Here is a link to our forum and another forum both have an EMS focus. We have been around for the same time but there site is grown with thousands of users...but ours is only getting 2-3 members each week?
My site: http://www.emslive.com
Their site: http://www.emtcity.com
Any suggestions on methods of marketing and ideas to help grow the site. Currently we are mailing out poster to paramedic stations and have google word ads.
Thanks!
JeevesBond posted this at 13:13 — 17th December 2005.
He has: 3,711 posts
Joined: Jun 2002
*Snigger* oh my.
To be honest their site looks ghastly, it's just a hideous - not even skinned - phpBB forum. And it's got a redirect on the URL too which SE's (Search Engines) will hate! That and all the badly laid out, mostly superfluous, content on the site surely means yours should do better.
Although if you look at: http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=site:http://www.emtcity.com/&hl=en&lr=&filter=0
You'll see that Google has 34,400 pages from that site spidered, however on yours it only has 80 (http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=link:http://www.emslive.com/&hl=en&lr=&filter=0)
Someone who has a clue about SEO might want to chime in at this point as it's a bit of a hazy subject for me.
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aboyd posted this at 15:39 — 18th December 2005.
They have: 33 posts
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Gosh, really? When I looked at them, the membership levels of each site seemed perfectly appropriate. They're getting the traffic they foster.
The pretty site -- the one with the low traffic -- is too sterile. And the home page is too calm & unchanging. You'd have no idea that there is a bustling community under that home page, and it turns out, there really isn't.
The ugly site -- the one with decent traffic -- has EVERY community-based mod applied. In other words, they are hell-bent on fostering the community participation. They offer the blog mod, so their EMTs are writing blogs & gaining traffic. They have the birthday mod installed, donation mod, and a few other mods which are basically excuses to highlight certain members. Forum members love to see their names in lights, and that site shines a spotlight on 20 or 30 members at any given moment.
So while the site is uuuuuggggly, it also makes it plain that there is activity happening every moment. It's very hard NOT to get involved, because their little boxes with the latest posts or blogs or scrolling widgets draws you in.
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chrishirst posted this at 00:34 — 20th December 2005.
He has: 379 posts
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Yep, I have to agree, They have built a community and have the community naturally promoting itself.
Take a good look around, you'll find the most popular forums have a basic look and feel rather than a slick highly polished look.
It's the "lived in" look as opposed to the "show house" appearance.
Chris
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JeevesBond posted this at 09:51 — 20th December 2005.
He has: 3,711 posts
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Have to admit you guys might have a point there, although IMO it'd be better to have the best of both worlds.
A highly polished, busy looking site
Funny though: http://www.emslive.com/ is down, maybe it's been shutdown?
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Jbignell posted this at 13:29 — 20th December 2005.
They have: 16 posts
Joined: Dec 2005
It shouldn't be down? What part wasn't working for you?
The comments are some of the best tips and offer me a new perspective on what we need to do with EMSLive.com. Thanks for taking your time to review my site.
What is frustrating is that we launched out phpBB forum and Flash 123chat, before they did. Our site was up and running for about 2months, but then they launch and 3,000 people joined in 8months....how did the EMTs and Paramedics find them?
Our website has a more professional, corporate look to it, simple because we wanted to get the interest of the medical industry and didn't want to seem small and armature. But we lost that community feeling.....
I am not sure how changing forums would make more EMTs and Paramedics use our forum...what features would be offered? Wouldn't the users get frustrated since they have to learn a new forum tools?
http://www.emslive.com
James posted this at 12:36 — 20th December 2005.
He has: 139 posts
Joined: Dec 2005
Your site has a more professional, coporate approach to it whilst the other community you mentioned is purely a community - with a chatty friendly feel to it. You should be able to to do well I should think. I would personally use IPB or VBulletin and outclass your competitor's forums. You got to offer something different and better. Not the same old blue phpBB.
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locatepeople posted this at 17:16 — 20th December 2005.
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Joined: May 2005
the other site has alot more text than your site, search engiens love text and content.
Jbignell posted this at 22:02 — 21st December 2005.
They have: 16 posts
Joined: Dec 2005
With 3,000 members posting to their forum the site will grow, and have more text.
We did start publishing articles on our site, that are medical in nature in the news section of the site.
http://www.emslive.com/Archive.php?id=6
http://www.emslive.com
Jbignell posted this at 01:13 — 29th December 2005.
They have: 16 posts
Joined: Dec 2005
What is my next step?
I got an email from an EMT/paramedic that visited my site for the first time that thought I had copied EMTcity.com's website. Same colours, same chatroom....even thought I had mine up a month before they did.
If I go and add all the features that they have will people think I am carbon copying them? What new features should I look at, and what things should I avoid?
I am going to add more things to the index page of the site, and make the home page look more active and alive. I would like to make the site seem professional and still look active and full of life!
Thanks for all the great comments so far it has been very helpful and eye opening for us.
http://www.emslive.com
aboyd posted this at 07:01 — 29th December 2005.
They have: 33 posts
Joined: Nov 2004
Since you're using phpBB for your forums, install phpbb_fetch_all. It comes with a demo page that has all sorts of integration with the forums. I suggest whittling that down to just two boxes you could integrate into your home page. First, get a small box with the 5 most recent posts. Second, get another small box of some kind to foster the community -- the top 10 posters, or the 5 newest members, or the "random featured member" box. Pick one. Integrate them cleanly into your homepage. Don't overdo it.
