How to kick start a forum

[beadell]

We have a pet forum linked to our site and I need ideas in how I can kickstart it. We have submitted it to google etc...any other tips and tricks appreciated.

Cheers

Adrian

 

[seo_uk]

I assume you are asking this question in the SEO forum, in the hope that there will be some magical formula to solving your dilemma.

The truth is you are gonna need a bit more then some slick SEO to get it cranking. The competition is huge in your market, meaning that you are gonna need to think outside the box a bit.

A few ideas for you:

• Start posting forum feeds on your homepage - This may encourage people to click trough and contribute.
• If you are doing any email marketing, start talking about the forums in your emails. Ask people to introduce themselves and post questions.
• Get friends and family to join your site and ask them to post 3 or 4 times a day while you build it up.
• Make sure people get thanked or gain rep for answering questions and genrally being useful.

This is a start, you need to do some of your own research and see whats working for other big pet forums or even forums like this.

Best of luck!

 

[An Oasis]

Yup leave it alone, take all the spam filtering protection off and leave it for 6 months, come back after the spammers have run wild clean it up, inject some content and launch.

 

[seo_uk]

I didn't realise, but you haven't even got a link to it on your homepage. That may be a start.

 

[beadell]

I didn't realise, but you haven't even got a link to it on your homepage. That may be a start.

erm...yes I have, but interesting you didnt see it

 

[seo_uk]

Oh, I couldn't see it :redface:

But, what does that tell you. I did what most visitors do and check the navigation.

 

[Eagle]

Sign-up a couple dozen fake accounts and be controversial. Nothing get's people to sign-up faster than seeing somene posting away and getting away with controversy without rebuke!

 

[sabian1982]

If you haven't already spotted it, you might find this very recent thread useful.

 

[beadell]

Sign-up a couple dozen fake accounts and be controversial. Nothing get's people to sign-up faster than seeing somene posting away and getting away with controversy without rebuke!

hmmm. Cant quite see how a SEO board will fit into a pet forum but hey will give it a go

 

[seo_uk]

Sign-up a couple dozen fake accounts and be controversial. Nothing get's people to sign-up faster than seeing somene posting away and getting away with controversy without rebuke!

I don't think this is particularly good advice, as it is generally short lived benefits.

But that's my opinion and may not be shared by others.

 

[Blagger]

erm...yes I have, but interesting you didnt see it

Took me a while to find too.

I think what you should do is remove the 'links' tab (not important) in your horizontal menu and stick that in the footer. Then place the forum link in the horizontal menu, this way it will be seen a lot more.

From your other posts I have gathered you get quite a lot of hits everyday, so you shouldn't have a problem with your visitors exploring that section of your site. It just needs to be more visible.

 

[Spiderden]

I would merge some of the small mammal cats into a single cat until they have enough posts to warrant individual cats. Perhaps merge some of the dog and cat cats too. Empty cats don't encourage people to post.
You have pictures of a fish, a bird and a lizard on your header image but you don't have cats for them so those pet owners don't have anywhere to post.

 

[PrettyPaws]

I'm not convinced a forum is the way to go. It was all the rage a few years ago when every site had a forum but it never really took off.

To be fair tho, I'll join...if I can mention my site

 

[Cleveregg]

Hi

Plain and simple...

You are going to have to 'seed' it...
You are going to have to keep answering questions
You are going to have to pay for some PPC to get people onto the forum

 

[Steve2507]

Depending on the forum software you can get software to seed it from Yahoo answers.

VBullettin has a mod for it and I think othersdo as well.

 

[ThomasHardy]

Depending on the forum software you can get software to seed it from Yahoo answers.

VBullettin has a mod for it and I think othersdo as well.

Does anyone have a link?

 

[jimmy555]

Content is king. In this initial phase, you should consider adding more relevant articles/resources on your website. Along with this you can offer some RSS feeds.

If your content is genuine and helpful, then I am sure you will start to receive clicks from potential users.

Along with this you can become part of different animal related forums. It will also help you to increase popularity of your website.

Just search for forums on animal lovers, and you will come across several interesting forums. However you should make sure to add some quality content of your website before you actually start promoting it on other websites.