How can you get traffic in addition to search engines and social websites traffic? I talk about big traffic, not a few visitors that you get from your website directory submissions or forum signatures.

Well, you can do it with your community - a database of dedicated users that will come to their favorite website for news, communication and more neglecting the positions of your website in search engines. You do not have to care about search engine updates anymore.

In addition to traffic the loyal visitors will generate you free content that will result in bringing you more visitors through search engines. The value of good communities is great

But the question is how to create these communities from zero? There are a few types of websites where users generate content:

- forums (most popular type)
- social websites (recent buzz on the Internet)
- image hosting
- etc

In this post I would like to talk about forums – the traditional way to generate users’ content and the cheapest one – it costs nothing to install phpBB forum on your website compared to developing a social website similar to www.digg.com

What issues should you be prepared to deal with if you are going to start your first forum? If you check the most authoritative web resource on this topic TheAdminZone you will see the tasks that are in store for you:

Set Up and Launch
Discussions about Planning an Online Community - Privacy Policies - Terms of Service - Targeting Niche - Demographics.

Community Management
Managing Members and Staff - Building Community Spirit.

Servers and Hosting
Shared, Virtual, and Dedicated Hosting Options.

Search Engine Optimization
SEO Makes Your Forums Irresistable To Spiders! Techniques and Tips For vBulletin, IPB, and phpBB. Increase Your Forum’s Search Engine Rankings.

Increasing Traffic
Promotional Techniques To Fill Up Those Member Lists.

Advertising Methods
Offsetting the Cost of Maintaining Your Site with Affiliate Programs, eCommerce, Subscriptions, Donations, Advertising, and Targeted Sponsorships - Online Payment Options

Forum Organization
How To Arrange Your Forums For Best Effect.

Graphics Customization
Advice & Tutorials for forum styles. Buttons, smilies, avatar swaps. (Add forum software brand to the title of your thread)

Recently I have started 4 forums. Considering my experience short of successful running online communities I have to learn much and fast. At the moment I try to find a working algorithm to apply to all my forums, but I have a gut feeling that there is no unique solution for every community as they are all in different niches.

As I go deeper into the mechanism of forum operation I start to look at my websites with the eyes of a visitor and see more and more things to improve (then I drop my forum research and do some work at the websites).

I have chosen free phpBB software for my websites though most ‘experienced’ people recommend vBulletin. I have installed several and plan to add a few more mods (attachment, reputation, etc)

Well, what resources are likely to help you with your endeavors to start, manage and promote your online communities?

In addition to TheAdminZone (where you can also find interviews with successful forum owners) I would recommend AdminFusion (I guess Lee Dodd - a well known ‘forum specialist’ - is the owner of this one)

And spend a portion of your valuable time studying these invaluable pieces of wisdom:

Set-up & Launch Resources

Community Management Resources

Increasing Traffic Resources

The best tips to get your forum started

Advertising Method Resources

Summary: Yes, it takes time to explore the resources I refer to in this post. It will take time to implement most steps on your forums to achieve any good result. It will be hard to compete with a lot of other forums in your niche – some innovating ideas would help with that.

But if and when you and I succeed we will enjoy an automatic online property that will take minimum time and efforts (compared to running a blog or a content website) to run.

[tags]user generated content, forums, free, phpbb, vbulletin, link bait, social bookmarking, web 2.0, domain names, archive.org, adsense, adwords, ppc, text-link-ads, links buying, links selling, myspace, seo, internet marketing, affiliate marketing, blogs, content generation, ebay, google, make money online, work from home, home based job, wikipedia, del.icio.us, technorati, bloglines, duplicate content, links, earn your living online[/tags]

Related posts:

PPC marketing in crisis?

Forum moderators: how to find?

Home-based business: more success tips

This entry was posted on Thursday, August 17th, 2006 at 4:19 am and is filed under Traffic Sources. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.