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Membership recruitment drive, posts and possibility of adding a 2nd VPS
#21
(11-12-2020, 03:27 PM)tryp4vps Wrote: Correct. If we want more active users, we shall make our forum more attractive.

Something like adding "usage" for points will help make our forum more attractive for posters.

Something like enforcing high word count in a thread, or introducing stricter forum rules, will just do the opposite.

You see the difference? That was why I said it is better to offer members some extra bonus to encourage them making new threads, instead of adding new rule to punish them if they are unable to do so. Smile

What if the rule is not enforced? I actually gave the 200-300 number as just a rough idea, It could be 75-100 even but atleast somehow. I'm not saying to punish anyone but just a small requirement maybe if people wish to complete so.
I also agree with the extra bonus thing!
Thanks to ReadyDedis and Post4VPS for the amazing VPS 7!

#22
I think consistency in posting is a bit of a problem in growing the forums.

The monthly term and human nature to procrastinate or get sidetracked lead to the forums being somewhat neglected early in the month - then as the deadline approaches there's a flurry of activity as everyone tries to reach their posting limit. There's such a flurry of activity that people can't find all the new topics to post in as other topics get pushed down the listing.

The best way to grow a website is to get people to visit regularly. It's less efficient if people are only very active 1 week out of the month. New users will get bored and find something else to do, before they can can ever earn (and enjoy) their vps.This also means that administration has a large workload at the end of the month, with hundreds of posts to moderate in a short period of time.

I wonder if it wouldn't be better to set a weekly term for posting - say 4 posts minimum per week, and 4 consecutive weeks/20post minimum to qualify for vps. So some weeks more than 4 would be necessary, and if one could post in advance one week to have more time to do other things the next week. This system would involve a bit more work for administration, but the workload would be spread out over the entire month rather than all at once. And I would wager that new users would more likely to become regular visitors if there was regular new content on the site. Perhaps with the relative abundance of sponsored vps, one (or more) could be used for another moderator(s) to assist with the higher workload of weekly management?

I don't necessarily suggest we implement this system, but I do suggest that regular posting would increase the userbase in the long term, and I also suggest it's an idea worth consideration.
#23
(11-13-2020, 02:46 PM)sAmI Wrote: What if the rule is not enforced? I actually gave the 200-300 number as just a rough idea, It could be 75-100 even but atleast somehow. I'm not saying to punish anyone but just a small requirement maybe if people wish to complete so.
I also agree with the extra bonus thing!


If the rule is not enforced, then what is the point of adding a new rule.

But I am a bit confused with where you stand. Smile As you said in your earlier post, requirement "forces" people to do it. Now you say it is just a small requirement but not going to enforce or punish anyone.


#24
(11-22-2020, 08:55 AM)tryp4vps Wrote: If the rule is not enforced, then what is the point of adding a new rule.

But I am a bit confused with where you stand. Smile  As you said in your earlier post, requirement "forces" people to do it. Now you say it is just a small requirement but not going to enforce or punish anyone.

Yes, I did say requirement forces people to do it. The point i was trying to make that is, If this is added in the Rule list for suppose, People will have this mind atleast somewhere you know. I just gave you people a rough idea what can be implemented. What if people gets additional bonus posting new threads or such things which would surely attract users to engage and post new threads. If this "RULE" is introduced i am sure that active and good posters will surely love to complete this, If they will complete it the forum automatically becomes more active.

I just gave a small rough idea, For posting threads looking for more suggestions what could be done better and what could best attract users!
Thanks to ReadyDedis and Post4VPS for the amazing VPS 7!

#25
Regarding @tiwil 's comment here, which I have quoted below

Quote:By this message I'm interested to see where Post4VPS rank in Google. It doesn't even appear at all in the first page. I don't check the second page as people usually don't open second page. Even gratisvps.net (I think they're scammer?) appear on the first page. This can be input for admin to improve their SEO. Many still offer free VPS and many searching for it. If we can improve our SEO it should be very good for us.

I think this is a good question to ask. Given the tenure and topic of this forum, I feel like our ranking should be better. For those interested, google returned post4vps on page 7 when I used the term "free vps". Something must be missing.

A few ideas to think about/discuss:

The biggest opportunity  as I think @Mashiro  mentioned in shoutbox not long ago, we need more on topic posts about what people are doing with their vps. The topics like anime, music, and movies keep the forum active but don't do much for search rankings.

I'm not an expert in seo, but I think in these modern times, social links are very important. Would it be worthwhile to recruit a social networking volunteer to represent p4v on various social media? In place posting requirement they could maintain an active account on facebook, linkedin, twitter, and whatever else.

