@jac Agreed. I think I’d take the below steps
- Establish (if possible) a “killer” domain name - something short (again if possible), on point, easy to remember, and most importantly, easy to pronounce
- Implement design changes - my advice would not be to align the colour scheme to county. Make references to them of course for backlink purposes, but don’t make it a carbon copy - otherwise, it’s “just another county” site - you need to make it stand out. Have a look what others are doing, and try to leverage their selling point. It’s not the colours, or layout
For example, https://footballclubforums.com/ is the first in a Google search, but look at the layout and overall navigation. In all honesty, it’s not taking anyone’s breath away is it? However, the layout is simple, easy to read, and isn’t tough on the eyes.
Now in contrast, look at Cardiff City - https://www.ccmb.co.uk/forum.php
This is your archetypal old fashioned PHP based forum (like phpBB). What’s abundantly clear here is that despite the garish layout, the user base is huge.
This boils down to one factual point - content. Ask yourself why you would take feeds from other sites like this when the visitor can simply go to the same source as you have - and as an enthusiast, is probably already a member. Here, the content is being driven by the members themselves. For example, one member posts a topic for discussion, and then that same topic is then fed by other members adding their comments, thoughts, etc. Essentially, it’s self-generating and doesn’t need intervention from site owners. The content is 100% organic.
One thing I usually do in order to see how a site has grown over time is to look at the Wayback Machine
https://web.archive.org
As you can see here, Cardiff’s forum has grown exponentially since it’s inception in 2016
Here’s another good example. I’ve been a member of this particular forum for years
https://forums.cacti.net
But, look at their stats
Even with the onset of Social Media, the period of 2012-2018 was exceptionally active and if you were a user of this site, you’d know why. It’s because the information held here is not available anywhere else.
Now the hard part for you. You need to identify exactly what hasn’t been done before - a gap that hasn’t been filled, and then, well - fill it