Encouraging Repeat Visitors

[bringpeace]

Hello,

I am newbie and want give suggestion :

1. For make people visit again this forum we must make good content in this forum. Good content like quality post, new opportunity in business, so people will look to this forum for some opportunity and good content

2. Make loyal member, for make loyal member we can make thread that will announched if any member that register in this forum is brithday, so this forum will become second home

3. Make busineess idea contest, so best business ideal will get prizes

4. Make business journal thread, so member can share they experiences in business that they really do, but not only online business, but also make offline business

5. Make community for this forum, i know we all from different country, so if we have any member in same country, we can meet and it will make we are like big family

Thank you and if i make false, sorry for that

[kailamilos]

Be clear with the topic of the thread. If it is about financing, then use an appropriate title that would suggest that it is about financing. Visitors who need more information about it can visit the thread occasionally for updates about financing options. Helpful and relevant information will encourage the visitors to revisit the thread as well.

[TheNova]

Make the forum a little more fun. I know this is generally a serious board as it's related to business and all, but I think it's too serious, if you know what I mean? Make it more fun, add some quiz games offering some kind of prize, offer some advertising space in exchange for activity etc.

[JPM]

Make the forum a little more fun. I know this is generally a serious board as it's related to business and all, but I think it's too serious, if you know what I mean? Make it more fun, add some quiz games offering some kind of prize, offer some advertising space in exchange for activity etc.

Whilst I think that's probably relevant for some forums ~ do people really stick around longer if they see a quiz? Honestly doubt it, I think they're more likely to stick around if there is quality content and genuine business advice.

[TheNova]

They were just examples. I didn't mean just a quiz. But you said people are more likely to stick around if there is quality content and genuine business advice? Isn't that what has been here for years, yet this topic was created and the activity seems to be going down.

[patrick0001]

Some visitor like to read blog, some like forum, facebook, twitter, G+, pinterest, digg, reddit, youtube, tumblr.....each network have its own audience, if BAF can participate more channel, it surely get more new and return audience.

Secondly it is time for business advise forum develop a business online tool, when reader need the tools, they must back to BAF. (Content of a website is not limit to text, it can be a tool, images, video or a platform)

Susses case
1. SEOMOZ is getting popular because of open site explorer
2. SEOBook also have its own tool
3. Backlink watch - the site is blank, but the tool is great. Simple tool, but it attract thousands of return visitors.
4. Whois domain tool.
5. Woorank tool
6. Aboutus tool

[charm01]

A great, clean and user-friendly UI , a faster loading of the site, great offers like discounts for repeat customers and new customers.

[band]

In most forum, new member are the high active members which create new thread, senior members are passive group that answer new post. So far BAF have done lot of activities to register members, but lack of activities on non register members.

A forum is divide in to 4 major group of readers. Solution:

1. Non register new visitor - Focus SEO keywords of Business Forum and Small Business Forum in all region, push it top 1st search.
2. Non register repeat visitor - Highlight most value post, make sure they learn something or get something benefit in BAF.
3. New members - (consider enough activities)
4. Senior members - (consider enough activities)

If above strategic cant help, it is necessary switch focus to others direction e.g. business blog, business directories.

one more thing, BAF RSS feed can be further improve by integrate with feedburner. The existing RSS feed UI seem like not encourage subscription. http://www.businessadviceforum.com/e...l.php?type=rss

[Sonia Whitehorn]

I think generating live traffic on this forum would be a good way for people to return and seeing live figures constantly changing. That way you would really feel like people are physically in the forum responding back to you. Also the forum could do with a new face-lift in the sense that everytime you post a comment the colour would change, and it would be nice that each forum is colour-coded to a particular topic i.e. 'Hot Topics' are highlighted in red. Sometimes colours attract people 'attraction market'.

[JBMedia]

Another option, if not already mentioned is mainly try figuring out some other keyword fields to dominate in and increase the SEO of this community all together. I know it's #1 search for Business Advice and Business Advice Forum. Why not expand and get a few more number 1 searches in the mix under different keywords?

[MartinLedley]

You could integrate an Ad Exchange into the site, a place where members can send solo emails to other members and add other types of advertising, like banners, on the site. If you can't integrate one, create a separate site on a sub domain.

You could then offer upgrades and/or advertising to members that have made a minimum number of quality posts, or have been thanked a certain number of times, say. Members could also use BAF Cash to purchase Ads/Solos/Upgrades. It would encourage members to use the forum in order to gain advertising at the Ad Exchange. Another advantage is that members can earn commission from referring other members, and in turn that could bring in new members to the forum via the Ad Exchange.

The best way to keep a site active is to keep bringing in new members, and this would benefit the forum and it's members in a number of ways, as both sites would be interlinked. It doesn't have to be the normal run of the mill Ad Exchange, but limited only to what's allowed at the forum if you preferred.

[Fergal]

Thanks for the suggestions everyone.

GekiDan, we constantly work and tweak the site, to improve load time. We still have room for improvement and we will get there.

JPM & Mark, we will start a regular newsletter later in the summer, and yes I do believe it will be very helpful.

ownedbox, we have no immediate plans to introduce anything like an online school, however it is an interesting idea and it is something we may do in the longer term.

Thanks Haley, we are always interested in doing anything we can to improve the value of BAF Cash.

A blog is something we will introduce in the longer term, thanks for that Mark and Tom.

Fowler, a new theme is something that we will introduce in the more medium term. Personally I would like to improve my own tech knowledge of the forum software and design, before introducing a new theme.

Barely, we have had problems with spam posts in the past. We now have some new mods that helps to block it and although some spammers will always get through I feel that we have improved strongly in this area.

Thanks for all those great suggestions Jesse, I have addressed most of them in the comments above. We do have the BAF Cash auctions that allow members to transfer their BAF Cash into real money. Unfortunately we had a bad experience with a referral contest, it resulted in us receiving a lot of members who just came to make a few posts and then disappear. I do like your idea of a video for BAF. Some of our members have created ones already and we may start a contest for one in the future. Our SEO has been very successful and as you say, there is always room for improvement. The most important factor in our SEO, is having good content and this comes from improving member activity.

Thanks Business Attorney, we constantly work to improve the quality of content here on the forum. When you say that another forum promotes good posts to articles. How do they do that? Are the posts moved to a separate forum section or put on a blog or something like that?

Thanks for all those ideas bringpeace, some of them have been discussed above.

kailamilos members generally write the thread title themselves. We do occasionally edit these, perhaps we should keep an eye on thread titles to ensure that they are relevant to the thread content.

TheNova I will see what I can do to make the forum more fun, as always any more specific suggestions as to how we could do that would be welcomed.

I do like the idea of adding some kind of business tool to the site Patrick, it is something that I will look closely at once we have made some of the other required improvements.

Thanks charm01.

Thanks for all those great ideas band. I will try to make the more important info more obvious and prominent to first time visitors.

Nice idea Sonia, I will look out for a solution that can do that. We do show Alexa stats, on our homepage, but something a bit more visual could be quite appealing.

Nice idea Martin, I may start with a simplified version of that in the near future. Basically I've been thinking of offering an ad slot to members in exchange for BAF cash, to get started and then seeing how we can grow it from there.

There have been excellent replies here and I appreciate them all, thanks everyone. It was difficult to pick a winner, but the winner chosen is JBMedia. Congratulations and BAF Cash donated.