Hi everyone...
My site seems to be taking forever to build, but the main reason for this is I want it to be 100% perfect, or at least in my eyes before it goes on its proper url...
Anyway my question is on bulletin boards. I really want to have one of these for my site.. As a bodybuilding and fitness site, there is much that could be discussed...
However is there any point in launching my site with a board staright away ? The traffic is likely to be quite low at first so the board will be dead. Apart from looking bad, it might just damn it from the start and then it will never get up.
However I DO need something that will keep my viewers coming back.. So I was thinking of not having a board to start with and just emphasising monthly updated articles, and then possibly something updated every week or perhaps daily (this might be too much !!)... Also an important thing in my plan is to have a good quality monthly or fortnightly newsletter..
Then once I start to get good traffic (hopefully) then when I am ready to launch a board, I will advertise on my site coming soon... etc.. and then include it in a newsletter and invite people to post..
How does this sound ?
Also shoudl I go for a free board to start with or invest in something like UBB or Vbulettin board ?
Also on a side note, do I need to have a ISP that allows perl and cgi scipts to run these two ? Anything else I need to cehck my ISP allows to run these boards ? ?
Thanks you very much..... awaiting your opinions..
http://www.wannabebig.com
The Ultimate Bodybuilding Resource
JP Stones posted this at 14:12 — 17th July 2000.
They have: 2,397 posts
Joined: Nov 1998
Your main idea seems sensible, I have seen it work and would say go for it.
JP
Justin S posted this at 14:44 — 17th July 2000.
They have: 2,076 posts
Joined: Jun 1999
Well first you will need your host to allow CGI/Perl and mySQL usually if you want to run vBulletin or something like it. If they don't allow you to run bulletin boards though, then check out CoolBoard (www.coolboard.com) because they'll host a board for you for free.
Second, I would wait until you get around 250/500 unique visitors per day before you launch your bulletin board.
Justin Stayton - [email] [icq]
jimbo posted this at 22:54 — 17th July 2000.
They have: 11 posts
Joined: Jun 2000
I think I am the exception to the rule, but I started my site with little more than a messageboard. It was a basic baseball team site, with little or no real information, but the forums were active from day one. With that traffic I began to expand the rest of the site to include daily game updates, player profiles and stats (in development), news, schedule, etc. I picked a targetted audience where there was a definite need for a messageboard of some sort. But I have seen many sites grow little or none after months of just sitting around.
I think a bulletin board is essential to the growth of any small site - but the trick is getting people to make it operate successfully. Urge people to get involved right from the get go. Next to every article you post (I would do it more often than monthly...), put a link to "discuss this in our forums". People like to think that their opinion counts - and especially if they disagree with the sentiments of the author. This can be done easily or more complicated, but if you're going to introduce forums, I would integrate them into the site, and not as a totally separate entity.
I wish you the best of luck
-jim
mjames posted this at 21:26 — 18th July 2000.
They have: 2,064 posts
Joined: Dec 1999
Instead of launching a new site with low traffic with message boards, chat rooms, etc., I would focus on content, design, and promotion first. Once you are more established and your traffic is flowing more, then consider adding interactive features like message boards and chat. There's nothing worse than people seeing inactive message boards and empty chat rooms for site's identity.
Marc James - marc@sports-central.org
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