Another possibility is a backlinking campaign. This could be a little tougher to administrate with backlinks not centrally located: it could be a bit of work to verify them - but maybe it could benefit search rank if we had some good on topic backlinks. A review of post4vps on an alternative tech forum could be worth 2 posts towards monthly hosting credit?

As far as publicity goes, there isn't much better publicity than a giveaway. Since we have so much stock, we could run a monthly giveaway in an effort to build the userbase. We could advertise on a more popular forum (lowendtalk for instance) and offer 1 (or more) vps for free for a month, and ask for a review at the end of the term. Registration on p4v could be a requirement, and once registered people would be more likely to post, and winners could have the opportunity to keep the vps long term if they choose to post and meet the hosting requirement at the end of the month.
#26
Thank you for all of the contributions to this discussion.  I'm going to highlight @fitkoh's as he has done an excellent summary of some of the points that have been raised, in their order of importance, as well as added more of his own.

I'd just like to add a few comments of my own.  I've been around in discussion Forums like these for a very long time.  I've found in every one of them that members tend to come and go.  There is a particular use for them, such as a VPS or a shared hosting account and if they are into making posts they enjoy it for a while, and then they start to get bored and move to different pastures.  A very small group may have developed a loyalty to the Forum that has become a routine, so they always stay.  Some of them may have a great difficulty to write posts.

Any way, it's a given that people come and go.  But one thing that did stand out was the power of SEO such as I've seen at Gigarocket.  The owner is an SEO Specialist by trade from the UK, earns his living from it. One of his objectives of having the Forum and hosting business was a testing ground for his SEO skills.  He was able to create magic with traffic.  Particularly since the traffic, was paying bills.  On the downside of the Forum was 99% of the new subscribers were of the spam and quickly come and go variety.  Some made it to the 10 posts (that barely made it to quality) to get a shared hosting account.  And didn't even use the account.  The number of serious hosted members were very few.   So yes, SEO works.  It definitely helps to pay the bills from a traffic point of view.  On the down side I had to use myBB's Purge Spammer tool very heavily.  On average at least 2-5 new signups a day had to be spam purged at the peak of traffic. These subscribers were having fun with messing up the Board with iffy one word and smiley posts.  Thank goodness for the Purge Spammer tool.  At the same time, a Board like this needs to be very carefully monitored.

I don't know what the owner of Gigarocket did with SEO.  I think he had his group of SEO Websites that he listed Gigarocket on.  And kept that up to date. I knew when he had done work on it, as he did the updates sporadically and then that was when a new wave of spam subscribers hit the Forum. I think he went careful with backlinks, as it bit Gigarocket in the foot more than once.  If one gets bad backlinks from porn or other not so good sites (which is what can happen if you register with iffy SEO Websites), it can create issues with the Data Centre. There are backlinks and backlinks and Dynamo has been trying to get quality back links the legitimate way through the VPSs.  It is a condition of having the VPS that if there is a Website on it, then links have to be created to post4vps and the sponsor of the VPS.

I'd like to suggest that we ask @xdude for his advice.  @xdudes an SEO specialist himself and could perhaps advise on which SEO Websites post4vps could register with.  Alternatively @Dynamo could also contact the owner of Gigarocket on a fee basis as he freelances his SEO efforts through https://sitebee.co.uk/

I also like the idea about tackling the social media.  In our case I think the kind of members we need would be mostly in Discord and LowEndTalk.  So if we could find an energetic Discord enthusiast who could check in where he/she feels natural to be, and then just do a word about where to get free VPSs for posts in exchange that would be very helpful.  I know there are a few members of post4vps who are very active in Discord.  If they could help us that way it would go a long way in spreading the word.

The owner of Gigarocket focused a lot on Facebook.  He created a Facebook link so new subscribers could log into the Forum via Facebook.  Again, it obviously worked for added traffic, but wow, the spam subscriptions were enormous.  They came in floods.

(12-05-2020, 06:34 PM)fitkoh Wrote: The biggest opportunity  as I think @Mashiro  mentioned in shoutbox not long ago, we need more on topic posts about what people are doing with their vps. The topics like anime, music, and movies keep the forum active but don't do much for search rankings.
This is an excellent point.  I remember at Gigarocket in the earlier years when the Tech Admin was still very active, our Hosting Support Forum was private like we have most of our support requests here private as well.  As part of the owner's SEO effort (this usually happened sporadically in huge energy efforts) the owner opened this Forum to make it public.  So yes, there is an opportunity to do something with the private support discussions.  Maybe open it up and find a way to make them less revealing in details.  I wonder whether there is a myBB app one could use that would make certain content of a post only visible to those with privileges to read it - like IPs and such.  But yes, our support discussions are a valuable resource for potential traffic for sure.

