Traffic Method # 226 : Build a Successful Forum or User Generated Content Site with these 7 Community Building Tips

So you’re gonna build a forum (I’m not spelling out “user generated content site” each time. But know that these guidelines apply to them, too.)

Fantastic. Forums are a great way to market and increase your traffic by heightening participation and interaction. I’ve had three very successful forum-based sites, and one that I would call unsuccessful. Here are some tips I learned from both my successes and mistakes.

1- Find a compatible, under-served market.

You want to start with an area your existing site is compatible with. If your site is about traffic generation, you don’t *have* to build a forum for tips – that’s what people are coming to YOU for. You could build one on a related area like copywriting, or a sub-genre, like search engine optimization.

In fact, it’s best to start with a vague area and let your audience help you specify.

2 – Build and assemble the audience, then add the forum.

Go and find the people first, and start with a test group of maybe 25 people. Get them talking and intimate with each other, maybe get some of them to moderate the forum. If you did your niche homework (see step one) you know who all the marginalized, ignored people are in your market. Gather them together and give them a home.

Then, when the group has been lively for at least two weeks, bring new people. Give your test group the honor of first invites.

3- When you build the forum, start with one to three general topics, then spin-off.

This is especially true with entertainment forums. I have run a top three poetry forum site four times since 1998. The biggest mistake any competitor made to copy us was to start a forum that had 35 forums identical to ours, not realizing that those topics grew organically out of our group’s ideas.

4- Keep the forum lively, even when no one is around.

If you have to get in there and talk to yourself, do it, though if you paid attention to number two, it shouldn’t be a problem. Do remember, though, even if you start the group out seeded with special pre-live members, that everyone is looking to you for topics of discussion. Start a few topics, and ask that others do the same.

Then answer all the topics that get started, including your own. You’re the host, keep the party hopping. Get moderators if you need help.

5- Make sure every topic gets a response within 24 hours.

A big sign of a forum that is leaving the door open for someone else to take over their demographic – topics that don’t get responses. Even if your response has to be, “I don’t know,” “I sent you the message by PM”or “This is a spam topic and I’m closing it,” show you care by making sure your moderators respond to each topic created in a day or less.

6- Don’t be a copycat. Otherwise you’re leaving no reason for your audience to stay.

After you’ve built your forum, each week you should be looking at it and thinking, why is my forum different from any one else’s? And the answer can’t just be “because I’m here.” Even if you’re a famous internet celebrity, there should be something about your forum that can’t be found anywhere else.

Find that reason and use it in your advertising as well as your branding.

7- Forums are clubs. Integrate exclusivity.

A big mistake I’ve made is to give TOO much power to the user community. There comes a point at which suggestions come in that may make the site better, but only at the cost of making something else worse. Sometimes you’ll hear about a minority view that the set up should be different.

I’m the last person to tell you to ignore the suggestions of your visitors. All I’m saying is first, make sure it’s a general consenus, and if not, meet them half way.

Another mistake I’ve made related to this was to attempt to expand traffic by catering to people outside the niche I built. For about a year I had what was considered the top poetry forum in the world, based on quality, and our only traffic competitor was poetry.com. But then we were asked to include more discussion forums.

I yielded to the community against my better judgment… and the poetry forums suffered badly for it in the not-too-long run.

Stick to your guns… you made a specific type of site for a specific reason. Stick with that reason – if another good idea comes along, build a new site.

That should be enough to give you a start at building a successful forum.

And PS – we’re still having all the other content we’ve always had, such as Google Tuesdays, at least when there is something interesting and relevant to be said. But the Traffic Methods are going to be a mainstay as well.