Seems my forums have lost to competitors. I had done everything I could to attract more visitors but they never ever end up coming back. Or it's rare. How can I make my forum more appealing to the members that are going to the Competitors forums?

Better search engine placement is 1 key aspect. Another is to build a sense of community that will bring users back repeatidly. A site that is continualy changing hurts more but rather it should remain more static in looks but still should add features as needed. Also moderators and admin should have a continual presence as well as going in posts as well as responding to questions in a timely fashion.

I don't mean to be rude, but I just visited your site for the first time. Can't say that I'm a typical surfer but here are my impressions.

Your site doesn't really have an identity. I looked it over and there just wasn't any focus on a specific thing that'd make me want to come back. The forums appear to be pretty generic as well: there did not appear to be a central theme to the boards but rather just a bunch of forums to talk about general stuff. I chat general stuff elsewhere, in communities I belong to or participate in that have offtopic boards.

Take this FWIW..........

I love the greyscale look of your forums, and you've done a great job of putting them together but you do need a central theme...a focus.

Having a trustworthy staff that is willing to be active even if the forums are slow will help ramp up the number of visitors.

I don't claim to have all the answers and Netwerkin is by no means huge but I do some things that seems to help. I usually post a lot of industry news and it seems to some people that I don't engage in a lot of the forum conversation. I just created a new member named TheNewsGuy and now he posts all of the news. I'm getting more involved in the general discussions now.

I'm also working hard on providing at at least one page of new content a day (tutorials, news, etc.). I think that if you put the same effort into building a site that can support a community that you put into building the forum code then with some patience you can have the community that you're looking for.

I know I need some sort of focus, I was going to do a Technology site but I thought nobody would like that. Entertainment may be my focus, I'm not sure. I still want to work on my BB for now. Once I get it looking okay I'll move on to some content.

And thanks for that little_joe.

Now that I think about it, I really don't think I'm up to running a forum. I think I was alot better off working on other sites.

Running a forum is a full time job. It's like raising a kid.

I know, but I lack the skills that I used to, to make a forum look alot more appealing. I try everything but It's like I need to find a whole new set of members to get this place running.

the design looks fine, it's more than likely a question of content and focus as x and the others have stated. It would help to fix the link to your forums up top as well. That's the first place people would click and they are greeted with a message to click some obscure "down below" area.

Yeah, your right about that. I will fix that.

Jazz it up with colors that stand out more. Something that pops out and grabs you.

Here is my board. I had 2 million hits last month.
http://www.warriornation.net/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi

My greys are cool!

And I like your nav system there.

I think the greys are great. color doesn't bring visitors, content and search engine placement do. You also have to be visible at other places (like here) and people will follow links in sigs etc.

I saw a Pokemon forum last year that had like 60,000 members and 2700 people online. It was a butt ugly website but it had the content and community that people were looking for.

Yes your right colors dont bring visitors. I guess I was trying to build upon what has already been recommended.

I can only share what I have done, its not the perfect solution but all I know.

Advertise by posting in other public forums about your site. Sometimes I will just spend an hour finding sites related to mine and post about it.

List on every search engine.

Now bringing members to your site is different than retaining them. Does no good if people pass through and then never return.

This is where visuals come into play. Yes I agree you can have an ugly site and 60,000 members. So you either target a hot subject and keep consistancy or you can dazzle them with looks.

Grey is a good color and yes your greys are cool. What you should do is play with trying to make buttons stand out more, make a menu that stands out either by color or design.

And for the record I hate pokeman, lol There is something wrong with that I dont know why but that subject seems to draw alot of people. Its one of those unique subjects or Hot subjects I mentioned.

Design plays some role, but content plays a bigger one. Thats where TheX is right. I think the compeitors have similar content, So I need to do something thats a little different content wise I think.

Pokemon is of the devil. Sorry but I have something against them myself. Keeping visitors is tough. At Netwerkin we deal with computer help and issues so a lot of people drop by, get their answers and go. I feel a sense of accomplishment in that though since they left knowing more than when they arrived.

Thankfully some of them return and leave tutorials or some other form of legacy and add to the community. I have been bashed at some other sites because I don't have all the answers to peoples questions. I never claimed to, and I opened a community for people to share their knowledge and experience. I've said this many times before but it bears repeating...

A community is meant to be the sum of it's members, not a temple for it's owner.

I hate pokemon too.

But I need ideas. I was thinking Entertainment by my Competitors have Entertainment. Maybe their weakness is Technology but other sites are doing that (Eg. Netwerkin) where I think I wouldn't win out at all. But nobody from Netwerkin comes so maybe it would be appealing for a different set of comminities.

I really don't know what to do.

Maybe you need to take a break from thinking about it and just surf around and see what you're interested in. What are the things that you like to do or learn about that you've never seen a UBB for?

Anything I can think of it's widely done in UBB's. I'll take time going around. Another thing that isn't done all the time is cars, but I don't know that much about cars.

I agree with Thex, it's a full time job though i have read people saying that a forum becomes a live of it's on after a while...but that's not the case. It requires full attention and interaction with your visitors and moderators. Good moderators are also crucial. If they are doing their job and put some energy in their moderated forum, it can boost the quality of the whole forum.

Making a car forum when you have no idea how to assist the visitors by their questions, it will doing more harm then good i guess. Visit other forums and look carefully how people enjoy themselves on it. What makes them stay? I know a lot admins have problems to raise a community.

I think what makes them stay is the content, if it can be enjoyable as well as less stessful (Eg. help forum of some sort) it will get somewhere. At least thats what I think.

*Looks around*