An online community allows various groups to communicate with each other on a single platform – it could be anything from an e-mail discussion list to a thriving chat room. When you host a popular online community through your website, you not only get to increase your traffic, but also your sales.

But how do you attract the right people to participate in your community – now that is a challenge.

What is the USP of your website? How will the user benefit from participating in your community? Develop a goal and stick to it – post the reason for your online existence on your website. A catchy slogan can help you. If you fail to design a good plan, users will develop and pursue their own goals.

Be an active participant: Participate regularly and post information that will help others – it’s up to you to attract visitors to your site. Once your group gets some active users, they will draw others like magnet. The issues that you deal with should be interesting to a large audience. Once this is done, your audience will fasten onto it and give information that you never even knew existed.

Send out free offers: People love freebies – so post free offers everyday or every week. Get experts online, you could also try to rope in some famous people to participate as guests.

Cut out unwanted posts: Get people to monitor your online community – they will check spam, profanity and other unwanted postings. Regular users will develop a sense of belonging to the community and will involve themselves in the administrative work.

Keep the interface clean: Insert user-friendly features like easy postings, archives, searching, chatting options, updates, etc. But, keep in mind that you have to provide simple, easy-to-use features. Limit the number of ads – they are a definite turn off.

Post testimonials: Put up testimonials and remember to put in both the positive and negative reactions. This will show your visitors that you are honest and genuine.

Any online community is bound to have frictions and spats – so be prepared for this. The best way to do this is to set some rules – avoid plagiarism, harassing other users, etc. State the rules explicitly, list out the consequences and apply them consistently.