How can I drive traffic to my forum site?

Oguzalp

Hello, I've installed SEO infrastructure on my forum site, added everything including badges and daily login system. Here are the forum statistics: Forum Statistics
Users : 53
Discussions : 51
Posts: 88
but my forum is dead, nobody is opening topics. What can I do?

my forum : https://forumhan.freeflarum.com/

Oguzalp

Oguzalp And yes, I sacrificed my school years for this forum website 😃

Karl

This button looks broken:

And your category usage is probably extremely overwhelming, which would be a redflag for visitors. Tags are nice, but if you're going to use the category extension, simplify it.

Also, people tend to not want to register to ghost towns. You need to seed conversation.

Oguzalp

Karl I think I'll change the view to "all discussions".

Oguzalp

Oguzalp And I will write a description under the labels.

Oguzalp

I'm putting the forum into maintenance mode right now 🙂

Oguzalp

Oguzalp Yes, I've got my coffee and put on my lucky Piakchu socks, I'm ready 😃

Karl

You're spamming this topic now. Please refrain from doing so in the future.

Oguzalp

Karl my fault i'm sorry

Oguzalp

Karl Yes, I started by fixing my mistakes, I'll simplify the interface, and the hardest thing for me is promoting my forum site. Actually, I'm thinking of creating tech content and using it to advertise the forum. Do you think that's a good idea?

ernestdefoe

Oguzalp general rule of thumb is unless you need so many tags less is more. Also content is key. Gotta give visitors something to want to join and participate. There’s nothing wrong with the categories extension but you don’t want your site to look so dead which is where the less is more comes in.

Oguzalp

ernestdefoe Yes, you're right, but my aim here is for people to discuss, start conversations, and talk about anything. If you examine the categories, you'll see there are many categories where you can start topics, from technology to vehicles to everyday things. Of course, the main purpose of my forum is hardware and software news, and for people to ask for help with hardware issues and have them solved by other users.

Karl

Oguzalp if you want more "categories" drop that extension and rely on tags. You're making it too overwhelming. You have good intentions, but if a guest doesn't know where to go or what to do, they aren't sticking.

By the way, I also noticed you put this in the wrong tag here. Please review the guidelines of the community and be familiar with it.

Ps, you posted in the wrong section, now imagine someone visiting your site with that many tags. Get what I mean?

Oguzalp

Karl I apologize, I just realized I posted in the wrong category. I was writing the comments in the categories on my own forum. Could you please check the forum? What do you think of the latest version, and I selected the tagged option for appearance?

Karl

Oguzalp switching from the category extension to the tags page is not an improvement you're wanting. It's the same underlying problem. You need to find a way to consolidate your tags and cater to a specific topic. By encompassing too many broad topics and breaking them down further, you're basically copying Reddit. Reduce the noises build discussions that are engaging, not single posts without replies.
Having all discussions as the primary page will help the most too. You're replicating discussion boards of the past. Look at why Reddits formula or other modern social networks actually drive traffic. They bring the engagement to you, not having the guest figure it out and find it. Cater to the user, not dated structure that doesn't work. Especially in today's standards where people value time and attention spans are cut.

luceos

I always love these discussions about "how to drive traffic" or "how to grow my community". Maybe you need to compare it to building a real life community group. People will never know it exists unless you spread the word. Simply creating a forum, and expecting people to find you blindly without existing users visiting will hardly help. Formulate your target audience, then see where they are active online (or offline if that's possible) and interact, if you need to do that on someone else's platform, don't be intrusive in spamming your own links.