Help with promoting car forum & feedback

[kerry-w]

Hey,

I run my own car forum and was hoping to get some feedback from you guys to see what I could improve on looks & functionality wise.

As everyone knows, what guests first see on a webpage is what will keep them drawn in so content and appearance is a high priority

Its a Mitsubishi Colt owners forum, I created it because there seemed to be lack of them online and the one big one has problems with people joining, looks horrid in my opinion, uses dated forum software and is also a pain to navigate and look at.

Hopefully the admins wont have a problem with me posting this, as it shouldn't affect members here in any way

Main forum - www.coltcyb.org

Merchandise shop - www.coltcyb.org/shop

Ive tried to keep it as simple as possible but I know there is room for improvement somewhere

Have managed to get a feature in Banzai magazine too so hopefully that will help to push up the members plus trader interest, and im offering traders the chance to join up for free until it becomes more active

Cheers, Kerry

 

[The Boosh!]

No problems here.

Looks good, although I think it needs a front page for new people. i.e what the club is all about etc, instead of just going straight to the forum.

 

[kerry-w]

No problems here.

Looks good, although I think it needs a front page for new people. i.e what the club is all about etc, instead of just going straight to the forum.

Good point, it does have a portal feature but it currently displays random threads rather than a paragraph etc, il have a try at fiddling around with it and see how far it goes

Im thinking maybe I should drop paid membership for now and open the section up free for all, to help gather information into it? Even though im currently adding paid membership on to new active members and sending them our sticker packs etc to help

 

[The Boosh!]

I think the key is to view it as a club and not a forum. CS is first and foremost a club, the forum is just a platform for members to interact and share information. Without members there isn't a club, so i'd agree that your strategy of opening it up to everyone is a good one. See what happens with it and go from there. You can generate revenue to pay for hosting etc without charging members when the club is small enough. Costs come with growth.

 

[kerry-w]

I think the key is to view it as a club and not a forum. CS is first and foremost a club, the forum is just a platform for members to interact and share information. Without members there isn't a club, so i'd agree that your strategy of opening it up to everyone is a good one. See what happens with it and go from there. You can generate revenue to pay for hosting etc without charging members when the club is small enough. Costs come with growth.

Cheers

Hosting is no problem, run my own business there so its just piggybacking on me, just my first venture into forums, im usually doing local e-commerce so it's a hell of a lot easier Do know when it gets busy the bandwidth used will be pretty immense and server loads.

Think il try get a presence at car shows, even if its just local to begin get the word of mouth spreading.

Il have a play around today with it seeing as it's my day off and see how far I get

 

[The Boosh!]

Good stuff and good luck.

 

[clio37]

i dont no much about setting up stuff like that .
But it doesnt look bad and seems easy to use good job :clap:

 

[kerry-w]

Good stuff and good luck.

i dont no much about setting up stuff like that .
But it doesnt look bad and seems easy to use good job :clap:

Thanks glad people are positive about the style of it anyway, took me a good few attempts to tweak it to look decent Would also like to thanks Luke and Dan off here for their help too

 

[Chip-mk1]

I thought it was the MLR when I clicked it, lol

No bad thing copying their color scheme I guess as its same make etc.

 

[Hixle]

From a UI POV it's looking pretty good mate! Clean and simple

I do agree with Luke though in the sense that it needs a home page.

Good luck with it all!