mine is doing terriblw in about months i have 3 members :cry:
Well, yeah. You're not doing any of the things you're supposed to do to make a forum successful. Here, I'll give you a checklist:
- You need a signature. You've mentioned your forums without linking to them in the post or having a link to them in your signature. You can find the signature options in your profile or user control panel. Do this on every forum of which you are a member.
- If you are not a member of forums that are similar to your own, you must go now and become a member, and make posts, always including your signature. Your forums are about cricket, so maybe you won't go to another forum specifically about cricket. That might be too aggressive with a direct competitor. But you should certainly be on a few sporting forums, especially if the subject of cricket might come up. You should make smart posts that might be so helpful that people click on the links in your signature, just to see what kind of things a smart guy might do.
- You need to send an email -- personally written, not a spammy form letter -- to at least a handful of Web sites that deal with cricket, but may not have forums. They may mention your site as the place to go for discussion, or just list it as an additional destination for fans of the game.
- Your forums are stuck on the default theme, subSilver. You've got to learn how to add and then change themes. If you want to be truly unique, you'll need to learn how to modify a theme so that no one else offers your look & feel.
- You need to learn how to add mods to phpBB. Maybe you can't do that at your current free host. If so, then you'll just have to take the hit and accept that your forums can't grow as fast. The mods make a huge difference. There are usability mods (coded by moi, thankyouverymuch), interface enhancements (the quick post one is popular and useful), and other very useful mods that can cause your board membership to grow more quickly. For example, I started a board and got complaints that people were intimidated by the signup procedure. It's the same procedure that every phpBB board uses, right? Well, yeah, it's the default. But I found a mod that makes the signup process short & sweet -- only 4 or 5 fields to fill out and you're done. Suddenly, I had a boost in new members. The proper mods will always do wonders.
- You need to have an added value, and you don't. Not from what I can see, at least. I built a forum for writers, but the Web site isn't just the forum. It includes tools and resources to help writers get published. I built a forum for PHP and phpBB programmers, but the Web site isn't just the forum. I give away free code and phpBB mods. You see? There are other reasons for people to come to my forums. This is very important when you start, because your forums are empty. So people think, why bother? Well, give them a reason to bother, and see if they stick around. Some always do.
- You haven't seeded your forums. There are many ways to do this, but it has to be done. That is, you must establish some topics for discussion right at the start. You can invite family and friends to pitch in for a few weeks. See what they post. Or you can contact people in the cricket community, people who you trust to post intelligently or at least provocatively, and see what they post. Or you can make yourself a few sock puppets (fake accounts) and have conversations and debates under various names. I personally hate that idea, but I've seen it work. But it's not going to work for me, I can't write with multiple personalities. All my writing is obviously the same person. I like the final and more honest approach: I just posted, by myself, topics of interest. I did that for a while. Eventually, people chimed in.
- Last suggestion. Throw money at it. If you use Google Adwords to run text ads, you'll get members. Even if you just put $10 into it. Or you can run contests, give away a set of new cricket equipment. Or give people $10 via PayPal if they'll write a blog entry about your forums. You see what I mean? Money will cause things to happen, like it or not. If you can't invest because you're a poor student or whatever, work an extra 2 hours at your job. You don't need a lot of money, but some can help. What you put into the board will pay off.
-Tony
