Advertising 101
Advertising. It's everywhere in our culture, and now it’s made its way to forums. The way to get members is by advertising, there is no other way. And I don't just mean by using links. There are many easy ways to advertise. Unfortunately, none of them have worked for my forums which are why I think it is a total failure, but maybe they will help out your member count a little more. Advertising is easy, and should be free for the most part. Read on and let’s see if you can boost your member count by 20%! (Hey, its worth shot)
The first thing that comes to mind when advertising is advertising through other sigs. Believe it or not, this is one of the easiest ways to get your board noticed--maybe not popular though. Members will see your link in your sig, and they will be drawn to click it. Especially if it has a hot chick on it and it says "Click Me" or something. That works amazingly well because curiously gets the best of people. It is also a good idea to get your members to advertise with you. Make them put the link to your forum in there sig as well. When on other forums it is a good idea to add your forum to the directory, or the advertising forums. These are great ways to let people see your forums. But, there are a few things you don't want to do. For one, don't ever, ever PM advertise. You might think it works, but really, it doesn't. Members will get pissed when they see you are spamming up their PM box. Even if you are allowed to do it. I wouldn't. It gives your board a bad reputation, and makes your forum look weak, desperate for help. You also don't want to post random topics about your forum in random areas. These things will surly get your forum spammed, and you might be banned from the forums.
Affiliation is an excellent way of advertising. Affiliations are those little buttons you see at the top, and bottom of forums that are links to other forums. When affiliating, make you’re banner small, but cool looking. Animations are great because they will attract people to click on it. Members of forums are like mosquitoes--they are drawn to things they like. When affiliating with another forum, make sure you put their affiliate on YOUR FORUM! It is also a good idea to join each other's forums. Be sure you don't affiliate with a forum that has just started. Affiliating with a bigger forum is best, but those are hard to get into it. Try to find forums that are in your same genre and about the same size to affiliate with.
Another great way to get members and views to your forums is Topsites. Topsites look like affiliates, but they aren’t linked to forums directly, they are linked to web-pages. On those web-pages you find lots of forums that are ranked by the number of hits and views the forum gets. The more hits and views you get, the higher your rank is. Like affiliation, it's best to find topsites that are popular and have a lot of links to them. When submitting a topsite, be sure you give a nice description of your forum! This is more important then you think. When the people see an interesting description to a forum, they will click on it--like bugs with lights.
Another form of advertising is doing it through Search engines. I really don’t understand how to get them to work, but some people really say that they help out a lot. Search engines allow your forum to be viewed through search engines like Google and yahoo. They are great ways to get your member count up, and getting your forum more hits and views. Adding a website for your forum is also a good idea. Adding on a website using some web-packaged is a great way of getting you more hits. Some web-packages will advertise for you! They will usually give your forum more attraction and members.
There are other ways of advertising for your forum NOT on the internet. For instance, you can post fliers all over your town with the URL to your forum. Or, you could put the URL of your forum in your local newspaper for a few spare cash. There are really tons of ways to advertise by using a little money. Some forums even provide deals of their own for advertising. It is also a good idea to let your friends know about your forum, and see if you can get them to join.
There are many, many ways for you to advertise your site. The best ways are of course going to cost you money. Web-packages and web-hosts are incredible ways. The easiest and free way to get members is simply by putting your URL in your sig. Affiliating is also a great way of getting your forum noticed more. Now that you’ve read this article, you should have many more ways of advertising.
This article was submitted my //Aneurysm\\ on 10-27-05. You may not post this anywere without my permission
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