Forumotion Interviews : Today "Madden-School"

Leeloo at 09h30

Jan

2010

Forumotion Interviews : Today "Madden-School"

Hello,

To help our users better manage their forums, we will launch a serie of interviews with owners of our big forums.
The aim is to learn more about these owners, their forums, but also the key to their success.

We will start today with the forum http://www.madden-school.com which currently has 123,000+ posts and 14,300+ users.
How did they manage to achieve these great stats? We'll find out with the interview of its founder, Modrewgnu.

1. Tell us about your forum. What do you think is the secret of its success?

My forum www.Madden-School.com was created to give madden nfl series gamers on xbox 360 and Playstation 3 a place to share free tips, strategies, and find cheat free games. The key to madden-school's success (and in my opinion any websites success) is offering something that isnt offered anywhere else on the internet. In our case it was free tips. We offered tips and strategies for free while our competitors charged for everything.

2. After its creation, what are the tools that you deem necessary and that you were lacking to advance and publicize your forum? Then, what strategies have you followed to solve this problem ? And which of these methods have been the best?

After the creation of madden-school we encountered a lot of problems. However, the good people at forumotion helped us out with the constant updates. One thing Id like to see in the future, is a better way to publish content onto the portal.

3. What are the major decisions that have really improved the popularity of your forum? Do you have tips, ideas, methods you use to maintain interest, activity and loyalty of your members?

Madden-School came to a point where we had to decide whether we wanted to be a forum that gave our users free tips and to improve everyones skill level, or turning it into more of a competition forum, where our members come to play against each other. I didnt think we could do both successfully because users wouldnt want to share their tips and strategies with people they would play the next day. After a lot of thought, I couldnt decide which one to do, so I figured that I would try to do both at one time. It was a big risk, but thankfully it worked out well. Our users still share tips and strategies with each other while playing the same people they help all the time.

4. How much time do you spend per day to take care of your forum? You get help?

I spend about 3 hours a day taking care of madden-school. I have lots of help from one of the best forum staffs around. I am now at a point where I spend the majority of my time with helping the forum grow by making link trades and marketing my forum in other places. I have a staff of about 10 users who keep everything running smoothly on madden-school and keep the users happy.

5. Based on your experience, what advice would you give other webmasters who wish to see their forums as active and successful as yours?

Hard work is the key to getting any forum up and running. You have to do the little things that no one else wants to do. Also, you want to offer something that no other website offers. In my case, it was free madden tips, but it can be anything.

6. What would you have done at forum creation (a thing which you may not think in the beginning by lack of experience) that would have made you gain time and traffic more quickly?

In all honesty, I would have chosen a different domain name. When I started madden-school, I had absolutely no webmaster experience at all. I just had a good idea and wanted to get started with it as soon as possible. I rushed and choose the domain name www.madden-school.com I didnt know that the - in the domain name hurts your results in search engines. A common mistake that webmasters make is rushing into choosing a domain name. Remember, your domain name lasts forever. Spend at least a month thinking and brainstorming different domain names that are available for your forum. Make sure to use keywords in your domain that relate to what your forum is about.

Thanks to Modrewgnu for this interview, we hope this will be helpful for all your forums!
Don't forget to check out his forum : http://www.madden-school.com

Best,

Forumotion Team

1 Russel, on 19/01/2010 at 10h09

Wow thanks to Modrewgnu! Thanks also Typlo.

2 Doctor Inferno, on 19/01/2010 at 11h03

Cool feature, hope to see more comin' Smile

3 Leeloo, on 19/01/2010 at 11h22

For users who wish to be interviewed, you can contact me by PM.

4 Linda2003, on 19/01/2010 at 13h27

Thanks info .

5 Codyy, on 19/01/2010 at 14h28

Intresting. Typlo, is there any post/users requirement about these interviews?

6 Leeloo, on 19/01/2010 at 15h18

Submit me your forum and I'll check it it's eligible.

7 5aled, on 19/01/2010 at 20h20

thnx typlo

great interview

Smile

8 modrewgnu, on 19/01/2010 at 21h40

Thank you typlo for the interview, i am truely honored. If any of you have any questions at all for me, you can just reply to this thread, pm me on here, email me at modrewgnu@madden-school.com or aim me: modrewgnu

Again, i want to send out a big thank you to forumotion for helping me start the forum of my dreams.

9 MrMega, on 19/01/2010 at 22h36

I sent my forum Wink

10 Ziggy V, on 20/01/2010 at 10h15

This was a great idea! Thanks to both Modrewgnu and Typlo for this. Very Happy

11 ngocducqtk32, on 21/01/2010 at 10h00

that a great info ! Thank you Typlo, and thank also Modrewgnu! I think my forum isn't eligible. but i can submit it on this topic :

my forum http://sinhviendalat.net which currently has 21,666+ posts and 2,380+ users.
That is a smaller statics which http://www.madden-school.com. but.. i must going to get it !

12 *Mare-SBK*, on 22/01/2010 at 12h15

this is the very good idea!!Thanks Modrewgnu and Typlo......... Smile

13 alffian, on 23/01/2010 at 05h41

check it out http://www.sioloon.com .. got 11480 registered and messages in 13331 subjects

14 kevincentius, on 25/01/2010 at 07h49

Wow, "Make sure to use keywords in your domain that relate to what your forum is about."
I never thought of it. I use the acronym of my site name instead ;/ .
Now I know! Very Happy

If I'm gonna make another site I will choose better domain name. Thanks a lot Modrewgnu and Typlo thumleft

15 meo786, on 26/01/2010 at 07h21

Dear,

Check it for

http://meo786.forumotion.com/

16 Tropica, on 09/02/2010 at 07h44

started at 08 Oct 2008, our forum now has about 170,000 posts and 13,500 users and still growing up faster month by months than the first year.

I think it is mostly because our scope is niche. Our forum is gay friendship forum in Indonesia whenever the gay relationship is not well accepted in our real life. And this make us happy and feel free to talk much via online / forum.

Thanks to forumotion and hope for the future, forumotion give more feature such a social networking integrated to the forum service, eg. phpfox, etc.

Our sincerely,
www.gayindo.forumotion.net or www.gayindoforum.com

17 eddy102293, on 07/07/2010 at 21h29

Don't you guys think it's funny that these guys ditched forumotion for vbulletin lol?