If you have traffic to your website but you need more, one way would be to add a discussion forum, also known as an online community.

An online community could be a chat room, e-mail discussion list, discussion forum or other technologies that allow groups of people to communicate at your web site.

You have just built this great website, at least you think it's great, and your getting some traffic but you would like to get more and keep the present visitors longer. Well, why not try a discussion forum?

When you have a popular discussion forum, you will automatically increase your traffic and sales...if you do it right. Below are ten ways to attract people to participate in your online community.

1. Bribe your visitors by telling them that you are going to post a free gift every week or month in your forum. The gift obviously should be attractive to your visitors, something in relation to a popular thread just recently discussed would be appropriate. This should get them returning on a weekly or at least on a monthly basis and if your clever enough, you should get them to participate in the forum.

2. Establish ground rules for posting and participating in your online community. It's your forum so you get to make the rules so make them to benefit the whole group...no profanity, no blatant ads, etc. The main thing is to list the rules clearly so all are aware of them and your visitors can see that it's a business-like forum and they will return often.

3. You (the owner of the online community) should participate regularly. Post information and answer questions, be active...your community will love you for it. Have you ever been to a restaurant where the owner or chef came around and talked to their customers? Everyone wants to be recognized and it's even better when the owner does it. Your customers will know you care and that you are approachable. They'll keep coming back, again and again.

4. Post all the benefits of participating in your online community on your home page. Let everyone know that your giving a gift away for those who participate. You can write it like your writing an ad...tell them what some of the subjects are...put in a link that takes them there.

5. Submit your chat room, discussion board or forum to online community directories. You can find the directories by typing "the community type" with the word "directory" in any search engine. Do this to as many directories as you can find...get the word out. The more you get your website out and publicized on the net the more traffic you will generate.

6. There is nothing like word of mouth advertising. You're talking with your friend and she starts telling you about this great restaurant she went to and you immediately know that you're going to try it out very soon. It's the same way online only they're called testimonials. You should post testimonials on your web site from people that have participated in your online community. The testimonials should be about how friendly and helpful everyone is, how much you have learned and how interesting the threads are. This has got to get you more postings.

7. You could create an e-zine or newsletter just for people who participate in your online community. You would do this for free and the content would be about certain subjects discussed on the forum or you could write about three or four different subjects that would make good threads on the forum. People would post their thoughts and opinions on those subjects and possibly expand into related subjects. It's a good way to suggest subjects to discuss and when the users receive their newsletters, they will be more inclined to return and participate.

8. You want to have plenty of people to help you monitor your online community. There are usually a few people who are interested in being involved with you and would gladly help you by serving as moderators. It is necessary that the content of the forum be monitored in order to remove postings that turn away people with profanity, spam and other off-subject postings. The better the forum is run the happier your people will be and the more successful it will become.

9. People love to have contests so maybe you could have one that rewarded them for starting the best topic or who participated in the most topics, etc. The prize could be an e-book or software or something that would be relative to the interests of the posters.

10. Your online community should contain user friendly features, like a search option for archived discussions, easy posting or chatting options, email updates, or private messages. The easier you make it for your users the more they will participate.

So you see, there are tons of ways that can be used to build up participation in your online community and when you do it properly, you're more apt to keep your visitors coming back for more.