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Jbignell posted this at 03:03 — 30th December 2005.
They have: 16 posts
Joined: Dec 2005
Thanks!
I had a look at the demo site:
http://www.phpbbfetchall.com/phpBB2/mods/phpbb_fetch_all/examples/portal.php
It would be easy to over due it and add everything, but I want to have a clean and simple professional looking site with a vibrant community feeling. I am thinking the "topics" and "Profile/login".
Would two be too many, or not enough?
http://www.emslive.com
eWESTPost posted this at 11:51 — 7th January 2006.
They have: 15 posts
Joined: Dec 2005
If I need to, I would chose EMTcity.com than yours because of the active community over there. You may need to find posters to improve the content for both SEs and visitors. Do some marketing.
I'm wondering why you'r chasing your visitors away by placing a banner for EMTcity.com on your home page.
Fetching the forum index to home page is a 'must do' if you want to promote it.
Good luck.
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PalSys posted this at 03:56 — 14th January 2006.
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Mods are a big deal. People like to interact, and it seems no matter how messy modding can get, offerings like that is your best bet for traffic draw.
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Jbignell posted this at 17:52 — 17th January 2006.
They have: 16 posts
Joined: Dec 2005
When they started we did a link exchange on each other's site. We both wanted to help each other out....but now they are screaming ahead!
I not sure it's the MOD, I think it is the fact that stuff is happening everyday. It looks busy and they feed off each other. Plus I think EMTs and Paramedic like the crazyness....it's in them!
Over the next 3-4 weeks we are planning on som major changes and updates. Thanks everyone for the suggestion and helping us think out of the box.
http://www.emslive.com
Sprint posted this at 07:05 — 19th January 2006.
They have: 8 posts
Joined: Jan 2006
The other site looks perhaps more fun. After a long day of dealing with trama, perhaps when they're online they want something "lite" not "serious" like yours.
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aboyd posted this at 04:23 — 14th March 2006.
They have: 33 posts
Joined: Nov 2004
Hmm. I posted some comments about your site back in December. I just looked again, and I have to say that it's really disappointing to look at your "revised" site -- on first glance, nothing has changed. In truth, you have made some changes to the home page, but they're all below the fold. So the summary of your question seems to be, "didn't really change much, how come we're still not seeing results?" And of course, the answer is right in the question -- you didn't change enough.
I note that it may be my own advice which directed you to make such very small changes. I dislike that I kept my advice modest, but I also want to clarify that I didn't mean to suggest that you keep the changes out of the spotlight. I was hoping you'd pick 2 or 3 community-based features, and put them front & center, where the radio stuff is now.
And speaking of radio, right now, your site is branded -- strongly -- as a radio show. From the graphic title at the top of the page (which makes it appear that "Online Radio Show" is part of the site's name), to the masthead, to the bulk of the text on the page, it's all about the radio show. That's fine, but that makes it clear that your priority is the show.
The competing site makes it clear that their priority is community. So a community is forming. If you keep your focus on the radio show, you cannot have what they have. Of course, they do not have what you have. So perhaps this might be the point where both sides stop looking at each other, and accept that they're different.
If you cannot get over them, then at some point you're going to have to accept that the pretty radio-focused site you have now isn't going to get the results you want. You are going to need to completely redesign the home page. Don't tack-on an extra feature, such as the latest posts. Instead, kill off most of the radio focus (don't remove it entirely!) and come up with a new design that shifts the focus to the forum & membership.
I guess if I could summarize my advice, it would be either "accept your site as-is" or else "overhaul your site and leave the old one behind." But don't straddle fences. I wish you the best of luck with whatever you decide.
-Tony
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Jbignell posted this at 19:17 — 13th March 2006.
They have: 16 posts
Joined: Dec 2005
I have made some changes to the site and have seen some improvement in the site stats, but the activity level of people using the stuff on the site is still way down.
Let me know what you think of the changes.
http://www.emslive.com
http://www.emslive.com
SearchBliss posted this at 20:51 — 13th March 2006.
He has: 267 posts
Joined: Feb 2005
Can I suggest NOT linking to the other forum. Why give your visitors the choice when the other forum is your competition?
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Burta posted this at 04:06 — 19th March 2006.
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Joined: Mar 2006
I run a forums that are quite popular and get about 2000 uniques a day - and for me the biggest thign is interaction and making people believe that the community is worth joining and keeping things simple for those looking to join. The best thing you can ever do for your forums is get more traffic flowing through them and with more traffic will come more sign ups with more sign ups comes activity and with more activity comes more sign ups because people see there is activity which leads to more sign ups which leads to more posts which leads to more index pages which leads to more traffic etc etc etc... it really is a snowball effect - or at least that is how I have found it, and it begins with traffic and that begins with some quality work on your SEO.
I have recently made a 10 page guide on Web Site Promotion, and whilst it isn't forum specific it has a lot of infomation in there you might find useful.
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Riks posted this at 11:55 — 3rd April 2006.
They have: 10 posts
Joined: Mar 2006
I see they have the forum visible in the first click.
I don't find your forums at first click, and if you don't tell me maybe I didn't realize the forums exists.
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