Well..my forum has been up for almost 2 years and yet... it's still not off the ground.. I mean, I have at least one user who's active everyday, but I desire more.. I've done some post exchanges and have even ordered posting packages... although I don't advertise much.. I'm not sure if it's the niche or the forum's style...
okay, well let us know when it's back up that could be a big reason why people wouldn't be sticking around
Things happen. I've seen forums take 3 or 4 years to take off. I've seen forums that were active with thousands of posts a day seemingly die overnight. I have a forum now that gets 5000+ unique visitors a day and over 50K pageviews yet few register and the ones that do don't post. That forum has been a big mystery to me. Never have I seen a site get that much traffic with no one posting.
Nice looking skin. very professional. I agree with AWS, just stay with it as long as you can and it may take off.
The 'I don't advertise much' part is your problem You need to have this link in your signature in all forums you post. Post in nice blogs (comment) and have your link in the website field of the comment form. I'd use a light theme (really don't like black bakcgrounds and many people are put off by them). Keep on adding content and PROMOTE. That's the secret. It doesn't matter you run a great site, if people don't know about it
And also have you asked that user "what do they like about your community?" After they answer that, see if they can help out by posting new threads and helping out on the current threads. @dojo Is right. In order for your forum to grow/seed again, you will have to get out there and promote your site. Put it everywhere, your signature, homepage on other forums, etc. If you don't put the time to promote, your site will never fully get off the ground. Post exchanges help but those users rarily stick around. So if you do one, make sure that they also post threads instead of just posts and you do the same with them because the more threads your community has, the merrier it is because it gives users a variety of content to look at and possibly reply to.
Well, still unsure of what to do now.. I've tried writing anime reviews, but so far I haven't pumped any new ones recently(which I want to.). Already got a light theme too.. Frankly, I'm not really sure about SEO either..
I would think the problem might just be that you need to promote your forum more. You need to get the word out about it everywhere you can. You can do this through article writing, blogging, signatures, discussions on forums and other platforms and so forth.
how are you promoting the reviews though? You could link to them in your signature on forums that you're apart of, on Facebook on certain anime groups, on twitter as well. Get the ball rolling, promotion is key. Your users won't spread the word if you're not adding more content, replying to them, and giving them a reason to promote. Once you establish yourself on the content front, users will take notice and start posting as well, and tell their friends. It's all about how you treat your users as well. Have you ran any contests? If not, you should to try to spark more interest into your community. Users love free stuff and will do anything to get it - especially if you run a money posting contest.
Your forum stats after 2 years aren't very good, you only have 6638 posts and 143 members. You need to do a lot more promoting or your forum will continue to grow slowly...where is your motivation? My forum after 2 and half months has 1587 posts, and 97 members. I do many post exchanges as well, but I also add signature links on many forums. So members of forums will actually see your forum. Do everything possible to promote, if you want to succeed. Also don't forget to CREATE CONTENT on YOUR forum because if you start more discussions on your forum, the activity will increase. It's hard work to build a active forum, you have to be very dedicated, and patient.
That's what happened, you lost focus for your community. So, take the advice, and run with it, also implement the ideas that we told you about. Your community depends on you to grow, without you focusing on it, it won't rise to the top. Take the time out to do post exchanges and/or post loop to help drive new content onto your community. Without fresh and new content, your community will remain stale.
I guess this was the problem after all. I have the same opinion as sir cpvr and the rest of the members stated above. You need to focus on your forum first, try to promote it to every place you know, create active threads, and make your forum members interested to keep them posting. If you do this right, you'll soon see that you don't need to concentrate on your forum anymore since its most likely to run by itself. Just don't forget to check in with the members every once in a while. Also try to hire active moderators to keep eye on your forums every time you write your novels.
Well, I'm already trying to balance both the novel,college and the forum somewhat.. I'm already using Postloop, but there's isn't too many forums for me to post on that I'd be interested in.
