So my suggestion is plain and simple - Add a forum in which newcomers can create a new topic and introduce themselves.
To reason this suggestion, let me explain.
I've administered forums for five years now, and have not only studied a lot of SEO but also the more important part - Making your users return.
One of the prime aspects of a website is to have a consistent group of members and grant the user not only a feeling of "home" but also the idea that one is part of a society and not just another forumite.
People have experimented with a lot of ways to do so, however personal experience:
When I first came to this forum a rough 6-7 hours back I was confused as what to do.
It's common social protocol that one does not join conversation without saying hello, however there was absolutely nowhere I could do so.
At last I decided to create a topic in "Others" introducing myself before I would allow myself to jump into the action.
One of the main ingredients for a close-knit community is the familiarity shared between members, and the easiest way to accomplish this is by letting newcomers introduce themselves. They'll be welcomed by veterans and other newcomers alike, and will therefore already feel welcome and feel as part of the group, and will want to come back. If you, however, leave the forum in it's current state, people will register, they'll post once or twice only to find that their post has absolutely no impact on the scale as nobody's familiar with them.
The human brain is indeed a mysterious fellow - And the more familiar we are with a person, the more likely we are to pay attention to them.
I did a study on one of my old forums, on which I would set up two seperate user-groups at random. Some registrants were shuffled into one of the groups, the others shuffled into the opposite. One of the groups had access to the "Introductions" forum whereas the others did not.
What I saw was quite a difference.
Roughly 70% of the new members who could introduce themselves reached an average post count of at least 100 within the first three weeks,
whereas in the group who could not introduce themselves, only 27% ever passed the 50 post milestone, and only 10% made it past 100.
Therefore, here's my call for an introduction forum - It improves things a lot.
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So my suggestion is plain and simple - Add a forum in which newcomers can create a new topic and introduce themselves.
To reason this suggestion, let me explain.
I've administered forums for five years now, and have not only studied a lot of SEO but also the more important part - Making your users return.
One of the prime aspects of a website is to have a consistent group of members and grant the user not only a feeling of "home" but also the idea that one is part of a society and not just another forumite.
People have experimented with a lot of ways to do so, however personal experience:
When I first came to this forum a rough 6-7 hours back I was confused as what to do.
It's common social protocol that one does not join conversation without saying hello, however there was absolutely nowhere I could do so.
At last I decided to create a topic in "Others" introducing myself before I would allow myself to jump into the action.
One of the main ingredients for a close-knit community is the familiarity shared between members, and the easiest way to accomplish this is by letting newcomers introduce themselves. They'll be welcomed by veterans and other newcomers alike, and will therefore already feel welcome and feel as part of the group, and will want to come back. If you, however, leave the forum in it's current state, people will register, they'll post once or twice only to find that their post has absolutely no impact on the scale as nobody's familiar with them.
The human brain is indeed a mysterious fellow - And the more familiar we are with a person, the more likely we are to pay attention to them.
I did a study on one of my old forums, on which I would set up two seperate user-groups at random. Some registrants were shuffled into one of the groups, the others shuffled into the opposite. One of the groups had access to the "Introductions" forum whereas the others did not.
What I saw was quite a difference.
Roughly 70% of the new members who could introduce themselves reached an average post count of at least 100 within the first three weeks,
whereas in the group who could not introduce themselves, only 27% ever passed the 50 post milestone, and only 10% made it past 100.
Therefore, here's my call for an introduction forum - It improves things a lot.
Edited by ArtificialLink to comment
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