Survivalist Boards

Discussion in 'Community Showcase' started by kev, Mar 13, 2009.

  1. kev

    kev Regular Member

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    The Survivalist Boards forum went online in April of 2006 using a content management system that contained an integrated forum. The idea was to have a fully featured website with reviews, downloads and a forum. Untold hours were spent on writing articles, taking pictures for the articles, link building and promotion.

    Almost a year later, the results were disappointing. Only about 800 people had signed up, and only a few thousand post had been made. In March of 2007 I closed the site, bought a VBulletin license, reopened the site in April 2007 and started an aggressive promotion strategy.

    The same time I reopened the site, I also opened a youtube account and started posting my own home made videos.

    http://www.youtube.com/user/survivalistboards

    The forum was started fresh, with 0 post. And I very much regret not using the IMPEX feature of vbulletin to move those few thousand post over to the new forum. It would have really helped to jump start things. Within a few days, a dozen or so of the original members signed back up and started posting.

    After the new forum opened, the first 2 months were not impressive. The traffic was steady, but nothing to brag about. The 3rd month was a little depressing. Reports showed that between the 2nd and 3rd months, traffic dropped by 15% - 20%. During the 3rd month after the site opened, I was asking myself if I had made a mistake - and I was seriously considering closing the site again.

    At the end of the 4th month, traffic showed a slight increase, and so did the 5th month. The traffic reports from those 2 months gave me the hope I needed to keep the site online.

    Lets just go ahead and fast forward to March of 2009 - 23 months after the site was reopened.

    The forum now gets:

    2.94 million page views monthly
    20 - 60 new members daily
    1,500 - 2,100 post every 24 hours
    Ranks #1 in google for its targeted keywords
    Has over 290,000 pages indexed with google
    Reports show that in the last 6 months, traffic has doubled - both in unique visitors and page views.
    Every 30 days, traffic to the site grows by 9% - 16% - and has done so for the past year.
     
  2. Nick

    Nick Regular Member

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    Very nice work, Kevin! You have built up a great website for your niche.

    Perhaps you could add a little paragraph as to what your forum's purpose is. (Or link to an About Us page on your site, if you have one). This makes it easier to add your site to the Featured Forum module of the sidebar on the homepage and the blog. :)
     
  3. kev

    kev Regular Member

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    I dont really have an "about us" thread or post.

    That is a good suggestion. But if you have ever been through a hurricane, or know your history, then you already know what the site is about.
     

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