I think it's vital for our forum to continue to grow and attract new members. Not only is it great for everyone to meet and chat with new people, but with more people from a greater variety of backgrounds, we get a much broader perspective on the issue we discuss here, and as we grow we get more recognition in the TT community, and we're much more likely to be able to influence our sport in a positive way.
How can you help?One of the best way to help grow and promote our forum is via links on other websites to our forum. Not only is a link like a personal recommendation from a person (or site) that this forum is a great resource and worth checking out, but it boosts our rankings from search engines too, which is currently our greatest source of new members. Spoken recommendations to friends is always great, but a link on a website has the potential to reach thousands of people from anywhere, so the chances of getting more contributing members is much greater. Although links from TT related sites are always the best, a link from any site is worthwhile as you never know who visits those sites.
On your own site:If you have your own site, no matter how small, a link to our forum would be great! A banner with a link to our forum even better, but that's not always appropriate nor does it always fit in, so that may not be viable. To make it easier I've put the required code to insert into your website below (see code underneath each option). Just paste it in where you want the link or logo to appear, and it will come up:
Link:OOAK Table Tennis ForumCode:
<b><font size="2"><a href="http://ooakforum.com" target="_blank">OOAK Table Tennis Forum</a><br></font></b>
Small Logo:
Code:
<a target="_blank" href="http://ooakforum.com"><img border="0" src="http://ooakforum.com/pics/logo_ooak170.gif"></a>
Large Logo:
Code:
<a target="_blank" href="http://ooakforum.com"><img border="0" src="http://ooakforum.com/pics/logo_ooak.gif"></a>
Facebook or other profile pages:Many sites or communities that you might be a member of, will have space for extra information, like hobbies or sites that you support. Why not add in our forum as a site that you support and you're a member of?
Usually they require a name (where you should put
OOAK Table Tennis Forum) and a URL (where you should put
http://ooakforum.com).
Other forums you visit:Most forum allow you to have a signature, which can be seen at the bottom of your posts. Why not show that you're a member here and support our forum. The text for putting a link to our forum (works for most forum software) is:
Code:
[url=http://ooakforum.com][b]OOAK Table Tennis Forum[/b][/url]
PS: Personally I don't think it's appropriate to put a link to our forum, in your signatures on other table tennis forums, as they too try to promote our sport, and we should not be fighting with them for new members but rather attract members that are not part of a TT forum. Your club or association website:If you think our forum and our resources would be valuable to your club or association members, why not ask them if you're willing to put a link or banner to our forum? Show them a link to our
About Us (
http://ooakforum.com/aboutus.php) page if they want to know more, so that they can read what we're all about and what we're trying to build here. It doesn't hurt to ask.
Will you help grow and promote our forum?