How much time is enough to get traction on a forum ?

[awesomewebsites]

I recently started a forum. I paid other users to post on the forum and added some posts myself. There are more than 1000 posts on the forum . Still there is no traffic and organic registrations. How much more will I have to wait ? Or should I abandon this project ?

 

[Parker2010]

Hi Mate - Do you think, any body can advice you on the basis of "more than 1000 posts - without looking into the website/ posts/ Backlinks/ Audit etc" and you can follow that advice ?

 

[awesomewebsites]

Hi Mate - Do you think, any body can advice you on the basis of "more than 1000 posts - without looking into the website/ posts/ Backlinks/ Audit etc" and you can follow that advice ?

Sharing other forum url is not allowed.
Quality of posts is average and no backlinks has been made for the forum.

 

[Parker2010]

no backlinks has been made for the forum

Did you get your answer?

 

[Salamouna]

You said it
no backlinks so how do you expect to get organic traffic
also give me some basic info at least like how old is it

 

[NirvanaWolf]

Start joining FB groups/sub-reddits in your niche. Answer queries and then link your forum in your comments by saying you can find more useful information here. The important part here is actually answering people first and not spamming your link straightaway.
A forum is all about user generated content, as more people join you'll start getting more free content.

 

[BlogPro]

In a previous life, I used to be BIG on forums. I'd buy vBulletin license like there was no tomorrow.

My first car was bought from monies I made from selling a forum.

THE NOSTALGIA! Ugh... F you Google!

Hiring forum posters to post arbitrarily used to work well before. Now if you're building a forum, you have to treat it like any other website. There's research involved.

1. Scrape PAA - Figure out what questions people are asking. Get your posters to initiate threads about this.
2. Gain Topical Authority - Create Guides and Resources about your topics. Let people respond and make a healthy discussion.
3. Build Backlinks - Build backlinks to your resources.
4. Show related posts - These function as contextual internal links
5. Steal Users from Other UGC Portals - People who are part of communities - FB Groups, Pinterest, Reddit, Quora - Participate, then mention something like.. "A very interesting post I found was at forum.com/showthread.php?p=4545"

This is where you should start seeing traffic.

Once you have that, you can figure out sign-up magnets and urge people to sign up.

//

There was a time when hiring forum posters with "50 words per thread and 10 words per reply" used to work.

Now you need to create very informative first posts, or if the first post is a question, the response should be very informative.

Good luck bud.

 

[M0805]

You need to create posts in groups that are searchable on Google.

 

[awesomewebsites]

In a previous life, I used to be BIG on forums. I'd buy vBulletin license like there was no tomorrow.

My first car was bought from monies I made from selling a forum.

THE NOSTALGIA! Ugh... F you Google!

Hiring forum posters to post arbitrarily used to work well before. Now if you're building a forum, you have to treat it like any other website. There's research involved.

1. Scrape PAA - Figure out what questions people are asking. Get your posters to initiate threads about this.
2. Gain Topical Authority - Create Guides and Resources about your topics. Let people respond and make a healthy discussion.
3. Build Backlinks - Build backlinks to your resources.
4. Show related posts - These function as contextual internal links
5. Steal Users from Other UGC Portals - People who are part of communities - FB Groups, Pinterest, Reddit, Quora - Participate, then mention something like.. "A very interesting post I found was at forum.com/showthread.php?p=4545"

This is where you should start seeing traffic.

Once you have that, you can figure out sign-up magnets and urge people to sign up.

//

There was a time when hiring forum posters with "50 words per thread and 10 words per reply" used to work.

Now you need to create very informative first posts, or if the first post is a question, the response should be very informative.

Good luck bud.

You do not run any forums now ? Do you feel that it is better to do blogging then trying to start and grow a forum in 2024 ? Even blogging is a very challenging task now as per my experience.

 

[BlogPro]

You do not run any forums now ? Do you feel that it is better to do blogging then trying to start and grow a forum in 2024 ? Even blogging is a very challenging task now as per my experience.

The only forum in my portfolio now is an AI generated forum that am trying to experiment with.

No real forums anymore. Sold them all.

Some at a huge loss. (Waited too long). Especially since Google decided Quora is the best site on earth and should be ranked for everything and no other forum is worth it anymore.

//

Yes blogs are challenging. But still very doable.

The way to go now is to modify your root site to be an enormous data bank. Tons of value add.

 

[MrDenz]

You do not run any forums now ? Do you feel that it is better to do blogging then trying to start and grow a forum in 2024 ? Even blogging is a very challenging task now as per my experience.

Building a forum in 2024 is a really hard thing to do, in my opinion.

Blogging is still blogging no matter what, it's not that hard to choose the niche, do some solid research, and start posting quality content.

 

[awesomewebsites]

Building a forum in 2024 is a really hard thing to do, in my opinion.

Blogging is still blogging no matter what, it's not that hard to choose the niche, do some solid research, and start posting quality content.

The main difference in my opinion is that forum requires to get users on the platform while in blogging you can manage the content alone. Now this is something which needs lot of creativity in present times when there are other faster ways for online workers to make money.

Still looking for more input regarding this.

 

[k-koby]

You need unique content and 2-3 months to wait.

 

[kunter]

Starting a forum is very challenging as already people told you here. If you don't have a Team to help you posting every minute or at least every hour, every day the entire year and that with quality content and replies, you won't make it.

Google indeed has almost BANNED forums which are not of the size as the big ones you may know i.e. BHW etc.

 

[MKSKS]

If your forum is in a generic niche and already has some other forums, UGC platforms dominating serps then you need both branding and authority.
So, you will need both backlinks as well as real looking traffic maybe from Social Media, YouTube, Telegram etc..
Check how many other established forums are there and then compare yours with theirs in terms of E-E-A-T.
Even with sites like reddit and quora can be tough to outrank for you because they are more established UGC web properties.

 

[FromAfrica]

I also have a forum project am working on, honestly is not so easy growing it, hve changed domain 4 times and invested alot of money, we are yet to start buying backlinks, but thankfully we are progressing slowly

In my opinion, is not easy building Forum in today world