[Backyard]

Hey TST?

How did you manage to get members to sign up on your Forum?
I have tried everything and nothing seems to work?
Is it my Forum or Me?

Cheers and Thanks

[Howard]

A lot of hard work and having good content is one of the reasons we`re starting to get the members.

Another is, advertising the site, wherever and whenever we can.It`s a slow process, but it does work given time.

Also, being able to put together a good team of people for different subjects is a big plus. This isn`t as easy as it sounds and will depend on who, rather than what you know.

Regards Howard

[Joshuashawharvey]

Howard is right. Jason has put endless amounts of work into this site, and everyone else is now stepping in line and doing the same. We have a fantastic team here at TST and i'm proud to call Jason my cousin

[Backyard]

he he, I used to own a different forum a while back in which now has been shutdown. I tried and tried and tried to attract members to my Forum. Even offering free money as an incentive and still no attraction.

I am offering competitions on this forum aswell, But still no good luck. I have used advertising forums as such but unfortunately it is still very very slow. I am unsure what to do or how to go about making some more movement?

Help would be appreciated if possible.

[Joshuashawharvey]

I think Jason would be best to answer your questions on this as he has done an amazing job with this one. Probably one tip I could give is listen to others, whether it's criticism or praise. But don't become big-headed if you do recieve praise and respect other peoples' opinions if they criticise, as they are only giving you what you asked for.

[Backyard]

O.K well that is a great tip.. I mean yes this site has alot of members now and it has more than mine shame on me. Oh well i really think it comes down to the Administrator aswell, how he presents his site, well I dont think this has a great importance or does it?

[Joshuashawharvey]

Of course it does. The way that Jason has percieved this site to others has been a major factor in getting members. You can't just say visit my site and expect 100 members to just suddently storm in. Just don't percieve your site as something it's not, as you will soon see members leave.
The look of the site and the people in it need to look and seem friendly and make a potential member feel wecome to their community.

[Studio 2]

A few simple ways - submit your link to directories, include it in your signature when posting on related forums (some forums frown upon this), and get your seo sorted out so people searching for your content have a better chance of finding your site.

[Backyard]

Well definetely I agree. I have http://norahtech.net/Forum/ could you please look at my site and just tell me if the colours and the logo are good or does it need to lessen down the colours and the attractiveness?

I will add more content to my site though I am not sure if it is the glamour that is deterring potential members...

No need to Join!

[Joshuashawharvey]

The theme may cause slow scrolling troubles for users with slower systems.
Miscellaneous is spelt incorrectly.

[Backyard]

O.K so that's a hint to remove the Backround Image or change the Template?
I did adjust the size of the backround image as it did run much slower
Maybe will revert back to my earlier template with no logo

Ouch!

[Joshuashawharvey]

Well I would change the template to a simpler theme, but that's my opinion. To be honest I'd just wait for Jason to come online and i'm sure he could give you some great tips.

[Backyard]

he he, thanks for the Tip, Pleased I got some advise. O.K also, I will change the theme, Now.. I have changed it to my pre-original theme.

[Studio 2]

It's a nice design - is it your own? Your forum is very new still by the looks of things. Forums grow in time and don't expect a flood of members for a couple of months.

Get your site working well with the search engines and keep posting good relevant content.

Try simple things like changing your page titles to reflect your content - in reality, no-one is going to search for NorahTech Community.

Look on the phpbb forums for mods and help with things like layout, seo help etc.

Something else I noticed straight away, is your register link isn't easy to find.

[Backyard]

Thanks Studio2. I reverted back to my original theme without a logo. Yes this is my Forum that I have made but am unsure of many things on it.
I will try out PHPBB website and see how I can go about adding possible mods to the site and change the Headings and I would assume add Meta Tags somewhere on the index page

It is PHPBB3 Forum, and I would assume this is VB?

[Studio 2]

This one here is Vbulletin, yes, but it started off on phpbb if I remember?

Mine is phpBB 2 but I'm looking at upgrading to 3 sometime when I have the guts to do it!

These tags are empty on your index page!

<meta name="keywords" content="" />
<meta name="description" content="" />

Go and play with your 'overall_header.tpl' and see if it makes sense enough for you to change, but don't do anything you don't understand.

The phpBB forums are great for help - you'll always find the answer you need.

[Jason]

Hello and welcome to TST.

May I ask, how long as your forum been up?

People underestimate, the true power of search engine optimization (SEO).

Have you submitted your sites to search engines, i.e. google, yahoo ect.

You can submit your site to Google here and Yahoo here.

The forum doesn`t look too bad, compared to a lot of forums I`ve seen. Personally, I`m not a big fan of phpBB, hence the reason why I moved to vBulletin.

As Josh as mentioned, the style isn`t so good for scrolling.

I really can`t go into the indepth detail on how to get more members to your site, as I have other things to do right now, however you can`t expect these things happen over night.

As a few of the older members here will know (Josh, Jaymie ect.) we started out on phpBB, we didn`t have many members at all. I started visiting promotion sites, where I could show my site to other people, this got us a few members. I then started asking questions to other SEO experts, and I took every word into account. One site I visited was - http://talk.iwebtool.com/

We are now finally starting to grow more, but I expect it to be at least another year before we have constant members through out the day.

As Josh as said, we have a fantastic team here, who are all experienced in some part of this forum, whether it`s viruses, hardware or Windows OS, they all have experience, that`s why I chose them.

I`m sorry I can`t explain more, but just remember, never give up, be patient, and patient will pay with members.

If I get time, I may give you more tips, but due to lack of time, I can`t at this moment in time.

Below you will find some comments about this site;

A very impressive site Jason & Howard. I only looked at the forums dealing with malware and thought the step-by-step guide to dealing with it was one of the most thorough & comprehensive that I've seen. Also it is detailed and put in simple English, which is excellent for dummies like me and for people from the rest of the world who's knowledge of English may be limited.
You also listen to criticisms and advice, which is a mature approach as it's all too easy to get defensive when someone points out something they don't like or don't agree with. You see that in the best way - as a learning opportunity, not as an attack on your ego. That's good also.
As well as the advice on removing malware, and so on, you might want to consider some preventative advice as well. Something along the lines of this from the reliable "Castlecops".

So congratulations, and keep up the good work.
PS I haven't joined yet but will do so when I think I've got something worth adding.

Another one is here;

A hell of a lot friendlier now. I like it, and if I had the time I would join. Who knows, one day I may. I have bookmarked it for now.

Regards Jason

[Daveskater]

I'm probably coming into this a bit late, but Jase has done a lot of advertising and hard graft to get this forum to where it is now, and we're still small.

One thing that helped was an admin at a certain other forum going insane and banning me, Hoard and Rik, among others, and we found our new home in this forum.

[Backyard]

Thanks for the information, I used Forumpromotions to express my site. No action just yet and not sure there will be for a while at this rate, This morning I made some more adjustments, I will not say improvements but a slightly better look

I made it the default so I hope you can see it?
My Forum Adjusted

Also I removed the ever changing logos that this design had to just 1, I have about 3 or 4 Logos created for this Forum but I have 1 which I do like but it just exapands and looks yuk so I wont use it.

Also I have looked at the site that you guys mentioned and joined, Yet to post comments on others and post topics etc. I understand how much effort you all put into this site and I am glad I found it cause it is really cool.

Do you pay for Vbulletin? I looked into it a little and pricing was apart of it...
Oh well I guess you get what you pay for now-a-days

Hope to get some more assistance off this site, Also added my site to Google and Yahoo & also looking into Top Site and other related forums to advertise my little forum..

Thanks

[Daveskater]

You do have to pay for vB, You can see how much it is here.