A forum

[PeterM]

Hi folks,

I've been thinking that when I get more traffic I would like to setup a forum. My sites are all centered around the "Financial Trading" niche. I now have three different sites, they are all a tighter niche, within the broad niche. All three of my sites are getting a total of around 150-200 visitors per day at present and seem to be slowly increasing as my sites age and I increase content and backlinks.

I was wondering how many visitors you would need to make a forum worthwhile. A ballpark figure would be good as a guide if anybody has experience with this as I'm sure it can vary a lot between niches.

Cheers

[ssmorgan]

PeterM,

I know this does not provide a specific answer, but the following is what Lisa said in a previous post with a similar question. The important thing to keep in mind that this probably varies from niche to niche.

Originally Posted by lisa

I guess it depends on the kind of site and traffic you have but I would recommend at least 1,000 visits. I had 300-400 visits per day when I started my first forum and it still wasn't enough.

Plus you have to remember just because someone signs up for your forum, that doesn't mean they'll post. If you look at the forum statistics at the bottom of websitebabble.com, you'll see the disparity between the number of members and ACTIVE members. There are a lot of people that sign up and never post.

Are you aware of other forums similar to the one you would like to start? How many members does it have? Are they very active?

Sherif

[sammyspam]

With my first site, well it wasnt really a site.. is was more of a home page with just a forum attached. I did quite well just launching the forum straight off without any traffic. I reached 50 members the first month and im going to reach 100 soon ater this month. I am getting around 3 sign-ups a day. Although i find the main problem is finding active posters. Out of my 80 or so members at the moment id say 10 are extremely active with about 20 or so popping from time to time, so really every 3/8 people logs in regularly. Which im happy with for now.

In my opinion you should have no problem getting your forum started since you definetely get more traffic then me and im doing just fine.

I have compared myself to other forums like mine and the most popular has 600k members, but only 2.5k active. So im quite happy with my figures.

The question does come down to, is there enough discussion on your topic for people to want to post things up? are people going to use this forum to help them? I joined a forum not long ago that had no specific topic and was just based on anything general and that had over 200 members, but in the end alot of people didnt see the point they didnt want a social experience they want something else out of it (like help, ideas, info)

Take Website Babble as an example, we're all hear because we either:
a) want to share ideas
b) want help
c) have social discussion (the least of the 3)

[PeterM]

Thanks for your replies! Two contrasting views, it seems it can vary greatly between different niches. I will check out forums in my niche and look at alexa ratings and see if the lower traffic forums in my niche have active members or not!

Cheers
Pete

[ssmorgan]

Hi Peter,

Yep, I would definitely think that the amount of traffic needed to sustain an active forum varies between niches.

Good plan! Let us know how it goes

Sherif