New to owning a forum

[BomMi69]

I own co-own a forum that is hosted by Blue Host and run on phpBB.

My knowledge of both is very limited but I am trying to gain more knowledge on how things run technically. The little things I feel I should know is how to update sucessfully, how to add things to the forum (smiley packs), I don't even know much about zip files?! Apologies if my knowledge is extremely lacking on even the most basic of things but I am very new to this. (Apologies also if these questions have been asked before.)

We are also considering a move to vBulletin, once our initial year is up with phpBB. We are trying to offer as much as we can to our members but find ourselves limited with our current host.

We also advertise on Google but it doesn't seem to generate a lot of interest, I'm assuming it's because other websites come up first when our site is searched for. Does anyone have any advice to offer on better advertising and on the amount of ££/$$ we should be expecting to pay for good advertising.

I realise this is a lot to ask in one go, but I am trying to get as much information as possible, so as to improve the forum for our current and future members.

Oh and a lot of the technical terms used for forum hosting are beyond me, is there somewhere to look on this forum that can enlighten me on those?

Thanks in advance.

[temi]

What niche is your forum? I may be able to help, please PM your forum url to me and I will see how I may be able to help.
I have lots of experience with forums

[BomMi69]

Thanks Temi. I run a forum for Army Spouses if that's what you mean by niche. Wow I feel so clueless with this.

PM on the way.

[babadorie]

Google is a hard ground to advertise in now, We stop advertising with them a long time ago. We were not generating any lead from them. Facebook might be a place to try.

[BomMi69]

Google is a hard ground to advertise in now, We stop advertising with them a long time ago. We were not generating any lead from them. Facebook might be a place to try.

I created a group with Facebook but have tried and failed to understand advertising through it. We also very much rely on word of mouth of our current members to generate interest.

The other problem we're encountering is people tend to sign up and then disappear. We have about 40+ inactive members. We've tried asking for feedback from them on how to encourage them to return. That failed miserably.

[babadorie]

It is very hard to keep people excited and keep coming to your forum. See if you can find something webmasters need and integrate it with your forum.

[usman.forum]

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[kerryk]

I run a photography business and have a photography forum as a community that I'm interested in myself - as I'm a photographer and also promote some of my company products. I think the best way to get a forum busy is to be interested in it yourself and get other to help you post and moderate it. You'll certainly need to do the SEO as would with any other website though.

[ukapple]

Sometimes, I write my news on Atcities/com, it is easy and quick. News story, blogging, or micro blog, what different ? Forum is another way of social communciation. An interesting topic, it can be kept to continue for reading and writing.

[whippet75]

You need to generate interest from your members and you will only do this by making them feel part of the community. For example, you should run competitions and activities which enable user interaction. Also, have ebook giveaways and downloads as this gets people to register in the first place !