Another possibility is to add a new Forum where members show case their VPS Projects or share their learning experiences or latest how-to discoveries in a meaningful way.  And in exchange for that earn X number of posts - i.e. Dynamo could set it up so that those making posts of a certain length in this Forum will earn two to three posts instead of 1 posts. Obviously the posts would need to be X length with X content.  A template would need to be provided to ensure original and quality content vs copy paste.  But yes, we need to find ways to share VPS experiences more for added traffic.  And reward those making the posts at the same time.

(12-05-2020, 06:34 PM)fitkoh Wrote: As far as publicity goes, there isn't much better publicity than a giveaway. Since we have so much stock, we could run a monthly giveaway in an effort to build the userbase. We could advertise on a more popular forum (lowendtalk for instance) and offer 1 (or more) vps for free for a month, and ask for a review at the end of the term. Registration on p4v could be a requirement, and once registered people would be more likely to post, and winners could have the opportunity to keep the vps long term if they choose to post and meet the hosting requirement at the end of the month.
This is a good point @fitkoh.  We have a whole cache of VPSs that are not working for any one.  We need to do something with those.  Lowendtalk is an excellent suggestion.  Along with Discord. I'd prefer it to be something however that needs to be worked for so that it doesn't distract from the post4vps principle or even compete with those who are making their monthly posts.  Like the new member with the most posts for the month would be a good example.  Also, there are members who are making quality posts in excess of the 20 posts that are needed.  We should find a way to reward them as well. This may well be a way to do this.
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#27
For now there r no much request for vps so better for going with 1 vps request for user reason why we are not getting much request are users are busy again in there works and not interested to post and apply for vps usually like me I'm busy with my works so I had not completed my posts from past 2 months same like me there may be other users also who r busy another thing for not getting request for vps are locations usually game serverwebsite prefer for Europe locations except vps1 there r no vps related to Europe location may be these r reason for not getting much request for giveaway vps
thank you post4vps and  racknerd for wonderful vps3  Heart
 
#28
@deanhills I really like the idea about creating a new forum to showcase projects and more involved in depth tutorials. I think people would really take the time author quality posts in return for more post credits. I mean I know I would use that.
Thank you to CubeData and Posts4VPS for the services of VPS 8.
#29
(12-05-2020, 06:34 PM)fitkoh Wrote: The biggest opportunity  as I think @Mashiro  mentioned in shoutbox not long ago, we need more on topic posts about what people are doing with their vps. The topics like anime, music, and movies keep the forum active but don't do much for search rankings.

This is the most critical point: the forum suffers content-wise. Hosted members don't quite take their end of the bargain seriously (vis-à-vis of their P4V contract).

I think that it's the false idea of 'free VPS' that's the culprit here. The VPS isn't free, it's granted in exchange of an amount of 20 posts. It takes time to make a post and it takes 20 times as much time to make 20. Time is money for most active people. Thus when you sign up for a VPS, you have to find that time to pay for it. It's as simple and straightforward as that.

Now for the post quality. Okay! here we can't expect everyone to comply with that all the time, but we can see a pattern on how much hard they're trying over time. A look at the ratio of Credit_point over total_posts will tell you a lot about that. Simple unmistakable Math.

Without decent content, the best SEO in the world won't do much to trigger a positive outcome; it will bring hordes of spammers as @deanhills pointed out but not the right audience.

My 2 cents!

PS: I also back the proposition of creating a (sub)forum on hosted members' projects.
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#30
(12-09-2020, 06:08 AM)fChk Wrote: This is the most critical point: the forum suffers content-wise. Hosted members don't quite take their end of the bargain seriously (vis-à-vis of their P4V contract).

I think that it's the false idea of 'free VPS' that's the culprit here. The VPS isn't free, it's granted in exchange of an amount of 20 posts. It takes time to make a post and it takes 20 times as much time to make 20. Time is money for most active people.......


Great point here. So we must be honest when we go advertising this forum, no matter on Discord, Facebook, LowEndTalk, Twitter or any other platforms.

After all this is a "Post For VPS" forum, not a "Free VPS" forum.

If new members come here just expecting a "Free VPS", mostly likely they will not stay long, after they realize that the VPS is actually not free. Smile


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