Getting people to stay

[tb987]

I have a new forum that I am promoting and the usual scenario is this:

1. Person has a problem/question
2. Search the web and they post it on the forum.
3. The answer/suggestion is posted.
4. They are never seen again - a few might say thanks, but it is rare.

How do you get people to stick around?

Tony

[Cryxellis]

First is make your site's template inviting,
the second is what kind of forum do you have?
third is link build your forum to get indexed and
lastly make something different in your forums
that other forums doesn't have. For me I like
emoticons they are cute and you can express
your self very well.

[Oliver]

You have to provide plenty of incentives to keep your user there.

What Cryxellis said regarding the design is of paramount importance, but more than anything, it is important to build a nice community. If users feel that they are receiving a useful response, as well as being included rather than alienated, it will go a long way to convincing them to stay.

Convincing them to remain active in the long-long-term is another matter, and an entirely different proposition in terms of the appropriate course of action - it's extremely dependant on your type of forum and your niche.

Hope that helped a little

[tb987]

Thanks for the response. It is a consumer forum - Consumer Forums for Consumer Advice, Complaints, Money Saving Tips

Any ideas appreciated.

[mikenash]

An idea is to find topics that are related to the question that the poster asked, and occasionally mail the link to them. This is assuming they enable the "receive mail from admin" option.

And one way to even better this technique is if at the sign up page, you ask the new registrant to chose from a list of topics/sub-topics that are most related to why they are joining the forum. This way you can occasionally send them interesting/hot topics from the threads/sections of the forum that they had indicated.

[Paul Harris18]

The reason we all visit a forum is to get the answers about a particular subject.
Only upon the valid reply we receive will it mean that we would come back to the forum to discuss or give advise ourselves to others.

A theme on your forum or even a staged system of points like the one used by Trafficswarm may help

Good Luck

Paul

[chrisy.]

You have to provide plenty of incentives to keep your user there.

What Cryxellis said regarding the design is of paramount importance, but more than anything, it is important to build a nice community. If users feel that they are receiving a useful response, as well as being included rather than alienated, it will go a long way to convincing them to stay.

Convincing them to remain active in the long-long-term is another matter, and an entirely different proposition in terms of the appropriate course of action - it's extremely dependant on your type of forum and your niche.

Hope that helped a little

Emm, all I have to do is be nice to my members but then im a cutie

[kieransimkin]

My suggestion would be to ask your visitors when they sign up if they mind being sent an e-mail newsletter. Then send something out once a month with a useful article in it and a subtle reminder that your site was helpful to them and could be helpful to them again. Of course you have to be careful not to be seen as spam but the best way to achieve this is to make sure what you're sending them is actually of value - either an interesting article or some kind of tool, service or freebie that they can't get anywhere else. If you can do this, then nothing will remind someone to come back to your website like a monthly e-mail that they look forward to reading in their inbox.

[rubylene]

Make tons of interesting community!.. An SEO community would be great!.. Tons of people (SEO expects) want to interact with SEO community..

[Pete968]

Im an avid fan of forums and I reckon that there are two major user groups. First they are those who are coming in just to seek answers to their questions and off they go. There are those who are interested in building credibility for themselves whether its for commercial purposes or personal gratification. The latter is which you want to concentrate on because if they can stick around more, your content (or posts ) would naturally build up and be active. Provide this group with more avenues to participate like enabling signatures, marketplaces or even a hall of fame for ardent users... Afterall the more you take care of their needs the more user generated content you get on your forum, the more people will stick around. My 2 cents

BTW, Your forum is pretty good..I guess what you need is to be more focused in creating segments... Cheers.