Forums are not for everyone. I think you would be surprised to find out how many owners "lurk" on the site and just don't bother to register. Who knows what their reasons are, but unless they have a reason to ask a question, then they might not register.
On my forum, we have about 11,000 users and many of them do not own a Factory Five Cobra. They are doing research to build/buy one or are just Cobra enthusiast. I'm sure the same thing happens here.
At any given time, I'll have between 250 to 800 users visiting the forum, but just 50% or less are registered. Go to the front page of this forum and I bet you will see the same thing happening.
OK, I just checked.... 36 people are reading the site and just 20 are registered. So does that mean the other 16 own GT's? Maybe. Or they could be researching the car before they buy one. Or they could just be enthusiasts.
So how do you get people to register? Give them a reason to register and make them feel comfortable.
1.) Make people feel welcome, even if they don't own a GT yet. This forum is pretty mild, but some automotive forums can be brutal to newbies. To prevent newbies from being humiliated by long-time members, you need to set a good tone and I think this site does a great job of doing that.
Don't belittle someone if they ask a question that has been asked a million times. Either answer the question, or stay out of the discussion. But don't ever say, "USE THE SEARCH BUTTON". They do that all of the time on the FerrariChat and CorvetteForum site and it drives me nuts. Newbies don't want to risk being trashed in public.
2.) Make the site user freindly. If the site is hard to use or hard to register, then users will not take the time to use the site. Overall, this site is pretty good. However, I think the pictures at the top of "the fold" on the front page may throw some people off and they leave before seeing the forums below "the fold". I would have the gallery pages hosted somewhere else.
An entry page to the site would help. Go to
www.ffcobra.com www.corvetteforum.com www.nsxprime.com and notice that we all use entry pages with some news. In my case, I also reward users with the chance to have their car highlighted as the "Picture of the Month". People love to see their car in lights! I've been doing that for 4 years and the guys never get tired of seeing a cool photo of a Cobra. I'm very picky about the photos and use them at the end of the year to make a calender for the next year. (Great way to raise money for the site.)
3.) Keep the spam out. If you police the site good, you won't have idiots posting spam. Sometimes visitors see spam or vendor posts and leave the site thinking the site is geared to sell you something.
4.) I go a little further than most sites, but I really want to make sure any user will feel welcome. So I created a "FFCobra Bill of Rights" and make all users read it.
http://www.ffcobra.com/FAQ/billofrights.html This keeps the general population happy and allows anyone to visit the site without being put off.
As an example, although I love beautiful woman, I don't allow pictures that would offend another user. This means thinking about children and wives before allowing the picture. Or at least warn the users in the headline about the graphic nature. I think this site does a great job in this area.
5.) Give them a reason. Like the free picture hosting. That's a great idea.
So lurkers... what say you?
- Bill