promotion problem

[4thandLong]

I recently started a sports forum, http://www.thestands.com . I actually run it with a fellow site point user. Anyways, we both knew going into the project that there is hefty competition with similiar forums. We have already submited the site to search engines and are waiting for our listings. We have used word of mouth and that has got mediocre responses. I would like to know if there is anything else we can possibly due to promote them? I know it takes time but i don't want to wait for a long time, maybe a month or two to get listed, if we even do! I look forward to hearing your responses.

[superbird]

do you go on other sports boards and have it in your sig?

[HyperBaseball]

Paul,
Something which I know worked well for other boards on the net (especially baseballboards.com) is to mail to smaller and even bigger sports sites asking them if they would like to be a part of your 'network.' In exchange for them linking to you, you make them a part of your sports network. You get traffic because they tell their visitors to post on your boards, and they do it so they can be recognized by a 'big' forums site.

[4thandLong]

superbird, i don't feel it is right to boast my board on my competitors' sites.

Jason, good idea but i don't want to totally copy baseballboards.com, we are setting up a link exchange system though.

[Hierophant]

A couple of questions...

Why just Baseball??? With your name you can handle all sports. Might be willing to post some if there were other sports. Last time I watched a Baseball game was 1993, just don't have three hours to sit around and watch something like that. Yet I can watch parts of a football game or hockey match and get my entertainment value.

Why not target sites that don't yet have forums? You could offer to be their community... They would drive traffic to you and you would give them much needed content.

[4thandLong]

My partner, TWTcommish(think that is his name on here) feel that we need to start small, we don't want to have a bunch of empty forums. If there is high demand, i think we'll add some more, possibly NBA since the season is about to start.

[Hierophant]

RIght start small.. Your in the middle of Football season as well..


1 forum each for the major sports Baseball, Football (American), Hockey and Basketball, Racing and then possibly a couple of international sports like Soccer and Rugby.

That is only a couple more than you have now. And would draw a much larger crowd. People are talking about Football now and waiting for Baseball to be over so they can get into Basketball.

[mjames]

That's exactly what we're doing at my sports boards. (Have a board for each major sport and plan to expand when they become more popular).

Might want to consider that, Paul.

[Siteowners]

4thandLong,

Mods play a very important role on building a community. Choose the right guys whose life is dedicated to baseball. Only they will catch the members attention and will bring them back to the forums.

You could also create a main site except from the forums.

Goos luck,
Steve.

[WebKat]

~Paul~ Think reciprocol links as a key to get the word out about your forum and not just the traditional 'Sports Sites' but other places such as sports equipment sites, sports memorabilia, sports auction sites, sports trading card sites, etc. Think of any site that a Sports Nut would be interested in -- baseball caps, bats & mitts & gloves...

When I did a photographic organization's website I didn't just think of another organization, but related sites for film, cameras, lights when I went for reciprocol links...doing this quickly upped my hits

If used to the max this may work for your forum too...

[superbird]

I see what you mean about not being unfair to the competition, but I think if boards allow sigs then they aren't going to mind.

[TWTCommish]

Originally posted by W. Luke
A couple of questions...

Why just Baseball??? With your name you can handle all sports. Might be willing to post some if there were other sports. Last time I watched a Baseball game was 1993, just don't have three hours to sit around and watch something like that. Yet I can watch parts of a football game or hockey match and get my entertainment value.

Why not target sites that don't yet have forums? You could offer to be their community... They would drive traffic to you and you would give them much needed content.

You're right about the smaller sites...and yes, we reserved the domain thinking we could expand eventually, but as is obvious, it's not always a good idea to have a lot of varied forums when traffic is still low, which it is for our site. We picked one to stat off, and baseball made the most sense: there are a lot more baseball fans out on the Net from my experience than that of other sports.

[Hierophant]

Well from my perspective the forums have no value for me as I don't really care about Baseball anymore. In fact I can only name the team of one player (Tobey McGuire and the St. Louis Cardinals, I think) and that is due more to the morning radio show I listen to than even thinking about bseball. At the most baseball annoys me because it gets too much airtime on radio and television.

If there were Basketball and Hockey forums not only could I participate but I could help promote it. I have friends who could tell you every basketball statistics known to mankind for the last 20 years and are not able to find decent sites to hang out at because there are none.

It is overall your choice though. I would just like to state reasons why I would have done otherwise.

[TWTCommish]

Well, I'm not against having, say, a Baseball Forum, a Basketball one, a Hockey one and a Football one, but around, say, 4 of each would be a mistake...we all know how bad it looks when a forum is dead empty with 30 different sections.

Anyway, Paul makes more of the decisions about the forums, and he's putting up other sports ones...we'd love to take you up on your offer of telling your friends. The forums have actually done surprisingly well considering they've gotten very little actual promotion.

[4thandLong]

We added an NBA section to the forums, hope you all like it. Please feel free to post if you like sports and as Chris said, spread the word.

[HyperBaseball]

WLuke,

Did you say Toby McGuire?!?! Hahahahaha that's a good laugh.
His name would be Mark McGwire, and he is one of the men who has broken the homerun record held by Roger Maris and Babe Ruth.

Not like he's important or anything

[TWTCommish]

Hahahaha - Tobey MaGuire is the guy they cast to play Spiderman in the new Marvel Comics Movie.

[4thandLong]

Spiderman, baseball...................all the same.

[Hierophant]

Told you I didn't know baseball... Haven't even thought about watching a game in 7 years.

[necrominator]

I know twtcomish, but i think that your making this site part of a network? right? If your not, i think that you need something else on the site except for just a board, you may want something as simple as news, etc, but just boards? I dont believe i know of one popular site which offers just a board, even sites where their main feature is the board, have other information on them.

[TWTCommish]

We plan to expand to other things relating to sports at some point - not yet, though. For now we're just letting it build on it's own a bit until we both have more time for it.

[mjames]

Originally posted by necrominator
I know twtcomish, but i think that your making this site part of a network? right? If your not, i think that you need something else on the site except for just a board, you may want something as simple as news, etc, but just boards? I dont believe i know of one popular site which offers just a board, even sites where their main feature is the board, have other information on them.

What about Baseballboards.com? I don't think they planned to make total baseball site, and I hope it just stays simple as boards.