I need some help here. I've done everything I can in regards to SEO in the past month and of course I know results take a bit. I am always looking for ideas to improve the amount of members at my online Hosting Community and I've thought about advertising although I'd like to not put too much into advertising at the moment. Are there some cheap places that you guys think might offer a fair amount of return? Any additional suggestions are much appreciated!

You're talking about http://www.gurulounge.com ?

What did you do SEO-wise? The page titles are the same on all of the pages. That's not a good thing.

Well so far I've run keywords tried to go that route under x amount and not same words, etc. So far the Google bot has hit my website around 125 times this month and about 50 of those times in the last two days, so I think I'm starting to get somewhere. I've also listed the site (or at least attempted to) in many directories such as dmoz.org and webmaster directories. The titles on each page are the same yes, but that's a bit harder to change with a forum.

I'd lose the pop-unders.

Well I removed them although they were generating quite a few amounts of hits. Thanks for the tip.

Well, one of the best things you can do is what you are doing now! Participate in other forums and use your signature for advertising. When you make good posts, people will become interested in who you are and what sites you own. Just make sure they are not SPAMMY, self promotion like posts or it can have the opposite affect.

You could also try some PPC. Some forum related terms can be bid for for very cheap (I would only recommend Overture and Adwords though).

Also look for webmaster related ezines or newsletter to advertise in. Some can be pretty expensive, but sometimes you can also find some bargain advertising.

Keep in mind that the larger your community gets the faster it takes off. By Far the hardest part of running a forum is getting people to join when the member and post count is low. Once you pass 500 or so members, you will be surprised how fast things can take off.

Good Luck,
Tim

Having a popunder may get your site hits, but it will not attract targeted visitors. I would recommend adding your site to your signature (which you have done) but add it to your sig in many other forums. Getting into google is another good way to get traffic to your forum. The more posts, the more content is picked up from google/yahoo etc.

Thanks for the input guys, I am talking all of your comments to the drawing board. I plan to launch an advertising campaign sometime in the future, although I would prefer not to put a fortune into advertising something I really don't plan to or don't want to get capital out of.

While I do add my signature, sometimes I feel bad about doing it too much. I try to really contribute to the forums that I do sign up with and help out where I can as a sort of payment for my link being displayed.

Tim, do you happen to have any suggestions for advertising in these enzines and magazines? I've tried a few targeted ones so far, but they seem to charge an arm and a leg and it's simply too much for something that isn't intended to make money.

We have not placed any newsletter ads in a long time. I can't remember who who placed ads with at the moment (it's been a long time).

Firstly, I'd consolidate lots of those boards together - there really is no need to specialise in so many areas of webhosting, for example, unless the member activity shows a need for such specialisation.

If you really want to promote your forum then get building content - you really need that to attract human users. As for SE's - There really isn't much to index at the moment.

Which ones do you feel I should consolidate? I think that they're alright with the exception of maybe the marketing and business forums. Perhaps those two do belong together.

In honesty:

Webhosting and Reseller as one - you could even attempt a stab at the niche term "Shared hosting forum".

Hosthelp, security, and software all removed - their content can be served on the shared and dedicated boards. Or else - if you must - simply consolidate the three into one "hosting help lounge".

Hi,
i feel the web master forum niche is well catered for. Why not think of areas that do not have forums at all ?

Well my primary reason would be because I'm not in this so much for money as I am just because I want to start a community on the topic. I've expanded things since this original post to be a little more broad and offer more of an 'all in one' type community but at the very same time not overdo it.

What is a Hosting Community?

It's where you talk about web hosting.