1 year anniversary of my forum! How am I doing?

[PatriotGB]

Today marks the 1 year anniversary of starting my forum.

Stats as of this moment:


Is there a statistical threshold at which point the forum is attractive to advertisers?

 

[Nicolas FR]

I think advertisers will be interested in the number of page views per month, they don't care about the number of threads, posts and members.

 

[Davyc]

It's useful to have a home page made with the Pages node as you can optionally add, through the settings, a start date and how many page views you're getting. An example would be from one of my sites about movies; see below:



I don't advertise, don't push. It's there if people find it useful, but that number indicates a level of interest I would have be unaware of despite the lack of people joining lol.

 

[PatriotGB]

I think advertisers will be interested in the number of page views per month, they don't care about the number of threads, posts and members.

OK... Yes, of course. What is the threshold (of page views), generally speaking? At what point does a forum get noticed or interest? I suppose, to some degree, it depends on the niche or subject.... A car forum vs a bird watching forum, for example.

 

[Davyc]

What is the threshold, generally speaking?

I would imagine that would be for individual advertisers to decide - also, it would depend on what they are advertising and whether a particular forum would be complimentary to their products or services. However, allowing potential advertisers to see how much traffic is passing through your site will determine if they are interested.

 

[PatriotGB]

However, allowing potential advertisers to see how much traffic is passing through your site will determine if they are interested.

Best way for that to happen?

 

[Davyc]

Best way for that to happen?

As noted above create a home page and let it show how many people are visiting your site - it's an impartial and transparent way of letting them see as it is generated by the system. I've done this on all three of my sites as it's not just a way of showing how many visits you receive, it also allows you direct visitors to where you would like them to be, or view what you consider to be important. After that they can find their own way around your site - it's a win-win option

 

[PatriotGB]

As noted above create a home page and let it show how many people are visiting your site - it's an impartial and transparent way of letting them see as it is generated by the system. I've done this on all three of my sites as it's not just a way of showing how many visits you receive, it also allows you direct visitors to where you would like them to be, or view what you consider to be important. After that they can find their own way around your site - it's a win-win option

I have a home page. But it's in a Wordpress section of the site - "site.com." Most visitors are going directly to the forum, which is the "site.com/forums" main page with all the forum sections. Is there a way to put that counter at the bottom of the main forums page?

Looking at my Google Analytics.... in the last month....



Though, according to "SimilarWeb.com," my traffic in December:

 

[Davyc]

I'm afraid I know little about WordPress as I haven't used it in decades. You would need the advice of some who codes in WP or see if there is a WP plugin that shows visits.

 

[PatriotGB]

I'm afraid I know little about WordPress as I haven't used it in decades. You would need the advice of some who codes in WP or see if there is a WP plugin that shows visits.

Yeah... my point was that I'm not really interested in the number of visits to the home page. It will be a LOT lower than the Forums section. The home page is the blog, basically, which is not very active. The forum is hopping, relatively speaking.

I just calculated the average daily posts... about 65 posts per day for the first year. For a niche forum, I think that's pretty decent.

Ultimately, my goal is a viable forum that at least pays for itself. For now, I'm footing the bill entirely myself.

 

[Nicolas FR]

Some serious advertisers claim a GA guest access to get data.

 

[Davyc]

Yeah... my point was that I'm not really interested in the number of visits to the home page. It will be a LOT lower than the Forums section. The home page is the blog, basically, which is not very active. The forum is hopping, relatively speaking.

Why not ditch the WP part if it's of little interest and make your homepage on the forum and then you get the best of everything. If your members and visitors are bypassing the WP part, then it obviously serves no purpose. It's not difficult to create a homepage via the forum software and it will be far more use in directing new people to the genuinely interesting parts of your site.

Make the best use of what's at hand and make it shine - your members and visitors will probably appreciate that more than a dead home page that is only used to access your forum. You can even get hold of @Bob blog software to recreate a blog or make use of the article forum type to generate a blog. Xenforo has an array of built-in features that give you pretty much a free hand to be creative.

 

[TPerry]

You can even get hold of @Bob blog software to recreate a blog or make use of the article forum type to generate a blog. Xenforo has an array of built-in features that give you pretty much a free hand to be creative.

I don't know if Blogs would work as well as AMS would. Blogs would be more specific to the users themselves and locking it down to certain persons only may cause issues, and if not locked down the users might feel "entitled" to make off topic ones thinking it's for their "personal" use as most blogs are.
AMS on the other had, being an Article Management System tends to lend itself better to most instances.
I have been contemplating getting Blogs for my site and showing a notice that the blogs MUST be topical... but I still am not that enamored of the idea of a blog compared to specific topical articles.