How do you get traffic to your forum/blog ?

[skyfire]

I have forum on programming and i want more visitors and members on it. What methods can you suggest to get more members and readers ? Also post your suggestion so that it fits with blog ans forum as well.

How to get active members for forum and readers for blog ? How to generate traffic for blog & forum ? Any tips, suggestions and techniques ?

[magician661]

Refer to this http://www.webpronews.com/topnews/2004/12/10/how-to-build-traffic-to-your-blog
it is very helpful.

[skyfire]

That's nice. But if you've forum then how will you bring more members to forum ? (I can't offer contest cause of lack of cash so any other way?).

[ekta74]

I am not sure if it will be helpful enough to get you members on your programming forum but some easy and free methods to drive traffic to your website are:

1)One of the best method to get some free traffic to your site is through TRAFFIC EXCHANGE NETWORKS or TEXT AD EXCHANGES The best part about traffic exchanges is you will get some free traffic to your site which can only help.

2)Another free traffic method is using articles to drive it their. Writing articles and submitting to article directories will drive traffic to your site and it's a great free way that people are using more today than ever before.

3)Social networking is where you meet people like yourself and you can exchange ideas about growing your business. The best part about social networking is the relationships that are built through these organizations. These are great traffic builders for your business.

4)Using splash pages and a free gift to drive traffic to your sites. A splash page is a fancy designed or even a generic page that let's you give away a free gift in exchange for their email address and name.. Sure they may only sign up for the free gift, but you now have an email address to market to and their taken to your web site.

5)Blogs is probably the hottest thing right now in Internet marketing and it gives you a way to get tons of free traffic to your site in various ways.

6)Some free traffic methods that still work well, but have been overlooked are free classified ads. Free classified ads are still used on the Internet and contrary to popular belief they do work. People visit them and actually see what people have to offer. Classified ads don't pull like they once did, but don't kid yourself they are still a valuable resource. I've saved the last two as they are my favorite.

7) The last and in my opinion one of the best ways is to visit lots of forums. Forums let you create a signature file and most will let you post free ads to drive even more traffic to your web site. Each day new forums are put up and it doesn't look like that will stop anytime soon. Forums are one of the best free traffic methods that exist today.

[madringo]

I found by joining and posting on forums with similar interests you can build your user base substantially - just don't go spamming as you won't do yourself any favours. Become affiliates with similar forums, or go into partnership with a blogger.

[skyfire]

Thanks ekta that was helpful information in case of blog and sites.

Now let's come to promotion of forums and getting more member for it part. How many of you have forums and how you managed to get more members to it ?

[akashjshah]

I'm struggling with this too. I mostly use Twitter for now. Whenever I write a new article, I post a link on Twitter and get 100+ views for that article. Pretty effective...

Great information on this page by the way.

[Fergal]

skyfire, you might find the threads below helpful when it comes to promoting your forum;

Play detective to attract more forum members (http://www.businessadviceforum.com/showthread.php?t=1637)
Tips for your forum (http://www.businessadviceforum.com/showthread.php?t=685)
Some advice on my new forum (http://www.businessadviceforum.com/showthread.php?t=1509)
Starting a new Forum & It's revenue (http://www.businessadviceforum.com/showthread.php?t=3375)

Forum Promotion (link in my signature) is another excellent resource for helping to promote your forum, however I believe you're already a member?

You say that you don't have money to run a contest, but have you considered contests that you could run, that would not cost you any money? For example you could have a member of the week / month contest, that gives the winner a badge or title, without any prize money. Or you could offer advertising space on your forum as a prize.

Please post back with some of your thoughts and we will do our best to help you.

[skyfire]

@Fergal,Thanks for the reply. I'll go through those links.

And yes i'm member at forum-promotion and i'll be getting some help from there for some of the boards on my forum. Also i tried to think about running badge or member of the week contest but as my forum in in programming & development niche it is hard to convince members about such contests. Paid contests are likely to attract them to it than such community based contest. Also i'm not running any point system because of same reason. I think programming/development niche has different way of attracting and keeping members, i don't know the knack of doing that. But i want to know what others think about getting visitors to such niche.

[GekiDan]

You can do Link Exchange to related sites to your niche. Also try to include a Social Bookmarking tool on your forum or blog so that readers can easily submit our posts on these sites. You can get lots of visitors from these site.

