Need help promoting my forum retroelectronics.com

togermano

Member
I payed for google ads and facebook ads and yet no one has signed up. I bet I payed around 300 for ads from both combined.
I was thinking about contacting ebay sellers who sell older parts/older games and include a business card with my websites URL . What are some other ways to promote this site?
 
I think you have some fundamental problems with your forum to begin with before you can even look at getting members.

1) Your logo is horrendous. Sorry to be blunt but it hurt my eyes trying to read it. This needs to change.

2) You have 7 nodes with 0 topics and 0 posts. You need to get topics and content in there. If I find a site with empty forums, I am not going to sign up as it would suggest a dead / inactive forum. Get some content in there.

3) Online users now: 2 guests. Again, activity, there is none, if someone see's that, do you think it will give them an incentive to stay?

4) Homepage. You may be new, but the homepage is empty with 2 posts and not much info. Get some news in there, get some buzz going.

5) Look at a forum boosting service, something like postloop or a forum posting server to get some initial seeding into the forum.

Forums need activity to draw members. Sort out your activity and hopefully the members will start to stick around ;)
 
The thing that motivates people into registering at your forum is the content - and as Slavik as already mentioned, you don't really have any.

You need to make at least 1 post in each forum so there are no empty ones, and then instead of spending money on ads, sit down and create some threads and start "talking" on your forums.

If you don't want it to appear like you're talking to yourself, create a few "extra" user accounts and use those in rotation so you're mixing-it-up a bit and creating converations.

Also, ask some questions - people love to share their knowledge and expertise, so pose a few retro questions and see if that helps to draw people in.

Bascially, put in some hard work.

You could also try registering at other forums in your niche (providing they allow links in signatures). Don't spam or troll, just get involved in a genuine way and share your passion, and let people explore your signature link over time. [I get quite a lot of visits as a result of my signature here on XF!! ;)]

Oh, and one final suggestion - get rid of the shoutbox!!! It takes up lots of your homepage and the dates on it are highlighting that there isn't much activity at your site!! (y) People want to get straight into reading a forum, so anything that pushes the forums down the page isn't all that good!

Cheers,
Shaun :D
 
I didn't get a chance to look at your forum but just by reading the other two responses they are spot on. My suggestion is quit spending money on advertising.

Take the money you are now saving on advertising and use it to have some articles written if you don't have the time or literacy skills to do so. Register a couple of different usernames, granted you will be talking to yourself but keep the conversations going between the usernames you are using.

Get content in all of the forums, make sure the site is submitted to the search engines.

No content = No members

When you are making posts, post questions so it intrigues others to want to post a comment, which means they need to register to do so.
 
Have a look at our new site, it's one month old but by filling it with content (look at the frontpage as well) before we started marketting we've managed to build up very quickly. 600 members in a month, all because we chose a niche and then built content that appealed to the people who are interested in the niche. It's basically the same principle with any site as has been mentioned.

http://kairospot.net/forum/

Like your forum the logo fits our theme but it's easy to read the site name and it's quite fun and interesting without being too big. It's not perfect of course but I personally really like it and the fact is I haven't seen the site have less than 5 people online since the first week we launched and most of the time we have atleast 10 people which I'm really proud of for a new site.

Like you we spent a lot of money, but all on the site and none on marketing. We've simply provided the content and what we consider a very well built site (still a few things to be finished) and then used a little bit of Twitter and word of mouth basically to spread the site. Much better than advertising and our registration rates are great and posting activity once people have registered is very good.
 
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