5 Easy Steps On How To Make Your Forum More Succesfull By Kaiser of www.AdminBB.org 1) Patience: Its a key factor in making a forum, and if you don't have any, you might as well not start, because your forum wont go anywhere. 2) Passion: You have to have a passion for making a website, and love it. You cant just make a forum because everyone has one. You have to be really be involved in it for it to be successful. 3) Advertising: You have to have some knowledge on how to get members interested to visit/join your site, or you can just be the only member. There are many websites out there to help you in your goal to make a successful community. Thats one reason why AdminBB.org is here, to help all admins like you reach your goals. 4) Supply & Demand: You have to provide something on your forum that will get people interested and keep them coming back for more. Like ForumPromotion.net is a great example, webmasters visit it frequently on hopes of making their forums more successful, and it does help. 5) Friendliness: You have to be friendly in order to have happy members, and to make your forum have a good atmosphere. Don't be to strict on people for not following your rules. Let them know in a nice manner, and they will gladly listen to you. If you send them a infraction for something small, you are just going to loose another member.
There are plenty of people who say they have patience but either learn what that really means or fail when a long-term project that demands it with sustained effort and time tests them. Likewise, there are those who believe their concentration good enough until their drill sergeants start shooting bullets over their heads while they crawl through the mud for the first time in boot camp.
Yep I totally agree with this. Just today I found out a forum that was up for no less then a month got shut down. Why you ask? Because of the activity was small. People need to realize it doesn't happen like wildfire. It takes its time to burn and eventually spreading around nearing "Forums". I totally forgot what I was saying anyway sweet list and was very helpful.
I have built probably around 10 forums so far. I think you have to know what "successful" is to yourself personally. Some maybe be post counts, others maybe the people that are on the site make it successful. I gave this some thought the other day. Would you want your forum so busy that you do not have time to read the posts or get to know your members? It can happen. Where your site is so busy that all you do is admin it and never get to do anything else? That gets boring too! Like Terrorz mentioned, I feel you can "admin" your site too much. You don't want to give your members the feeling you are only there to be a "boss" as it pushes people away. I have felt success (to me) with only a few members come back, but those same faithful members show up everyday to post something or to reply to a thread on your site. To me that is success. It is not measured by post count, or member count. It is the people who are dedicated to your site and that post frequently. Maybe not everyday, but at least you can count on them at least to show your forum is not dead. To me that is success. Like Terrorz said, something about your site that makes people come back to it. Take this site for example. I probably came here three or four times before I joined. I can tell it will be a successful site. The forum looks clean, it gets posts and people are actually interested in the content. Terrorz, give yourself a pat on the back.
Funny I always give straight infractions Any great tips. I like the patience one, it certainly is true though I've been lucky enough to get overnight activity a lot of times: Advertising Mania, Dragcave Fans(World Chillout) and School Green.