Need Help From BTS Members

I currently own a Gamer Forum gamepad.freeforums.org... that is lacking in usership. Please take a look and tell me what you think and why I cant keep users.

I have also started a Gamer blog bloggamepad.blogspot.com... that needs some followers and poeple to post comments. Please help and give some advice.

Ok I had a look around. I am part of a multi-game FPS team so I have had a tad bit of experience with gaming forums. First off, people come to gaming forums for games, not politics. Try and leave politics , world events , etc. at the door. Whether it is a poll or whatever. Instead use a Miscellaneous forum that can be about anything other than games. But try to steer clear of politics. All it will take is you or someone on your staff to take a political lean on something that isn't vid games and you WILL lose members. Attracting members however, is all about advertising. When our team started 7years ago we made a big PR push. We went to team forums introduced ourselves, did banner exchanges with actual larger gaming forums. Just look up U.S.Mercs on google you will see. ( my game name is XO. Fastmover or fastmover01) Most sites will be more than happy to advertise your site as long as you advertise thiers. Let me poke around somemore and I'll see if I can help you with anything else. Also if you go to our site I'm sure my CO. will be happy to do a banner exchange with your site. www.usmercs.com... It is all about footwork. Just start going to gaming sites and asking to advert. DO NOT log in and advertise in forums without permission. They will likely ban you. Can't tell you how many nights I sat at the keyboard for 4+ hours doing nothing but surfing and advertising. Also if you have any skills (designing sigs, websites, etc.) you could proabably trade some services for marketing. Our CO owned his own webhosting company, server company, and designs sites as a partime job. Alot of free press gets thrown your way. Hell we played for 2 years for free after helping out another clan with thier site and forums. All about bartering.

[edit on 1-9-2009 by djvexd]

[edit on 1-9-2009 by djvexd]

I will sign up in the morning and I will pass it on to my team see if we can help ya out with some membership.

K I registered and begin poking around the forums. A suggestion, you need to simplify and unclutter the forums. This is mainly for the consolers that come on. I used to have a ps3 and can tell you how much a pain in the a$$ it is to navigate and post on cluttered forums.

Excellent thanks for the tips. Any suggestions on how to "unclutter" the forum, what should be removed?

[edit on 9/2/09 by Djdoubt03]

Well I will leave that up to you. Just keep this in mind and it should help. On a console, everytime you have an item that can be clicked on it is a press on the joypad. Too much pressing gets tiring and especially with the consoles eats up memory, so in essence it slows the surfing down. Also alot of graphics or jpegs and such will also really slow the consoles down. My best advice is go through and streamline. Start out with what you absolutley want to keep and have. As you gain members and such, put up posts and ask for thier opinion on a new add-on, or section in the forum etc. I know this kind of sounds counter-intuitive. You are probably think that more stuff attracts more people. This is true to a point , however having a smaller amount of things that operate smoothly and reliably will get more hits than a buggy forum thats jammed with stuff.

reply to post by djvexd


Hmm...going take some planning on my part. Thanks. Anyone else have any ideas to keep people. I do get about 100 or so new hits every day just can't seem to keep them coming back or registering.


What about the blog bloggamepad.blogspot.com...