Official Suggestions Thread

Join an ad network and get some traffic to your site. That's the main way to get visitors, besides having more content on your site. Post a lot, and don't post a lot of pointless spam.

Major reason why SGW, my clan site about Halo Trial modding, never had thousands of people, is because of it's obsure name. Shotgun Warriorz. No one searches for SGW. On the other hand, HaloTrialMods.org, people search halo trial mods all the time. Like guaranteed result. Name your forum something that people search for very commonly. But because I had very good rules and activity overall, activity on SGW and HTM was roughly the same, despite HTM having 10x + the members. And refer to below.

As for keeping traffic, have very good rules. Nothing turns off anyone with a sense of order than corrupt staff or rules that took about as much effort to write as the maximum capability of that of a 3 year old. And nothing degrades your forum as much as children who believe that they don't have to follow rules, since they now aren't interacting with their parents, so they troll. Don't ever make exceptions for people who break rules, unless there's an extremely good reason for it. Being friends doesn't count.

And another way, make a rule that requires members to noparse or put links in code tags. Search engine "spiders" will navigate around your page using links, and any links that link out your site pretty much equals that the spider won't be in your site anymore. The more time it's navigating around your site, the higher up your site in search results will be.

If you really want to have a high percentage of people here actually stay here when they join, do some of these things. Make introducing yourself mandatory before you have any posting privileges. That partially reduces leechers, those who just come on, take some of your stuff (In my forums, it was mods and tutorials), and then leave. And have lots of updates on activities.

SGW at its high point had sigs of the week and month. It also had mods released very often, and lots of tutorials. We had a whole database of mods and related things. Even if the forums aren't active, at least make it appear to be. The hardest part about starting a forum is getting members to stay, not join. So post a lot, people, because most members who don't know anyone in this forum will leave upon not getting replies to their topics within a day or two.

You said you had good graphics. Not bad for a new forum. The buttons on the top (index, register, calendar, search, etc) with it's gold text and background, looks like buttons in a video game like MechAssault. Sort of looks a bit cheesy, in my opinion. But that might have to do with the fact that I'm 18, so interests are different. But at least change the buttons so there's more contrast. It's hard to read bright yellow text against a bright background.

I've always been partial to forums with darker backgrounds and brighter theme. In your case, it's a gray background with a yellow theme. SGW was black/bright green. HTM was silver/white. I like the skin so far.

I see that you get points for posting. Do you have a shop open yet? If not, get one and add lots of stuff to it. Silly stuff works too. Such as the time when SGW had random cyber gifts that members could gift to each other when it was Christmas. On the more serious side, links to music, software, tutorials, access to beta projects, ability to change your username, all works for items in a store.

If you haven't already, give more points for long posts, and less points for short posts. And no points for posts in a subforum designed for Spam.

Have a good warning system. Don't be too lenient, as while that may raise popularity for staff, it drops respect. Don't be too strict either, or people leave. And by the way, my dead forums are still up. You could model your rules and warning system off it if you want.

Have a wide array of forums. Some people love being geeks, and so they love technical forums that talk about detailed stuff like computers, etc. Others like more serious discussion, so have a debate forum. Always have a Spam forum, where people post all their meaningless posts in there, instead of all over the forums. And general talk, as always, to talk about stuff.

If you want to run a very successful forum, you as administrator will have to give up some of your rights and pleasures. IE: Don't act like a regular member and post 99% of your posts in Spam. You'll have to focus on earning respect first before popularity. Business before relationships apply for handling mischievous children who like to spam for fun. Although some people might not like you telling them to not spam, it is your forum. You run the forum, not them. Once they respect you, any tension between you and them in the future won't be as hard to deal with. And trust me, you will get people like that who enjoy being rude, it's part of every forum. Lots of it is common sense really. People follow their leaders by example. You are administrator. Therefore, you are the leader.

Make an animation somewhere in your header. SGW had a cute animation imo, with random headlines like, "{SGW}, Ruler of the World." that would scroll horizontally across the header part of the forums. hohoho

Easy links to important things like rules and faqs. You want to make sure that people actually read what you write, like rules, And the best way, is to make it mandatory. Such as posting an introduction for yourself. So many people join and don't introduce themselves, for whatever reason. HTM for example, it had 7000 people, and probably only a few hundred active members, which is a small percentage. And that's only normal for a forum. It's just that you can alleviate that a bit.

Have a theme for your site. Something memorable for members to remember it by. SGW was all about modding Halo Trial, and being the sister site of HTM, rose as the greatest and largest Halo Trial modding site that there ever was. But unfortunately, all things come to an end, whether by likable or unlikable conditions. SGW and HTM was the latter. >.>

People like to be recognized. Grant requests for people to lead their own subforums, if you believe they are fit. For example, if a person is a great member here, is a good example to other members, and love and is great at Halo, invite them to lead the Halo forums. Members will love you for that. SGW, being a modding site, I would publicly thank members for being great members and modders, and would sometimes offer them to lead their own subforums or an existing one, and generally as a result, make them appreciated for spending their time at the forums. But don't flatter. Be honest about it.

Hold competitions and tournaments for stuff. Like, being the best racer on PR2, reward them some bonus points. Get creative, and don't let members feel that being on a forum is routine and boring.