What else can i do?

My site - eTeknix.com - Home
My integrated forum - eTeknix Forums

I use the latest versions of vBulletin with their CMS and Blogs, as well as the latest version vBSEO, analytics addon, conditional signatures and vBSEO sitemap generator to which i've verified using Google Webmaster Tools.

No matter what time i look at my "who's online" it is normally 35-50 people of which im guessing a few are search bots etc...

A lot say they are viewing attachments and facing an error which im still not sure about as when i log out "as a guest" i can see everything on the site fine??

Either way, i have hundreds of articles/reviews on my website and on average 2-5 articles are published each day.

According to Alexa, i have 186 sites linking in, even though i know for a fact it's more than that.

Any ideas to what else i can do? My forum is pretty much DEAD to say the least, with new signups highly unfrequent.

I've tried running competitions but that brings people along for the period of the competition, and then i never see them again.

I've created various threads and replies daily to which i get no responses.

I comment on most of my articles to hopefully engage people to respond but alas, no luck.

Please help me, i want my site to grow and be sucessful and get a buzz about the place, especially getting some interaction on the forums.

Sorry for the long thread.

Thanks,

Andy

It's always tough to start something new. SEO only gets the users THERE. Getting them to participate is a whole new ball game. I would suggest to keep doing what you are doing. It may not happen overnight, but one day you will get one article that is killer and gets around the net quick. When that happens, you will start to gain some memberships, etc.

Originally Posted by Brian Cummiskey

It's always tough to start something new. SEO only gets the users THERE. Getting them to participate is a whole new ball game. I would suggest to keep doing what you are doing. It may not happen overnight, but one day you will get one article that is killer and gets around the net quick. When that happens, you will start to gain some memberships, etc.

I've been running my website since Feb 2009 lol

Just never seemed to have got that flow of traffic on my forum, wheras my site generally gets 2000 unique visitors a day.

I tried social bookmarking, submitting my articles to Digg, Delicious, Stumble Upon, Twitter and Facebook and had no joy from that on a 3 month period. Now i automatically have Facebook and Twitter submit my articles and that's it, but generally no traffic comes from that even though i have a big following.

Andy

If you're getting traffic to the site, but not to the forum, you need to integrate the forum better into the site somehow. Focus on better linking, "Discuss this topic" style links, etc.

Originally Posted by Brian Cummiskey

If you're getting traffic to the site, but not to the forum, you need to integrate the forum better into the site somehow. Focus on better linking, "Discuss this topic" style links, etc.

Thanks Brian,

I've added a widget to tell people to check out the forum with a link and also implemented the latest forum posts etc... in the form of widgets so see what happens now i guess

Any other ideas, please feel free to let me know.

Andy

A sidebar likely won't do much. the key is to intergrate it fully.


something like

"...last week when we talked about saving lions from getting eaten by tigers and bears oh my..."

where the bold text is a link to the forum topic.

Ahh i see, ok Brian, i'll give it a go

Andy

Hi all,

I've been running my site and forums for around 2 years now, but between that time i will admit, i gave up for a few months and then tried again, then gave up, then tried again and i used to have a handful of helpful people on my forums who used to post every day.

Sadly it seems they have upped and left :(

I recently moved my site which was using wordpress to be integrated with the forums using the CMS.

I also use the blogs of which you get access to if you're a premium member (1 person so far and of course mods, admins etc...)

My site can be found at eTeknix.com - Home and as you can see, i have a niche market as i produce the latest computer hardware reviews in VIDEO format, and also display question and answers, how to videos as well as the latest news on the computer hardware front, including press releases which is always a good thing for quick easy content.

When a new article/review is posted, we email out to over 700 other review sites who link to it for us as affiliates etc... which is great, no one ever digg's/stumbles etc... our articles and i used to do it myself but never got any traffic from it, so the only thing i do now is twitter it (automagically) and facebook it as im publishing it but nothing is really gained from that, despite having a following on twitter of about 1000 followers, maybe a bit less.

I've had to result in creating a couple of made up users which i never thought i'd have to result doing but needs must i guess.

I just don't seem to be able to get people posting about anything (new threads, new replies, comments on articles)

Can anyone help?

Since i switched over to vbulletin CMS with vBSEO i have had increased traffic and CONSTANTLY have over 30 people on the site at any one time and barring the weekend (when figures drop) i've been getting 2400-3000 visits compared to the 1000-2000 i used to get when i was using wordpress.

Please help, i'm in desperate need to make this work, as i want to make this (my hobby) into a business more than anything.

Thanks,

Andy

You seem to be doing everything right with the content.... and you're getting the search traffic... they just aren't staying.

Only you can know what that is.

Either
-they aren't getting the info they want and trying another search result
-they are getting everything they need and there is no point for them to contribute/reply/sign up.

Repost. Delete.

Decided to try running another competition, but what is the best way to utilise the forum to boost traffic using it?

Andy