[simplyjo]

I use these methods -

1. Register at blog communities like mybloglog - make friends, join groups and you can easily find new readers.

2. Social bookmark and ping every new post to your blog - Use sites like digg, stumbleupon, reditt, newsvine, minxx, propeller for bookmarks and pinggoat for pings.

3. Publicize by posting useful info in related forums and add blog url in your signature

4. Write articles and submit to Ezines with your blog url in signature

5. Direct people to your blog while visiting other blogs - leave a comment and ask blog owner/readers to visit your blog as well

6. Make hub pages, squidoo lens directing to your blog

7. Open an account on Twitter, follow people to have good followers and then start tweeting blog updates .

Try some or all of these ways and I can guarantee you will get great traffic.
Jo

[Fergal]

...I think programming/development niche has different way of attracting and keeping members, i don't know the knack of doing that. But i want to know what others think about getting visitors to such niche.

Programmers are very keen on status and on being recognised for their talents and abilities. This is the main reason why many programmers contribute so much to open source projects. They do it for the status and recognition rather than any monetary reward. The inventors of some of the original technology that drives the Internet gave, the code and IP away for free, even though they were advised that they could make a lot of money from it. They wanted it to be open and available to everyone.

Perhaps you can find away to tap into that desire for status and recognition?

[turbulence]

Currently i am utilizing facebook, forums and social bookmarking sites but i am also considering press release sites and other promotional channels like article directories

[OllieMcPhee]

Content is King...

If you have your content in a structure thats easy to read and easy to refer, then if your content is good enough it will market itself.

If you want to grow, target your main audience and focus on getting a loyal hub of visitors... if you cant get any loyal visitors in your target audience then there isnt much point in trying to market to the whole web

[skyfire]

Thanks simplyjo,olliemcphee for sharing.


@Fergal

The inventors of some of the original technology that drives the Internet gave, the code and IP away for free, even though they were advised that they could make a lot of money from it. They wanted it to be open and available to everyone.

Perhaps you can find away to tap into that desire for status and recognition?

I have to agree with this. I'm programmer as well and i can understand the point but i think for development forum there should be offer more than reputation & badges. These are old concepts and i don't know what to pick for attracting members. Besides that i have to increase forum members as well.

[Fergal]

...for development forum there should be offer more than reputation & badges...

I agree that reputation and banners will not be enough, hence I suggested that you might think about ways to recognise members on your forum. Maybe you could have a list of the five most helpful members on your forum home page, maybe you could install a thanks mod or simply run a member of the week / month contest. These are just ideas, you will need to think about it and come up with something that will motivate your members.

Two approaches I would take are as follows;

1. Look at what your competitors are doing and then figure out a way of doing it better. Also when you are on your competitor's sites look at suggestions being offered by their members.
2. Ask your current members for their opinions and suggestions

Good luck with it, I hope it works out for you.

[nirose]

Ok the main thing is that your forum should be having some quality programming and tech stuffs on your site to get recognition. Then Do some bookmarking and link exchange with other similar sites and blog.

Start discussion on other tech forums about your forum.

Make yourself some banner and spread it arround, use it in your sig and blogs.

This will help you get good traffic.

[skyfire]

Two approaches I would take are as follows;

1. Look at what your competitors are doing and then figure out a way of doing it better. Also when you are on your competitor's sites look at suggestions being offered by their members.
2. Ask your current members for their opinions and suggestions

Thanks fergal,for these 2 tips. I'm going to try out the first method.

[Fergal]

Good luck with that skyfire, please post back to let us know how it is working out for you or if you have any further questions.

[BenjaminCip]

Talking about free traffic exchange network, I'll create one on my website soon. So don't hesitate to come back on my blog once it will be ready.

[GekiDan]

Talking about free traffic exchange network, I'll create one on my website soon. So don't hesitate to come back on my blog once it will be ready.
It's good to hear that BenjaminCip!
Rest assured I will join your program once it starts.

[alirex]

Your forum is based on SMF , and as u made a Code / Script / Language based forum so best i can suggest is. Make Mods and Themes for SMF and post them free on SMF and get some popularity first and later users will enter your arena for more demands. This all need patience those who are getting successed today left a hard mark in there path from ages and now they are enjoying those foot prints. So u too start walking give yourself versatile features in Coding and later people will drive towards u.

That is all i can suggest

Dont play with money or u will give your members greedy nature , once u stop competition there they will stop coming. So just play safe not to make users Addicted money lover.

