Increasing Membership

[Jason McConnell]

How do you guys go about getting new members? Without being a troll on other sites? I've done the search engine submission, and I am getting some members trickling in, but I was curious how some of you guys did it.

Obviously word-of-mouth has got to be the best way to do it, but so far I've got 20+ members, of which only maybe 5 post with any regularity.

[KW802]

How do you guys go about getting new members? Without being a troll on other sites? I've done the search engine submission, and I am getting some members trickling in, but I was curious how some of you guys did it.

Obviously word-of-mouth has got to be the best way to do it, but so far I've got 20+ members, of which only maybe 5 post with any regularity.I haven't made a concious effort yet to go out & market so the visitors that are trickling in are mostly by signature links. I visit several other sites, some related & some not, and the signature links, if nothing else, help with SE rankings for the back links. :)

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[Jason McConnell]

A lot of the other forums I post on don't allow signature links like that, which kind of sucks, but I understand their reasoning. Thanks for the response though :)

[vtec44]

I just found out a way to advertise my forum, and it's working for others as well from what I know. My forum has been around for 3 years, 2 different sofwares, and is only able to gain 450 members with about 40 actively participating members. We're a sportbike community, so I ordered a bunch of inexpensive custom site decals from http://www.crazyvinyls.com. I give them out for free at meets, bike nights, track days, or whoever would like me to mail them one. People put these decals on cars, bikes, boat, atv, and whatever else. In a group of riders, it shows the popularity of my forum and hopefully will get others to join. At least that's my way of doing it right now, will let you know how it goes in a couple of months. :D

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[ConqSoft]

Word of mouth and search engines for me.... And yeah, I send out decals to the paid members also...

[Jason McConnell]

I've been thinking about running a contest with the members I've already got.. probably give away a gift certificate or something to the member with the most referrals in a specific time-frame or something. Does this sound like something that would work?

[vtec44]

ConqSoft, small world. I have a bunch of friends on your site too! Of course, mine is no where as big as yours and we're just local :D

[ConqSoft]

ConqSoft, small world. I have a bunch of friends on your site too! Of course, mine is no where as big as yours and we're just local :D

Cool. What site is it?

[vtec44]

http://www.sportbikers.net We're strictly in So Cal

[javageek]

I've done a couple of raffles, given away decals, etc. But the biggest thing is word of mouth. Being in the September issue of Sport Compact Car didn't do any harm either. :D

www.rdtiburon.com

I just recently merged by postnuke and CPG-nuke site into a vBulletin one. I wish I would have started with it! :eek:

[Jason McConnell]

I just started a referral contest on my site, hopefully that should kick my members in the ass to start recruiting :D I also just moved my site to another server, with a better server space/bandwidth/monthly cost deal, so I'm thinking about hosting some file downloads.

[1996 328ti]

My site is specific to one BMW car model which makes it a little unique.
I post on other BMW boards trying to help others and have my site in my signature.
I've never really tried to pump up membership.
There are +1200 registered but only 50 or so that check in on a daily basis.
It started as a UBB board in 1999, then phpBB and now vB.
It is taking time.
Google certainly help. :) I'm the first link that comes up.
People will find you.
Perhaps look at your meta tags?

[Jason McConnell]

I've done as much SEO as I can, my site shows up in the top 5 google searches based off of some searches, but buried in others, and unless you're specifically looking for my site it'll show up as number one.

Guess I have to just sit back and see if people register :)