Hi All!
We’ve recently invested more in good quality content on our forum that our audience will like but feel like we don’t have the optimal infrastructure to drive people back to our forum. More specifically, what tips do you have to maximize Discourse’s features for site traffic:
Newsletters: I know this isn’t a feature but when considering privacy and whatnot, has anyone started a newsletter using a subscriber base from their forum?
Neither.
Push? Email? Ps, nah.
Content, more content… fresh content only 
In my opinion, you shouldn’t be tempted to create many categories. In a forum that is just starting, you should focus your efforts on the community. A couple of categories only, use tags to differentiate the topics (tags for now).
Depending on what your site is, the community wants to enrich their knowledge.
They will run away if you fill them with notifications or emails.
If you have good content, they will stick around.
You have to push them to break the ice, introduce themselves, start discussions, etc.
You could read through Building a Discourse Community and Launching a Successful Discourse Community for a few more ideas!