[Sahil]

Your forum is based on SMF , and as u made a Code / Script / Language based forum so best i can suggest is. Make Mods and Themes for SMF and post them free on SMF and get some popularity first and later users will enter your arena for more demands. This all need patience those who are getting successed today left a hard mark in there path from ages and now they are enjoying those foot prints. So u too start walking give yourself versatile features in Coding and later people will drive towards u.

That is all i can suggest

Dont play with money or u will give your members greedy nature , once u stop competition there they will stop coming. So just play safe not to make users Addicted money lover.

Hi,

Thanks for the suggestion, but one thing I would like to point out is, it is not SMF but it is vBulletin.

[MasterGreg]

My friend told me that the easiest way to get traffic on a blog is through forum signature link promotion. And he told me that these links works and gives a lot of visitors to his blog.

[alirex]

Hi,

Thanks for the suggestion, but one thing I would like to point out is, it is not SMF but it is vBulletin.

But i can see his site have

Powered by SMF | SMF © 2006-2009, Simple Machines LLC | Sitemap

that is SMF not vBulletin

[Fergal]

But i can see his site have...
that is SMF not vBulletin

You're right Alirex http://www.codesynapse.net/ is powered by SMF.

[eddane]

Try article marketing. It is a good way of getting many backlinks.

You have to write good content though.

Ed

[samklein]

I've been experimenting with submitting my blogs and website updates to StumbleUpon, Digg, and Twitter. But be careful, their algorithms look not just at what you submit but how active you are, if you contribute to the site (i.e. give positive and negative ratings), and if you have submissions and how popular they are.

[Fergal]

I've been experimenting with submitting my blogs and website updates to StumbleUpon, Digg, and Twitter...

Welcome to Business Advice Forum samklein. How has that been working out for you, has it helped increase your traffic?

You can also promote your blog in our Member Ads & Marketplace (http://www.businessadviceforum.com/forumdisplay.php?f=11) forum and in your signature (http://www.businessadviceforum.com/profile.php?do=editsignature) here on Business Advice Forum.

[sigma]

My friend told me that the easiest way to get traffic on a blog is through forum signature link promotion. And he told me that these links works and gives a lot of visitors to his blog.
forum signature is one of the social media that can generate traffic. Other than forum signature, you can try on article submission, blog commenting, yahoo answering and youtube video submission too

[magician661]

That's nice. But if you've forum then how will you bring more members to forum ? (I can't offer contest cause of lack of cash so any other way?).

I think these link will help you
http://www.communityspark.com/a-quick-way-to-attract-more-forum-members/
http://ezinearticles.com/?Three-Ways-to-Attract-More-Members-to-Your-Forum&id=2004726

[samklein]

Fergal,

Thanks for the warm welcome. We've actually managed to land a few of our company blogs on the StumbleUpon and Reddit front pages, but unfortunately they weren't entirely relevant to the company or our product. Our CTO occasionally offers programming tips in his blog and we've gained some traction with those, but otherwise the only other posts we've gotten high traffic for have been picdumps and/or humorous content. We make reporting software and it is very hard to get people excited about it.

Do you have any experience with Social Marketing?

[Fergal]

samklein, please feel free to start a new thread in our relevant forum section, with any specific questions you have, regarding your own sites. Thankfully we have quite a few members here with experience of this type of promotion.

Those results will hopefully have demonstrated the potential of social media marketing for your business and we'd be delighted to offer you suggestions and offer help with any questions you have.

[AndreyW]

If you want to increase you forum traffic, the only way you can do this quick and effective, is using keywords that are specific to the website main theme. In this way, you target specific search queries, what makes possibility to get a click on your website higher.

So if you have a energy related website, there is no point to use general keywords, as "energy" or "electricity". Because there are hundreds of millions of webpages that have this words. And if your website has a page rank less than 10, it will just get lost in search results and their will never be a click from the search engine.

Example: there is a purpose to increase traffic of a webpage http://energysupply.biz/add-url-energy-directory.html from the energy oriented companies.

There is no use to write "submit URL for FREE!!!!!!!"
We write "add energy URL for free", "add electricity supplier for free to Energy Directory"
It is also useful to add words as "Microseismic Company" or "Vacuum Oil Filter Machine" - specific words that are included in the directory.

Only some thousands are writing "Microseismic Company" and people, who are looking for this are really looking for microseismic companies. This way there is a chance for a website with PR 3.

