Reward for whoever can tell me what I'm doing wrong.

I'll give an award (free advertising) to whoever can tell me what I'm doing wrong on my site, TechGeeks. The bounce rate is over 80% and the forum is dead. I'm giving away prizes in a posting contest (July) and I still can't get activity.

I'm just having trouble engaging users and I don't understand why. Can anyone see what I'm doing wrong? (The problem is with the blog and the forum.)

 

Well there are many things I could mention but I will give you a few details why you are having a problem with activity and attracting members.

The blog is not exciting, very plain I would say, no attractiveness to it considering the thousands of amounts of awesome wordpress designs available, and there is no logo either. And for the forum, it's using the default ipb theme which very boring and overly used, while like wordpress there is large amounts of great IPB designs available. So nothing about your website in all sets it apart and makes it unique from other tech sites (While others do have a great looking layout and have that tech feel to it. And example would be http://www.techforumz.com/ which I found doing a quick google search).

Back in the day it was all about content, but now everyone goes for the looks as well, so you gotta have both. Make your website attractive, it will be a plus since you already have good content.

Another reason could be you are not advertising to the right people. Promotion forums are not for everybody, it does help but you cant rely on it to get all your members from there. Try advertising on any tech related websites/forums/blogs etc and you can also try postloop, but just like promotion forums you cant rely on it, but it can help you. You can also try adwords. This is just some friendly advice. Good luck

 

Thanks Kaiser.

I have tried AdWords and it brings in people but they're not people who register and post and so on. The visitors I got from AdWords were similar to regular surfers. I've also tried advertising on Reddit, which gave me a huge traffic boost but nothing new in conversions.

I actually bought a licence for the IP.B theme called "Elegant" from SkinBox and used it for several months but their last update broke the theme (again). SkinBox had some issues with their theme that I didn't like. Their AJAX was buggy and the theme was missing A LOT of images. (Small images are even missing from the preview on their site.) I had went around to find images to use, and when that last upgrade broke the theme again I just gave up. I didn't want to go around to find and re-upload images. The default IP.Board theme loads much quicker and doesn't glitch.

I'm thinking about using the default theme that will come with IP.B 3.2 since I think it looks very pretty. This is what our new header would look like:



The blog and forum aren't too "exciting" because I'm trying to keep them quick. Is this a mistake?

 

I see your point and no its not a mistake but for members/visitors that wont matter to them you know? And when there is an upgrade you shouldn't upgrade immediately an wait awhile when skinbox or whatever place you got your themes from upgrades their themes to the latest versions which I am sure they do. And as for IPB 3.2's default theme, it does look sexy however it still will be the default theme and will have the same fate as the default ipb 3.1 theme.

 

Keep generating new topics, email your members, advertise your forum absolutely everywhere, and dedicate time to postloop. It's hard to get activity and consistency, trust me I know but you have to work hard at it. Keep your forum bumped up at any and all websites and until people complain about seeing it everywhere! A dedicated staff works wonders as well.

 

Yea having staff member can be of great help, as they not only will moderate but post around and be active which is what you need.