Advice and help please

[hippo666]

Hello all together!
I just became a member today,and must say I am glad I did.
You guys really help people alot.
Which brings me to the point.
I opened a new Board,but do not know much about anything.
(Must admit:I am German.)
Could you please tell me what I am doing wrong,or what I should improve?
My goal is not just to make money,but also bring folks together,meet new people and just have fun.But that seems impossible.
Thank you very much for your time.

[aksana]

Welcome to GPWA, it would be perfect if you give us the url of your board and we'll review it.

[hippo666]

Sorry.
Did not want to to this,cause in a lot of Forums it is forbidden.
http://www.hippo666.proboards51.com

[cass]

Hi you board looks cool.

Whimp

[cass]

Hi there!

Your website certainly looks vibrant! However, bear in mind that you don't have to clutter it with too many banners! In other words a "banner farm". As an additional start creating seperate columns to accommodate those banners. Also think along the lines of a casino bonus section.

Hope this will do.

Rgds

Cass

http://www.cassaon-casino.com

[hippo666]

Hi Cass!
Thank you for the input.
The bad part is,I am still learning a lot of things.I already got the part with Board and Category,but how to seperate columns,no idea
lol

[cass]

Hi there Hippo

What software program are you using to make the changes to your website? If it is Dreamweaver I can assist-if not I'm afraid I can't help.

Cheers Cass

http://www.cassaon-casino.com

[hippo666]

Okay,I know you all will think I am very dumb now,but that I don't know either.
It is a Proboards hosted Board,but I will try to find out what software they use.
Thank you for your time and help
I let you know more as soon as I find out

[Webzcas]

A good start. Although I would say less is more. You have far too many banners. It reminds me of some of the old ezboard gambling forums. A forum IMO should be an extension of your website, to allow your visitors to talk with each other. You don't really need to flood it with banners

Also I believe you have far too many forums. As the board is new, your main objective is to get visitors to sign up and start posting. However lot's of emptyish forums is a bit of a turn off.

[ck8795]

Just my two cents worth as I to started with proboards. Please find something else. This is why

First proboards is free which means that they need to have some kind of money coming in to allow you to use it. They use google ads, and not like some where you have 1 ad on the main page. Every post that is made is going to have an ad attached to it. This was something they just started doing....putting more ads in.

You will not be able to submit a sitemap which means Google will take a long time getting to you. (2 1/2 months for me)

Sometimes things go missing, at least they did on mine such as posts and what not. If ever you choose in the future to move to a paid hosting board you will not have access to move your files so this means either starting from scratch again or trying to figure it out.

Emails do not work properly with proboards...most email providers will block them as spam automatically. Which leads me to my next point once your membership increases and you do send out a monthly newsletter, you probably end up using something other than proboards to do this with, you will have to add each individual email yourself. This can become tiresome when you have 400+ members and proboards doesnt show you join date to make it easier.

I am just saying this so you can see what problems I have had. If you can try and get your own hosting and use another type of forum. PHPbb is free and I pay $7 a month with Godaddy for hosting.

If you choose to stay with them, Proboards has codes that you can insert with no trouble into your forum. Make a second forum for testing prurposes only and play with the codes to seee which ones work together. (Sometimes there are problems with mixing them) Than when you ahve been able to find the ones you are looking for put them into the main forum. Anotehr tip make sure you test in Firefox as many of their codes dont work in both. If you need a few I am sure I have some bookmarked stil and I can PM them to you.

[hippo666]

Wow.Thanks for all the great info,kaus.
I wanted to have a Board on phpbb.but could not get anything set up there.It was too confusing for me.
Hopefully I get it figured out.
As for Webzcas,I am still trying to figure out which forums I really need.
I already removed some yesterday.LOL

[aksana]

you have a lot of banners, looks like banner farm, at the bottom you have a lot of banners of different sizes, it's better to choose several banners of the same size.

[ck8795]

Here is what I would do.

First I would limit yourself to promoting maybe 3-4 rooms at most, than increase with a "special Promotion" every now and than. This way when you do have depositing players they are not all over the board. Do you want 20 people depsoiting at 30 different rooms...or 20 people on 3 rooms.?


Second I would come up with ageneral guide as to what the purpose is of your forum. If you want a spot for them to chat about anything than make that into one forum. This way people can go in and see oh cool I seen that movie and comment on their favs or what ever they want.

As far as rooms for casino I would also limit it to special bonuses, a review section where the casino reviews are in one forum just sub boards

Same goes for poker. Since the main theme of your forum from what I gather is casino than I would limit 1 board to poker till you get enough interest.

I am just telling you this from my own personal experience. I started mine 9 months ago and knew absoloutly nothing. I dont know how to code, market any of that. I signed up for just about every poker room you can think of threw up the banners, made a few changes had 20+ boards for every single topic you can think of in poker, and I recieved feedback from my members that it was confusing. Plus the banners become and eye sore if not done right. Another clue that I was doing it wrong was I had applied twice to Bodog to promote them and both times they turned me down and pretty much called me a banner farm. I was furious with them. Needless to say I took that email bought my own doamin and made all changes that they suggested and within two weeks of launching my new site I was approved.

Keep on plugging away and you will get it, but don't forget to always keep searching for information to improve and learn more. If you are at all contemplating taking this further with your own paid domain, please research everything you can. I jumped in with both feet and its hard to try and cath up.

Good Luck

[hippo666]

Kaus,I am at that same spot.Knew nothing about Banners,etc.
still don't know everything,but slowly learning.
As you nice people give me advice,I am at my place,making changes right away.I opened on Mothersday,and did most the stuff there a 99% alone.
(Had a friend do the Eagle Background for me)LOL
Could anyone be nice enough to talk to me in MSN?
Only if it is not asking too much.
I can PM my nick,or it might show by clicking on hippo666

[ck8795]

I will givbe you my msn...can chat in am hour or so to give you a hand if youd like