xuberant

Hello,

Seeing as I am a newcomer to having my own forum I was wondering if some of you veterans can give me some tips on how to get people to join and post.

I am staying away from going to other exotic car forums and asking people to join as I think loyalty is very important when it comes to having a successful site.

I was wondering if these ideas I have might help benefit the startup of my forum

A. Free vendor classifieds
B. No Vendor or Membership Fees
C. No Ads
D. Thinking of more stuff at the moment.

Im looking into getting my site on google soon once the site is finished as I hope it will help put my forum out there.

Hopefully this thread is ok to post. I am really just looking for some guidance and hope one day my website and forum will be as popular as this site and other successful car sites. I am open for some constructive criticism on my forum layout as well. The more info I can get the better off I will be.

As the forum currently stands it is "live" but I will probably close it until its finished as I dont want to distract people from seeing an unfinished site.

Here is the link to the forum as it currently stands
http://www.exoticcarhunter.com/phpBB3/
Thanks

05TurboS2k

hmmm good stuff.

Make the little folders pop a bit more...

too much of the same colors, nothing stands out. I do like the overall colors and the background color being black but... what about some bright orange perhaps or something for text or something.

As for the categories listed......

I would suggest you list them under origin perhaps.

USA
Italy
England
etc.

Then under Italy for example would be "Ferrari, Pagani, Lamborghini, etc." England has Lotus bla bla bla you get the idea.

s2k_dreams

How is your site going to make money. Usually money is generated by ads & membership fees.

xuberant

I have my webserver for 2 years. I already have it payed. I think it was like $160 for unlimited everything ^^

Its a bit of a gamble but I figure if I make everything free on the website for the first year it will attract more people, more vendors ect.
Then once my site is big enough I will throw the element of fees into the mix. I will start off small like $10-$20/year membership fees to post in the classifieds ect. and for vendors I would charge $xx amount/ Im going to be talking to a few forum owners to find a median price for how much they charge vendors a month or year.

xuberant

Thanks for the tips.

I will probably be up until 3am again messing around with things.
The folder icons will be gone shortly. As far as colors go I am going to try and stay with colors that are easy on the eyes and easy to read.

I am sure I will need another person to help me get things started. Hopefully either a friend or someone else wanting to get into starting a forum from the ground up.

S2000Patrick

I agree with the post above, make things pop just a little more. Keep the same basic look, I like the overall darkness of the page, some of the text is a little hard to read, its a bit too dark and close to the background values. I love the overall look though, I just think you need to make some of the text a bit brighter.

xuberant

Ok I am testing out a new text color let me know what you think.

Heading to bed now to tired to stay awake.

ricepatrol78

its a nice forum but i dont think there will be half as many people only because the fact that not many people have those exotic cars.....

anyways good luck... hope it works out good!