What should i do to get more traffic?

[Abhishek]

Hey all,

I own a phpBB forum. I have customized it with my own skills and made a custom theme for it too. It has lots of categories to be discussed in. Also i am promoting it a lot on other sites and forums but still i am not getting much activity. I need some tips to get activity and make it a successful community.

Link to my forum: http://www.boardreloaded.com/forum

[djr33]

Quality. Really, it's as simple as that. There are small tricks you can do to generate a bit more traffic, but the only way to create and maintain a successful forum (or any website, really) is to have something useful for users. Rather than looking at tricks, just work on that.

Secondly, your website looks like just another forum. There are already hundreds of websites out there that have similar topics. Why should anyone go to yours?


With these comments I'm not trying to be harsh, just realistic. As a simple example, consider Google+. There are two problems with it:
1. There are already popular sites that serve the same purpose. Facebook, for example. So there's very little chance that even Google can duplicate that kind of network. If it feels discouraging, that's probably why. There's no "reason" Google+ or your site can't work, except that it just might not because there's already a site out there.
2. There's nothing special about Google+. Users don't need it, and they don't want it. If they wanted it, they'd use Facebook, which already exists. Otherwise, it's just not helpful.


My honest recommendation: get rid of the whole forum, and start over with a specific topic. A forum about talking (that is: everything) isn't going to get you very far.

As a specific point, the main forums page is way too long and awkward. This would also be solved by picking a more specific topic.



Beyond all of that, I also think it's crucial to have more than a forum. To take Dynamic Drive as an example, why is the forum popular? Because the site is popular. There's more on DD than just a forum, and it works. (I'm not saying that always works, but most successful forums do have successful sites around them.)

[jscheuer1]

Yes. And this really is too general of a question (something you should use Google for) and/or the sort of thing (site reviews) that we discourage except for established users in good standing.

As a result, I'm closing this thread.

If you have a specific question about your - say meta tags, or content, as it relates to getting more traffic, please feel free to open a new thread on the topic. If you do though, please do not hot link to your site. Use a text only link, one without the http or www parts.