New Forum Project

[TheWatcher]

I launched my forum site, and would like to get some feedback from all members who currently managed their own forum/community. I also used vBulletin latest released to powered the site.

Would you mind sharing your thought process to manage a community.

Thank you in advance.
EM

 

[Keral_Patel]

Running a forum is a huge headache. If forum has the power of user generated content then it also has the headache of spammers generated spam.

Too many open doors for spammers.

But all that comes after the forum is established. Before that you have to compete quite a bit in order to get the users and the users to start posting on the forum.

People tend to be lazy and they don't post just because the forum would look good with nice content.

Forum SEO is also quite different then normal SEO.

I posted on my blog long time ago. I think that might still help you to get the strategy right.

Here is the link: http://www.keralpatel.com/promoting-a-forum/

Sorry no self promotion but it was the best suitable answer for this query of yours.

Thanks.

 

[SearchEngineZ]

I can see only two reasons for running a forum:

1) You are passionate about it and it feels good to enable such a community
2) You are passionate about it and it feels good to enable such a community AND it is a niche that can be profitable.

To get members and content, the easiest way is to leverage a website that is already getting a lot of visitors, and direct them to the forum.

Generally speaking, forum members ignore ads like AdSense. Your best bet is to get a forum-wide sponsor who is reputable.

I ran a forum that was so successful members were interviewed by Playboy magazine - but I didn't make a dime. Still, there were marriages, babies, friendships even small real-world communities formed. Those hours spent every day were worth it for me...