How to advertise?

[Robust]

How can I advertise my forum better? I don't really know the first thing in that department.

https://www.gamingforums.net is my board specifically, but if someone comes along months later it'd help if they could get some tips here too.

 

[RandallC]

Youtube is a good place for gaming also you can use twitch, twitter, facebook. Also go around and comment on blogs about gaming from IGN to GameInformer. You can also purchase smaller forums and merge them into yours then redirect the traffic to your forum. You can affiliate with other gaming forums.

 

[m1ne]

Make your site look more appealing, offer some unique features. Compress those sections down and remove the useless ones. First thing I see on your gaming forum is computing, health, and graphics. You could easily lose 90% of those sections by using prefixes instead.
Create multiple accounts and post on them to make it look active.
Get some top quality content, then share it on other forums and social networks such as Reddit and Twitter. Be consistent with this.

 

[Robust]

@Solidus Which parts don't look appealing? I thought it looked rather nice.

Going to remove some sections now.

Edit: Removed a lot of sections, better now?

 

[RandallC]

The theme is rather plain. Have you ever thought about getting like Fusion Gamer or another gaming theme from PixelExit? Also a nice graphic logo wold help.

 

[Andrej]

Create multiple accounts and post on them to make it look active.

Terrible idea. It's far better IMO to spend time on the site content that makes your forum unique, and then spend time marketing your site, than to spend time talking to yourself and hoping that people will join in. Rather simply ask people to join, friends, colleagues, or any one else.

 

[m1ne]

@Solidus Which parts don't look appealing? I thought it looked rather nice.

Going to remove some sections now.

Edit: Removed a lot of sections, better now?

Better, but still quite a lot. You have the same amount of sections as another forum I have with 250,000 posts.

Terrible idea. It's far better IMO to spend time on the site content that makes your forum unique, and then spend time marketing your site, than to spend time talking to yourself and hoping that people will join in. Rather simply ask people to join, friends, colleagues, or any one else.

Then you must not have tried it. If you have time, then it's a good idea.

 

[RandallC]

I think a new theme will make a impression on your current members.

 

[Robust]

I think a new theme will make a impression on your current members.

Suggestions? I don't want to pay for custom as I've already paid enough out of my pocket and quotes here go up to thousands for a custom theme

 

[RandallC]

Well I was talking about around $25 a theme price......like Fusion or Frag Zone from PixelExit.

 

[Robust]

Better, but still quite a lot. You have the same amount of sections as another forum I have with 250,000 posts.



Then you must not have tried it. If you have time, then it's a good idea.

Thank you so much. I've removed most of them now and generalised them, appropriate for our current activity though. Seems good now?

I'm fine with that idea btw, but I need members looking at my site first. How do I advertise generally?

 

[AlexKim]

To advertise your site and get members to join your site is to join the sites that related to your niche. Get to know members on those sites and then try to get them visit your site plus gave your link in your signatures. Another one I do is to comments on blogs that also niche related.

Hope that helps

 

[m1ne]

Thank you so much. I've removed most of them now and generalised them, appropriate for our current activity though. Seems good now?

I'm fine with that idea btw, but I need members looking at my site first. How do I advertise generally?

Tweet lots of threads with good hashtags.
Reply to relevant reddit threads with your url. (the best)
Post on other webmaster and admin forums weekly.
Maybe join a big gaming forum and be a semi-active member with your url in the signature.

Content is key, though. None of the above will be effective without it.

 

[billybatz9]

How can I advertise my forum better? I don't really know the first thing in that department.

https://www.gamingforums.net is my board specifically, but if someone comes along months later it'd help if they could get some tips here too.

I am going to be cold. I am going to be blunt. And you are going to hate me. But I don't want you following in my foot steps and I want you to be successful. I did this mistake with my first forum and I spent two years on it.

Before you devote all your time to that gaming forum, just read this!

Going broad will be very hard. Trust me. There's this old saying...

"If you're marketing to everybody, you're marketing to nobody"

Do yourself a favor and go with a specific niche. Go with gears of war, call of duty, grand theft auto, something small. This way, you can actually market to somebody! You can pick an audience, market to them, and have a higher chance of actually making a popular forum.

Think about this... how many games do you play? Because I only play one mainly so that's all I am interested in and that's the forum I would join. I wouldn't join an all game forum because I want to talk to experts in my specific game and other individuals about that one particular game. I could care less about other games, so I personally would never join your forum.

If you go small, you will have a market, have an audience, and have a chance. Go big and you will most likely fail. Only 1 out of many forums will succeed. You don't have much content, you don't have writers to write for you daily to add fresh content, and you probably don't have thousands of dollars to market. So why go so big? Pick a video game that is popular, that you love learning and writing about, and stick to that.

Go small and pick a niche. Dominate it, and move on. This is what will make you successful.


..... but this is just my opinion obviously. You will have your own, others will have their own, and i am open-minded to everyone's thoughts. I just thought I would give you a little advice from experience, knowledge from reading, and etc.

Best of luck

 

[Anthony Parsons]

You've got endless marketing issues present right now, simply based that you're trying to launch a very broad gaming forum into a flooded market of well... gaming forums.

Like some advice above already... you need to cut things down to maybe one or two games, then go after those gamers... then expand one game at a time.

Now you have free (your time) versus paid advertising.

Free - with you one or two chosen games, start writing amazing guides, unique than anything out there already. Do videos and post them, how to guides, put them on youtube and link them into your site. Pump them out into other gaming sites as answers to questions, with your branding on them, obviously.

That is just of starters.

Paid - If you have $$$ then blanket specific game niches, being the game or two you have chosen to start with, learn Adwords via a video tutorial system such as Lynda.com and get advertising. You might know of a conference for your chosen game coming up, so blanket that conference with paid adverting via adwords. You can blanket your competition sites as well if they use adsense... effective method to get known, especially once you have killer tutorials and how to videos up and running for the one or two games chosen.

Once you have your first game or two mastered, with members posting without your assistance... then expand to another game, repeat and rinse.

There is a whole bunch I have missed in this, being a quick and dirty run down, but that, with above comments, is enough food for thought for you.

Dig in and prepare to do some hard work if you want to get gamers off their known haunts and onto your site. Difficult work... but achievable with the right method and hard work.

Advertising is a lateral field... you have to think about your audience, and your audience is gaming nerds. They love how to videos of an expert level, watching how to kick arse and take names. Get top players in a game to help you make killer vids... then share them around the web as answers... that is the best advice I will give you for your specific niche and market audience.

Every audience has an "in" but you have to find it, isolate it, then target the hell out of it.