance, the warrior forum I only use Main Internet Marketing Discussion Forum, I have no interest in other sections so what I have done is that I have saved it to my favourites and every time I access it, it will take me right there bypassing the front page entirely. And so is the other forums I ma using, I only use one or two categories I am interested in and I prefer that the category is only concentrated to that particular topic.

Anyway, I would love to get it working as it is at the moment, but as I said I have no experience running the forum so at one point I would probably have to change it around the way you suggested.

I do however appreciate you comments and you are not the only one who has pointed these tings out to me so you are probably right after all.

[fab]

I have a forum that's been up for 2-3 years now, 6,000+ members but I left it alone for the last year or more and participation died. I still get about 100 new signups a week (but little participation), about 400+ uniques a week almost all from free google traffic, no paid traffic at all, no monetization at all yet either.

As of yet I don't even email my 6,000 member list, ever. I've committed all the marketing sins possible on this project!

I've now switched to vBulletin and am getting ready to really put some time into it and use all of the great marketing techniques I've learned here on WF. I think this will be a great year for my little forum, I expect a ton of growth with all the changes I'm going to implement, I'm really excited!

[innocent07]

Originally Posted by Akin Alabi

I own 6 forums with an average of 4,000 members each. It's a lot of work but I'm enjoying it.

Are you making money of any of them, monertizing your users by any methods?

[howinfo]

Originally Posted by fab

I have a forum that's been up for 2-3 years now, 6,000+ members but I left it alone for the last year or more and participation died. I still get about 100 new signups a week (but little participation), about 400+ uniques a week almost all from free google traffic, no paid traffic at all, no monetization at all yet either.

As of yet I don't even email my 6,000 member list, ever. I've committed all the marketing sins possible on this project!

I've now switched to vBulletin and am getting ready to really put some time into it and use all of the great marketing techniques I've learned here on WF. I think this will be a great year for my little forum, I expect a ton of growth with all the changes I'm going to implement, I'm really excited!

What is the name of your forum, would be interesting to take look and maybe steal some ideas.

[innocent07]

Originally Posted by howinfo

What is the name of your forum, would be interesting to take look and maybe steal some ideas.

Mine is the warrior forum. Steal all you want,

hehe

[howinfo]

Originally Posted by innocent07

Mine is the warrior forum. Steal all you want,

hehe

Well done, I think warrior forum is one of the best forum I have ever joined. It has not only lot of useful information but it looks good and is easy to navigate. Certainly here is lot of things to learn from in every sense.

[cowsgonemadd3]

Forums don't earn much on ads....I had one for a while and well it needed more work than it was worth.

[howinfo]

Originally Posted by cowsgonemadd3

Forums don't earn much on ads....I had one for a while and well it needed more work than it was worth.

I suppose you are right, but forum can be still good addition to your main site.

Only if I could get a dollar for a every spammer who signs up I would be very rich man.

[Marty S]

This worked for me...

Does forum help?

[TheJedi]

I have had a forum for aspiring pickup artists for the last 2 years and it has done very well considering it pretty much runs itself now. I originally set it up simply as a labor of love, no sign-up fees or adwords, but quickly realized that:

1) setting it up as a local forum was a mistake. I should have set my sites on a broader category of members, and

2) I should have found ways to monetize it from the very beginning.

But the experience I have gained from creating and running the site has been extremely valuable. Live and learn, I guess. I'm sure I will be creating more forums in the future with varying topics and, hopefully, will start to reap financial rewards for my efforts instead of just praise.

*Marty S - Thank you for the link. It contains some very useful information.

[Melani]

Originally Posted by cowsgonemadd3

Forums don't earn much on ads....I had one for a while and well it needed more work than it was worth.

Not always true, it depends on the size mostly. I've run a few forums, and my most successful one generated a nice portion of the income off advertisements. Then again, it had 40,000 + members and an average 15,000 users hitting it each day... that certainly helped.