If you add a word "Lubricant Oil Regeneration" to your keywords, there is a chance, that there will be a click one your website. To the webpage with PR less than 10 and with keywords "Submit URL" - there will never be a click!

You surely has many such programming specific words in your forum, so use them. This way chance to get a click from a search engine is more than 0.

And as it was said above, make submissions to different directories, blogs, forums, classified ads.
I think that combining both methods (keywords and submissions) would be the most successful way to you.

[blinkky]

A lot of questions there. Try read what others do to generate traffic for their blog or forum Try to do some experiments and stick with the method that suitable with you. I've a blog and what works for me is visiting other blogs. Leave some useful comments and I'm sure you'll get some traffic =)

[balegere]

Twitter
Make sure you a lot of followers.
This will help in driving traffic to your blog/forum.

[GekiDan]

Twitter
Make sure you a lot of followers.
This will help in driving traffic to your blog/forum.
Twitter is a very limited source of traffic.
Link exchanges to a related and high traffic site is the best source of traffic. I just remember one time that I got over 1k visitors a day from one of the sites that's linking to my site.

[balegere]

Is there any way to get cheap links from high traffic websites?
Most high traffic sites charge a lot of money for displaying a link.

[sigma]

Is there any way to get cheap links from high traffic websites?
Most high traffic sites charge a lot of money for displaying a link.

Yes, you can find it at some webmaster forum such as digitalpoint forum.

[keshavn73]

go to yahoo answers and provide them answers and below they will ask you if you have referd any website put your there...
bet you are gonna get visitors and make sure that your content is good really good so that they get attracted and join you...
look at this (http://businessadviceforum.com/showthread.php?t=5556&highlight=forum) hope this helps...

[Keaton]

I have a friend who puts frames on bebo pages that he has thousands of friends on and they then click the advert and go on my website. That is how all my websites have thousands of hits. :P

[Fergal]

I have a friend who puts frames on bebo pages that he has thousands of friends on and they then click the advert and go on my website. That is how all my websites have thousands of hits. :P

Keaton that sounds very interesting. Can you please tell us a little bit more about how it works and how other people could implement it? Also does it comply with Bebo's terms and conditions?

[Keaton]

Keaton that sounds very interesting. Can you please tell us a little bit more about how it works and how other people could implement it? Also does it comply with Bebo's terms and conditions?

Well its just an iframe advert that goes to a lot of people. He does it for you, and he charges quite a small price for the amount of hits you get, I will ask him when he comes online. He will probably join and advertise it here.

I assume it does, he has quite a few and never got banned.

[allwinners]

skyfire, you might find the threads below helpful when it comes to promoting your forum;

Play detective to attract more forum members (http://www.businessadviceforum.com/showthread.php?t=1637)
Tips for your forum (http://www.businessadviceforum.com/showthread.php?t=685)
Some advice on my new forum (http://www.businessadviceforum.com/showthread.php?t=1509)
Starting a new Forum & It's revenue (http://www.businessadviceforum.com/showthread.php?t=3375)

Forum Promotion (link in my signature) is another excellent resource for helping to promote your forum, however I believe you're already a member?

You say that you don't have money to run a contest, but have you considered contests that you could run, that would not cost you any money? For example you could have a member of the week / month contest, that gives the winner a badge or title, without any prize money. Or you could offer advertising space on your forum as a prize.

Please post back with some of your thoughts and we will do our best to help you.

Hi Fergal,

This "Forum Promotion" site - is it just for Forums, or as the banner implies, "websites" as well?

Thanks

[GekiDan]

go to yahoo answers and provide them answers and below they will ask you if you have referd any website put your there...
Just be sure to keep you links within the content or it must be related to the question asked. If not, it can be considered as spam.



This "Forum Promotion" site - is it just for Forums, or as the banner implies, "websites" as well?

From what I knew, you can also promote your site there. You can use signature promotion.
Am I right, Fergal?

[Fergal]

Thanks for asking allwinners, it's mostly focused on forums, however you can also promote websites in the website promotion (http://forumpromotion.net/forum/viewforum.php?f=68&sid=c4176973e156c3966daf03972f2f06c5) section and affiliate links in the Affiliate Link Promotion (http://forumpromotion.net/forum/viewforum.php?f=77&sid=c4176973e156c3966daf03972f2f06c5) area.