Forum Optimization

[Root]

Im not an expert at getting traffic to your forum but i can throw a few tips towards you

1. It's probobally best you make your forum open to the public meaning you should make all forums,threads and posts viewable to the public (minus your private forums).

2. Try to have as much content as you possible can , all the content you have will count as "key words" basically. It's alwats nice to have popular content as when someone searches for a specific topic they might just land a link to one of your posts or threads.

3. Try to limit frames or anything like this, bots that i know of can't handle the frames and your pages(s) will have a description of "Your Browser Does Not Support Frames" or something along the lines of this.

These are three small tips . they might not be totally accurate but i find they work out nicely

[PrivateInvestigator]

any forum is only as good as its members, without members posting new members will not hang about long.

it'd be a great help if you and your friends could use the forum so there's fresh content all the time for new members.

[cristobal]

On forum optimization, you will also have to look into how the pages are being streamed and are the URLs coming out in a way that is friendly yo spiders.
Then there is the part on the design, is it user friendly?

I seen some forums that made it so hard that I could not even find the login button the second time I visited.

[NICEGUY]

Originally Posted by PrivateInvestigator

any forum is only as good as its members, without members posting new members will not hang about long.

it'd be a great help if you and your friends could use the forum so there's fresh content all the time for new members.

I agree, often times there’s a great url, amazing site but lack of users & content. Its somewhat of an uphill battle until that 500-1000 user mark where people start making the forum "their own" and get involved.

Best way to make a site popular is content. If the site is content rich you can almost expect more users to return or get involved.

Best way to get users to the forum is sharpen the SEO skills. Do everything you can from a-z and then get some people active....

Some people will join because the site isn’t large and they like that, easier to convey a message and you usually get a lot less of the "me too's" or 50 "lol's"

Anyways, ive seen many successful forum creators have a miss when the majority of their sites are hits.

Patience is another big key, without it, surely you will drive yourself mad.