In this post i will be showing you how to get people onto your minecraft server:

1.The First first you will need to do is make sure you have fully built the essentials on your server, Its fine having projects while the server is up but you need your server spawn fully built and fully tested for people to stay on your server

2.First impressions count, Most people will make a judgement on your server within the first minute so first impressions count the better the spawn the more likely people are to stay on your server

3.Get rid of griefing, It makes the server look messy when griefed houses are close to spawn so if these people no longer come on the server or have abandoned the house (bassicly if the house stays griefed) Then either fix the houses if they look nice and imrpove your server or leave no trace of them ever being there

4.A good server thread, You need to have a good server thread as even i have noticed that a good server thread can make all the diffrence put some time and effort into it and a lot will come out of it

5.Also haveing something unique on your server (as suggested by pi653) so for example an epic castle tends to entice your members to stay on the server and explore the castle

6.Get on as many websites as possible, the most popular thread when u start off is planet minecraft but getting on as many websites as possible can boost your overall recruitment rate

7.Make a promotional video: Once you have your server thread you could even make a promotional video for your server and put it on youtube however if you are going to do a lets play its not reccomended you put that video on pmc instead make one that shows a few screenshots some epic music show all the cool stuff you have built etc.

8.Have some form of enteratainment: On your server maybe have a golfcouse or a mob arena or both but some form of entertainment can be something you can put i your pictures/video

9.Be sociable, Talk to your players if they are busy talking they are less likely to leave the game and try to get them talking to other players aswell so u can get on with what you are meant to be doing

10.Have some good plugins: get some good plugins it dosnt matter if they are extremely common they are common because they are great get plugins suited to your server because nobody likes a vannila minecraft server thats an excuse for not knowing how to set up a bukkit server and not having many plugins server means you are 2 lasy their is a line between how many plugins you should have but thats when your server gets 2 laggy