I was just wondering, wouldn’t the addition of chatrooms etc refocus the members attention away from the forum, which causes the lack of activity on the board?

Angela – You make some good points. It is important for the staff members of a community to be visible, and willing to contribute to the community. I love the fact that you step to the plate and create quality content yourself if you feel that your members are ’slacking’

Blog comments are a great way of developing a sense of community before going all out and launching forums. I think you are definitely taking the right approach by developing that area of your community first.

Mark – I just took a quick look at your site, and can tell you immediately why nobody is posting. You have no content!

FC management cannot & will not take responsibility for any tracks uploaded to this feature. If a track needs to be removed from this music feature due to legal reasons then please contact us and we will be happy to comply.”

If you are having a problem with conversion rates, perhaps you need to do some site testing. Get people you don’t know (or ones you do who will be honest) to look at the site. Ask them if they would register, if so why and if not, then why.

If there is something holding back visitors from registering, you need to address it sooner rather than later.

Smiley – It certainly sounds like you have a lot of depth in your community, just make sure you aren’t inundating your members with features they aren’t interested in. I am a little concerned to hear the words ‘download MP3′ in your comment – I hope you aren’t referring to copyrighted music.

Amish – Don’t get disheartened; that is certainly not my intention. Instead, I want people to recognise and understand the challenges involved in developing successful online communities so that readers of this blog will have a greater chance of success.

How are you promoting your car pool community? I would imagine it is a local site? If so, this sounds like the kind of site that would do extremely will with offline advertising as well as highly targeted online promotion.

Mr Woc – I completely agree. You don’t need a huge number of flashy features that people don’t want, and you don’t need thousands upon thousands of daily visitors. Instead you need useful features, and quality traffic (of course these are only two elements that help make a successful community). Determination to succeed is also a very helpful attribute to have!

Nicole – Ah, but a blog is an online community too, remember?!?

Wakas – Continuous testing and monitoring is always a good idea. Turning off a feature completely is a bit extreme, but I guess it worked out for you!

Ray – Thank you for your kind words, it is very rewarding to know that this blog has affected you in such a positive way. It sounds like you are off to a great start with your new online community. Good luck with it, and don’t forget to keep us updated with its progress and development.

Ryan – Communities can be successful solely as forums, but it is a far more difficult task! Why make things harder for yourself? By adding depth you become more unique and can offer more value. Online community moderation is most definitely needed, and you will find quite a few articles about that subject on this blog.

Mobius – Determination and passion; perhaps the two most important requirements an individual needs to be successful in developing online communities!

John – I completely agree. So many people judge whether a site is successful by arbitrary measurements like traffic levels. Quality is more important than quantity.

Traffic is just a number and does not give you the full details as to how your site is doing. Do not judge a site by how much traffic it gets!

John