Build a successful forum suggestions

Adding Link to Signatures in other Forums
A great one this. You can get people to know about your forum for free, simply by joining other forums and having your link in your forum/profile signature. An added bonus to this is that search engines like Google can see these links, and it will help boost you in search engine results.

However! Please be careful about this. I have seen people join up to forums and do a huge advertising spam post about their website in hope to get clicks. THIS DOES NOT WORK!
In actual fact, it ruins the reputation of your forum. It makes look like a worthless, desperate spammer. Who wants to sign up to a forum run by someone like that? No one!

The best technique is to join forums with a positive attitude. Have a link to your site in your sig, but try to make 10 or so really great posts each day or week. If you get a great reputation on the forum, people will check out your link. If you are a really cool person, it is highly likely that someone will join your forum. People like to join up on sites run by really great people.

A little thank you
In the early stages of your forum being online getting visitors to join can be extremely difficult. When they do, it can be just as hard to keep them coming back to post.

One thing I've found that really works is to contact a member when they have just signed up. Send them a PM welcoming them to the forum, explaining to contact you if they have any problems, and that thank them for joining. Possibly even mention any upcoming events on the forum or future plans of improvement.

Auto insert content
Much like the "Paying for Posts" issue, there are services out there that will provide a database of members, posts, topics, and categories for a price.

To some this may seem like a great idea to kick start a new forum. After all, the hardest part of a forum is starting it off and trying not to make it look "empty". Well, this is a bad idea. Why? Because when get the first few visitors signed up and posting, they will notice that all your other members haven't been online in a while. Also, most of these services are very poor. The quality of posts and topics may prevent people even signing up to your forum. I have found most to be full of spelling errors and spam. Not something you want on forum.

An introduction category
These are brilliant. There's nothing harder than trying to make first post as a new visitor. With so many conversations going on between other members, it's hard to automatically fit in and join the natural flow.

Adding an introductions section to forum allows visitors to make an extremely easy first post. This also allows others to boost their post count by responding and welcoming them to the forum.

The benefits of this are members feel more welcome, get an increase in user posts, and it makes it easier for new members to jump aboard and get to know everyone.

Competitions
Competitions can create a real buzz for forum. There is one thing that is very improtant though which can either make this a great idea, or a very bad idea.

If you are going to have a great prize, you really need to have a great way to promote your competition. If people dont know about your forum and competition, then hardly anyone will participate. Put all you can into word of mouth, links etc. you can even try contacting other webmasters to see if they will help advertise the competition on thier sites!

One great competition I have found is to do it based on referrals. The member who gets the most of his friends to join up and get posting will win a prize. PayPal, eBay items, or coupons all work great. Be creative and see what can come up with!

Create a unique look
This is extremely important. With literally millions of forums out there, what competitive edge do you think will separate you from another of the same topic? That's right, a great looking forum.

When starting a new forum, many people tend to stick with the default template. I cannot stress enough how bad this is. Whilst the default theme does look nice, it is far too common. Visitors to forum will know this and think you either don't know what you are doing with a forum, or you are not willing to put in enough effort to make it look different. This will make them think it is not worth their time and effort posting on forum.

You do not have to be a programming genius in order to do this. I found that simply changing the colour scheme and a couple of graphics really works wonders. Spending just a couple of hours on your CSS and images can be the difference between visitors signing up or going to another website.

Make alternate profiles
One technique used when starting a forum brand new is to make about 10 profiles and get posting. Whilst this can seem like a good boost it can look pretty bad. Each time you post, your personality leaks into it. People can quite easily tell if its the same person or not. It also requires a great amount of effort to have 20 or so conversations with, trying to present different views and make it look good.

Instead, contact your friends. Ask them politely to sign up and help by making a few posts. Offer to get them a beer or something if they do, or just reward them with your kindness. Get them to tell their friends about site too. Word of mouth is great for getting people to join forum.

Also, if are lucky enough. Get friends to put a link to forum on their websites. Can also link back to them.

Paying for Posts
There are quite a few services out there that will offer to do posts for $. Whilst this may look like a good post-boost to forum, it can really harm it.

People aren't dumb. When start seeing about 20 people only making 10 posts then never returning they will notice somethings up. When feel that members are bots or paid people they will most likely leave. Who the hell wants to get into discussions with "fakes"? Members want to have REAL discussions and get to know each other.

In my experience that this can really hurt a forums reputation.

from http://www.simplemachines.org/community/index.php?topic=190581.0