Forum activity?

Liek let's just pretend I've been here this whole time and this isn't something new.

I'm helping someone build a forum, but we're having trouble attracting users. The forum is dedicated to providing support for the software up for purchase (Mostly converters and data compilers such as PDF and Excel using VB.NET and C#) on the main website, as well as general tech talk and programming guides. I've been posting with a few artificial users and having them respond to each other and while I'm starting to see an uprising on views and traffic, nothing is being converted into new users. I've looked around but I'm not a genius at this specific task and was wondering if any of you wonderful animals had any tips or advice.

Who the hell asks a dead forum site how to make a forum active ? There's like 12 active users here and most of them are long users the only reason they rarely get new users is because the label their website with keywords such as "game mods" and "hacks".

It's not just this forum but i'm not alone in saying that forums have been on the decline. So many websites are powered now by Wordpress, I have even seen many have success with Google's blogger.

Your niche sounds very specific, so that will be working in your favor. For SEO I find the current best practice in long tail keywords research. Long Tail Pro, and places like MajesticSEO can help you on the SEO-front.

For converting members I believe you need to have a strong "call to action" page. This is where you ask them to register with your forum. The second step would be a proper welcome to the forum.

Hope this helps

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Originally Posted by HUNSON ABADEER

Who the hell asks a dead forum site how to make a forum active ? There's like 12 active users here and most of them are long users the only reason they rarely get new users is because the label their website with keywords such as "game mods" and "hacks".

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I asked here because people like Game Chief, as in people who actually know things and have a genuine interest in technology, still visit the website. I'm also familiar with the users, and my methods of gaining activity aren't exactly on the up and up. My retort to you would be something to the effect of, "Who has time to post on someone's topic about something so painstakingly obvious and not even bother to think why they'd be posting? Gosh, they must really have a great deal of time on their hands to go to the effort of posting negativity when someone has a genuine query." Go back to Reddit/4chan/8chan/9fag and waste the time of someone else.

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Originally Posted by Kingz V

It's not just this forum but i'm not alone in saying that forums have been on the decline. So many websites are powered now by Wordpress, I have even seen many have success with Google's blogger.

Your niche sounds very specific, so that will be working in your favor. For SEO I find the current best practice in long tail keywords research. Long Tail Pro, and places like MajesticSEO can help you on the SEO-front.

For converting members I believe you need to have a strong "call to action" page. This is where you ask them to register with your forum. The second step would be a proper welcome to the forum.

Hope this helps

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I'm noob queen when it comes to SEO, but I'll definitely look into long tail. I agree on the call to action, right now we're running a coupon promotion with the code only visible if you sign up. I was thinking about telling them to make an introductions section, but I'm afraid to let the forum get too off topic.

SEO is definitely the best way to attract users, but you need keywords that aren't already dominated by a larger market.

Secondly, don't expect too much activity. Forums are a dead medium. People have abandoned them for social media alternatives, such as a Facebook page or Twitter account to follow. If they want support for a topic, they can e-mail you directly or use an e-mail form on your website, neither of which require making an account or navigating a forum.

It's the unfortunate progression of the Internet. Unfortunate for forum lovers, anyway; fortunate for those who want immediate gratification.

I actually thought this was an active forum.

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Originally Posted by bbdoll

I actually thought this was an active forum.

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we still get new members regularly so in that regard, LG is rather ok.

just a smaller close-knit community imo.

^ I think that's putting it pretty generously.

LG is more or less dead, or just pretty inactive. But so are most forums in general now, especially ones like this that are based around games nobody still plays.

We're still afloat, but the activity has notably decreased. A few months ago 20-25 members on daily was the norm. Now it's 10-15 members, if that.

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Originally Posted by Kingz V

just a smaller close-knit community imo.

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Mostly this. Everyone active knows each other, and we hang out on other mediums, like Skype, reddit, Steam, Dota, etc.
I'd say as far as forums go, LG is above average in activity, following the mass forum death after social media took over.

Really to keep things active you need all forms of social media.
Such as: Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and Tumblr.
And you need to have Videos on YouTube.

May not all necessarily contribute to activeness on your forum, however it will help you accomplish the things you were trying with your forum through other mediums of spreading information.

How's it going? Pushing new forums is very, very difficult nowadays. Either the niche already exists or people are too busy with other forms of social media, but the biggest barrier to entry on a new forum is the lack of users. I too tried the use aritifical accounts once upon a time - but there's only so many of them you can have and the biggest draw of a forum is the creative diversity - you can't get that from one person. Tech ones are especially difficult as there's so many - but if it's related to support for specific products then you have that as a unique factor, and can draw users from it. There's a variety of methods but most of them would involve some form of paid advertisement. If you're still doing this, message me and I can try create a couple of different options and weigh them up for you depending on your situation (mostly spend-wise).