Okay, I launched my new site. Now what?

Levina

Levina

Active member
How or where do I find people to sign up?

My former forum seems to think I'm a threat. They removed a link to my new site from my sig (which is something that is allowed per the forum rules - I put those in myself! 😅 ) And they have taken away my PM permissions. I can't send out PM's. Apparently they are afraid I would start recruiting. I have no intention to. It's a community I helped build and I don't want to harm it, just to get to the staff. What did happen is the staff came over to my site and immediately changed some of the layout on theirs, putting in sidebars where there were none. Copy catting me it seems. So it's rather the other way around.

But anyway, back on topic: where do I find new members?

I'm not on social media. Should I? And then, how does that work in recruiting people there? Any tips, hints, advice? Help maybe even?
 
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Davyc said:
Movie site and Rock Music site (links in my sig). The movie site has over 50,000 page views and 13 non-contributing members after being around since October 2022.
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Should you post all your content on social media with links to your forum ?
Can you find potential website partners / foundational members on social media and have them join your website ?
 
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Digital Doctor said:
I think it was easily predictable. Seen it happen MANY times. 20 years ago it was a common scenario.
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Well that's it, I'm new to this. I started the other forum with a few others out of necessity and by accident, because our old forum of 22 years was shutting down. So I said: can't we build our own site so the community could move over and not be split up? And that's what we did.

But I am totally new to these kinds of shenanigans. It's weird. I just had an email from a member of the other forum, they wanted to PM me and couldn't. It's hilarious. 😅
 
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Okay, so I am suddenly getting a ton of Amazon bots. Over 200 259 now and counting. On the other site I would've probably tried to block them, but I'm letting them crawl. Look here:

Scherm­afbeelding 2025-01-10 om 18.48.01.webp

I wonder what triggered that...
 
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Sorry, just seen the link in your sig.

I'd add some kind of widget to the home page to showcase latest photos immediately when new users land.

Start creating content that other people may wish to link to or find interesting and therefore share, such as gear reviews. You can then share these links on other social networks and facebook groups, which will drive traffic and potentially new members.

Try to think of a feature that photographers may find useful that doesn't exist on other sites which may incentivise them to join yours. This one may be more difficult as it may require more dev time, but it will help you stand out and gain more users based on feature merit of your site.
 
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The home page shows that already:

Scherm­afbeelding 2025-01-10 om 19.27.15.webp

I didn't make the home page the landing page though. Maybe that is a mistake? Should I change that? And maybe the images need to be bigger? Problem is there aren't any really good photo widgets out there. I would love a media wall with larger, justified images instead of all those squares where everything is cut off.

As to doing something different to other sites, I am running articles which is not something other photography forums do. I already posted a few articles and essays on photography related (and subject related!) topics. And I also have a few community projects in mind for Articles. But for that I need members. And I don't have any.

I can't think of anything else, to be honest. I could do Photoshop tutorials, but YouTube is already stuffed with those. I have made a few short Photoshop how-to's that I will post in Resources later, but I have no idea what I could do next.
 
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RobinHood said:
Ahh, nevermind. Your link goes to your forums tab, not the home page. Homepage looks much better with the photos and articles.
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Thanks. I agree. What do you think, should I make the home page the landing page?

Looking at your screenshot, I should maybe trim that notice. It's a bit large... 🤭
 
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Levina said:
should I make the home page the landing page?
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Definitely, the home page should be an optimised landing page logged out users showing them the best overview of recent content from your site and what you can offer a new user to encourage them to click through to somewhere else on your site or engage with content.

You can potentially change it or optimise it for logged in users too.
 
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RobinHood said:
Definitely, the home page should be an optimised landing page logged out users showing them the best overview of recent content from your site and what you can offer a new user to encourage them to click through to somewhere else on your site or engage with content.

You can potentially change it or optimise it for logged in users too.
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Gotcha! Thank you so much.
 
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Ask your members (and you) to rename pictures before/after they upload them… 20201002_R6_096.webp is not really SEO friendly…
 
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Starting a brand new forum is fun but whether or not it succeeds is a different story. You might have a good chance because of the niche but getting people to join and then post is the hard part. Your best chance was on that forum. You should try social media and give it a shot. In the meantime write lots of articles with a minimum of at least 700 words. That will attract google to crawl your site. It’ll probably take a year or so before you start making an impact on search engines but maybe even sooner. I like the color scheme and feel of your forum but I think you have way too many forums that have zero posts. Do you need all those forums? Maybe just make them into sub forums? Less forums looks better if you don’t have a lot of posting activity.
 
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80sDude said:
Starting a brand new forum is fun but whether or not it succeeds is a different story. You might have a good chance because of the niche but getting people to join and then post is the hard part. Your best chance was on that forum. You should try social media and give it a shot. In the meantime write lots of articles with a minimum of at least 700 words. That will attract google to crawl your site. It’ll probably take a year or so before you start making an impact on search engines but maybe even sooner.
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Yeah, that forum. I put my heart and soul in it... But that's a thing of the past now. Moving on. So on to social media and writing articles. At least 700 words eh? I can do that.

80sDude said:
I like the color scheme and feel of your forum but I think you have way too many forums that have zero posts. Do you need all those forums? Maybe just make them into sub forums? Less forums looks better if you don’t have a lot of posting activity.
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You have a point. I too am not happy with the long list of empty forums.

I don't want to touch the photo sharing section but I could reduce the gear section, turn forums into sub forums. Yes, I think that would be an option. I'll work on it, try a few things.

Thanks!
 
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Levina said:
Yeah, that forum. I put my heart and soul in it... But that's a thing of the past now. Moving on. So on to social media and writing articles. At least 700 words eh? I can do that.


You have a point. I too am not happy with the long list of empty forums.

I don't want to touch the photo sharing section but I could reduce the gear section, turn forums into sub forums. Yes, I think that would be an option. I'll work on it, try a few things.

Thanks!
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The main piece of advice that I’ll give you is just have fun with it. Its not easy to make it thanks to the walmart of forums social media, quora and reddit but nothing can stop you from enjoying your forum.
 
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People, as a whole, like colors and pictures. May help to put your article widget in the top spot above the forums. Looks like you are using @Bob AMS, has very good widget for that.

Lots of content, and make sure the search engines are checking your site.
 
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