All Activity

I'm not good at making graphics. I'll usually reach out to someone like SarahKik for my graphic needs. She made the 88x31 affiliate button for my blog.......

I was kind of thinking the same thing. If a person expects compensation of some kind, they should express that up front before taking the job (sorry, just my opinion). If you start a job and then start expecting compensation, then you should tell the owner/administrator so that both parties can come to some agreement.

I think my forum is dependent on me. But then again, I think the owner/administrator of the forum needs to participate in their own community anyway.

What do you see for your site's future? Do you have anything planned? Do you have any goals set?

Two things that I would consider to hire forum moderators. One criteria is active participation in the community with good quality contents all through. Another criteria I would consider is deep understanding of the culture of the forum.

I haven't taken a break from my blog since I started it and it's over 6 years old. I haven't thought about taking a break from it.........

For me, it is the quality of discussions on a forum that would attract me to it. When the discussions are engaging and educating, there is no way that I am not joining that forum. A forum that doesn't have such discussions won't have me.

I've always used PayPal to accept payments of any kind on the web. I'm most familiar with using it because I've always used it alongside my eBay account since 2009.

I think my first domain was ifarchives.com or something similar for an InvisionFree board I used for nothing more than creating code and skin indexes of every code and skin found on the official InvisionFree board at the time. I haven't owned my InvisionFree/ZetaBoards domains since the demise of the network. The only domain I currently own is my current message board.

I mainly make my own graphics, but every once in a while I've asked others for help or other people just made graphics since they liked my community. I always make sure to thank them whenever they do make graphics. I'm not the best at making good graphics even though I like to make my own lol.

This was somewhat my initial thought. The guidelines are a bit "TL;DR", so I think it could be structured so that more people read it when it's not as long.

I rarely "plan". I either take feedback and ideas into instant action or take baby steps to execute those actions. I sometimes feel like I've done all I can for the forum to flourish, but someone or I always comes along with more ideas to help better it.

Unless you have a niche that's rarely done in this day and age, you'll see similar topics being brought up on forums of the same niche. But the same can be said about almost anything online these days, anything from videos on Youtube to posts even on social media. Heck there's probably some Discord server out there that copies off of other servers. People want to be successful so they see things that have lots of traction and copy it on their communities or in their projects in general.

Owning a Jcink resource board, it's apparent administrators would come flocking to a forum rather than social media. Of course, you can have a portfolio on a social media site to display your work, but having resources and services on a forum itself makes better sense. I've gained 30 members in the past half month, and it seems I gain at least 30 members every month. With that being said, there are still many forum dwellers out there, especially if you have something to offer in return. If your board is purely for nothing but discussions, I imagine it will have a harder time gaining traction because most people go to the likes of Reddit for discussions on essentially any subject.

It's best to send the user a message or reply to their negative review. Make sure to remain professional, go over some troubleshooting and if this doesn't work let them know that you are available to talk in private so you can better assist them.

Some forum software do offer this, Discourse and NodeBB endless scroll like social media. But most traditional forum software does not have this built in. I think so many people choose to use Facebook because they're stuck in their ways and don't feel like joining other websites. It's ironic though, they'll complain when they get suspended from Facebook or other platforms but don't go out of their way to find other platforms they can join.

I actually have a list of topics in my email from the early 2000’s ish that were recently posted on admin forums as well. It’s kind of funny how time works and everyone has the same ideas. Even books have been rehashed and rewritten in different ideas & perspectives over the years. The same thing applies with social media and games. There isn’t really too many unique things in this world. Even AI systems were copied and branched from other systems. Forums aren’t any different. The only approach to come up with new topics and ideas is to think outside of the box by reading new books & driving change, but some of these things may not drive discussions like current topics at hand. The world is fast paced with flourishing discussions, but that doesn’t mean forums can’t be changed with different topics either. There’s been similar topics from the past 20 years across various boards that it is quite common to see the same topics everywhere, unless coding and programming related topics are introduced. Which we rarely see. We also don’t see too many topics regarding the development of social media management, nor the the management of managing certain websites. Which in turn, makes webmaster communities not so unique and bursting with discussions.

I never got the chance to try that but if I did.. I probably wouldn’t eat it.. it kinda looks like an insect.

What is the single most important piece of SEO advice you would give to someone starting a website? With so many strategies like keyword optimization, backlinks, and content creation, it’s hard to know what to focus on first. I want to understand what truly makes the biggest difference in ranking higher on search engines and attracting more visitors. Could you share the one piece of advice that, when applied consistently, would have the most significant impact on increasing a website’s visibility?

I absolutely agree with the sentiment others have shared—originality is hard to spot, especially in today’s sea of forums. With so many out there, standing out has become a real challenge. That said, while learning from your competition is smart, simply echoing features users already have access to won’t be the draw that gets them through our doors. If we want to grow meaningful communities, we need to rethink what “value-add” really means—gap filling is fine, but gap leading is even better.

If anything, you should feel honored that the competition is copying you. That means that they admire you (even if they act like they don't). If those in your niche take notice, they'll see that you were the original creator, and they're see the other forum as the copycat. I will admit, I surfed around on other admin and promotion forums (Administrata included) to see what the process and prize offerings was for their Forum of the Month contests to get ideas for my own. Mainly because, over the years, I've not been that good with contests so I'm seeing what has worked for everyone else. :)

They look good. Basic and easy to understand. I do recommend using something like Grammarly to fix the various spelling and grammatical errors within your rules. Also, ChatGPT can shorten the rules page up and use better sentences if you wanted to do that. I don't recommend people use AI to create forum content because it's not original and easy to detect, which annoys most people but for the rules and policies pages, I don't see an issue with it as long as you go through it and double check that AI didn't hallucinate and put in misinformation.

Create a premium membership worth paying for. Determine the biggest questions, concerns, and pain points of your target audience and provide solutions as part of the paid membership program. A paid membership program is way better than any ad or affiliate program. Ad Networks and Affiliate Programs have middlepersons meaning you only get a small cut of the money being made. Your own product (like premium membership) is all yours and you make the full amount without a middleperson getting some of your profit. It's also less intrusive. Free members simply don't see it other than a few CTAs you've added to the forum. Ads often result in members using ad blockers which can anger forum owners enough to add counter ad-blocking technology. That might lead to member less in the process.

It depends on the niche. My forum/blog admin forum isn't really impacted by social media because forum and blog owners are typically still using forums. Maybe it's impacting the blog owner side of things, though as more blog owners are utilizing social media these days. For my outdoor-based niches, social media is where the audience is at. I've adapted and created on social media. Because of that, I'm having a lot of success with it. Sure, it's rented space and I can lose it at any time but for now, I haven't lost it and it's going on 10 years. In fact, I get paid for using it, pretty good checks, too. You can either not use it and have less or use it and have more.

It’s hard to be different these days. Like you said, almost everything has already been done or discussed. I’m not even talking about content so much as features. Let me give a few wild examples: Let’s say @Senkusha adds an RPG directory to her forum. Suddenly, a few close competitors - who’ve never had anything like it - roll out the same thing right after. Or a graphics forum starts a weekly event, and out of nowhere, a competitor who’s never done that kind of thing before launches their own version. Or Administrata hosts a big award show in the style of Battle of the Boards - and then "another admin forum" decides to do the exact same. 😆 - Sorry, couldn't resist. 😇 Or a gaming forum introduces an arcade, and next thing you know, their rival has one too. Nothing stays unique for long. These are just examples, but you get the point.