Concerning Questions

I've been kinda... bothered recently. It may not look like it right now, but I've been working on my forums for a little over a year now. I've run into a lot of trial and error, been through a few design concepts, layout changes, mods, etc. I recently upgraded to vB4, which pretty much through my year of designing down the drain. I'm not too worried about that, but the thing I am worried about.. is people.

I can't seem to get anybody to join, let alone even look at my site. I've posted and advertised in a few places, I add my url in my emails and in my signatures on various forums. I even try to help other people out in other sites and leave my url in case they need or want anymore help, but it never happens.

My vB4 is pretty much default layout with just my logo in it and a few mods/template edits. I don't really care that it's the default because my main concern is content and users... But why wont anybody join or even look at my site? It's a web development site (similar to this except all around, not just forums) with some internet marketing.

There's not a lot of content on there right now because I get so bummed out that nobody joins that it makes me not care anymore. I need users so I can have content, criticism, and maybe even some help with ideas on what I should/could add or remove. Right now, I'm not looking for staff since.. I don't really have anything for them to do, lol.

Anyway, my main question, if you've read this far... what can I do to help promote my site in a way where people will actually join and post something every once in a while? I know most websites are slow, but I've had the domain for 2 years and it's been forums over about a year and a half and I've had the same users the entire time. My previous employer, his son and my girlfriend. The rest of the people on my forum are spambots. I only left them on there because they don't post (thankfully) and it makes my forum look... bigger, I guess.

Can anyone help me with this at all? =(

 

Not a lot of help, but the best way to get sign ups is to post. Like crazy. Go to your forum, make a informative post, and then do it again.

For example, lets say you had a security forum. So you go there and post a easy to follow tutorial on how to secure thing A. And then a tutorial on thing B.

People want to join a forum that has content.

 

when i started my forum, i made 5 threads in each section before i opened, so the forum didnt seem so empty. if you cant think of that many, as a few friends to join and start threads, and you can reply to eachothers threads. you can also agree to a post exchange with a few people you know from other forums, to add content.

i would recommend not to have so many sections at first, as too many can make a forum look inactive, best to start small then spread out.

keep on promoting on other forums, (but never spamming), and get some more content on there, and members will join and the bots from search engines would have things to use, so your forum will end up on the search engines.

 

Thanks for your insight guys. I guess I do need to add more content. I've just been so bummed out about nobody even wanting to join that I kinda gave up on it for a while and started to lose interest.

Thanks again! I'll start posting more, and maybe see some of you guys there in the future! ^^

 

Your forum looks great! Keep it up and keep posting man you will get their!