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Tips on creating a forum - Kyou - 12-14-2013
Tips To Start a Forum
Introduction
This is just a simplistic guide to help and assist new up and coming forum owners. Everyone has their own taste and opinion, so take this with a grain of salt. I am just offering my tips from my own experience from owning forums. If you have your own experiences and/or tips, feel free to share them. Help us all out.
Finding your niche
Probably one of the most important steps you need to really think of when first creating a forum is a niche. So in plain terms, a unique idea that will grab your audience’s attention and you should be knowledgeable about it yourself. Reason being is once you create the forum and have it up and running, you need to fill it with content. Without any content your forum will just be plain and boring, along with getting no traffic, which is just as important.
Here are some niches you shouldn’t choose if you are just starting out and actually want it to be something great and give you an actual income.
• Gaming
• General Forums (Probably the worst one of all now.)
• Graphics
• Coding/Computing
• Webmaster/Website Making
Now, the reason why those listed above are not suggested and you shouldn’t use them is because they have been BEAT TO DEATH. They have been done multiple and have nothing unique about them. You can sit there and try to think of ideas to make your forum unique, but really it’s not going to happen unless you spend countless hours and have great coding skills. Not a good idea if you want to just make a quick buck on the side and try to get some actual income from it.
Here are some good niches you can work from. They have the potential to making you some good income if you execute the idea well.
• Money – Everyone loves money, right? I know there are a ton of money making forums around but everyone can be unique if you have the content to back it up. Such as if you have amazing methods you post that ONLY your members or upgraded members can have access to, it’s a good niche to get into. If you don’t, don’t bother honestly.
• Pets – A HUGE amount of people all over the world have pets. Also this niche isn’t one of those beat to death ones. You can easily make it unique and your own if you put some thought into it. Such as pet care, how to take care of your pet, etc. You need to be knowledgeable in this field but it has potential.
• Personal Fitness – It’s so popular, it’s hard not to make this something unique. If you’re a body builder, or a personal trainer. This would be perfect for you.
Those are just a few niches you can try and look for.
Theme
Your theme is important not only to you and your forum, but to your future members as well. You need to be different, have that wow factor and of course make people want to come back again and again just to drool over it. Don’t buy a premium theme, no one cares about that since it’s not “custom.” That is the key word here, custom. Even if you use a free theme and make it into your own then that is better than a premium theme any day.
Here is a list of a few great FREE themes that you can easily make into your own:
http://mods.mybb.com/view/black-water
http://mods.mybb.com/view/mybb-gamer
http://mods.mybb.com/themes
http://www.awesomestyles.com/mybb-themes
If you do have money and want some premium themes that are custom, you can check out
http://rihtar.eu/
http://www.wallbb.co.uk/
They are both amazing MyBB theme creator and doesn't charge much. But please remember that your theme is a big deal, don’t cheap out on it!
Picking the forum software right for you
This is an easy but important step. You need to know what forum software you wish to use. There are many to choose from and you need to decide if you want to pay or not.
• MyBB - Free
• SMF - Free
• VB - Paid
• IPB - Paid
• PHP - Free
• XenForo - Paid
Those are the ones I have seen most used. Also note you COULD get a nulled version of the paid ones, but that isn’t suggested as it makes your forum look sketchy and unprofessional. Just get a free one if you’re that cheap. Now, you also need to find out which ones you have the most experience with or if you have no experience you should consider an easier board to start on. I strongly suggest MyBB as its very user friendly and of course it is 100% free with a forum dedicated for support.
http://mods.mybb.com/
Gaining Traffic
This is a very difficult step and will take a good chunk of your time. If you picked a bad niche and don’t have a nice theme then you might as well call it quits because you won’t get any no matter how deep your pocket is.
Traffic is important, but you need to get re-occurring traffic. If not, then it will fail. Here are some great ways to get traffic.
• Post on big boards that allow advertising
• Word of mouth
• Pay for posts
• Social Networking
• SEO
Posting on big boards if you are a known member can really help as members will most likely follow you to your forums since they like/know you. If you are a newbie, it won’t really work that well, but it can still help. If you show them something great!
Word of mouth is great if you have lots of friends online and they all tell their friends about your site, vouch for it, etc. Will draw traffic since friends like to be with friends, right? Paying for posts is good in a sense. However do not rely on it forever. As a new forum members don’t want to see you did that with users that you paid to post to have like 10 posts and never log back on. It’s not very appealing to anyone. It’s only good to get your stats up a bit.
http://www.postloop.com/ is a great site to start up. The members who come from there sometimes actually do stick around and become a member of your forum and not some robot. Plus they also post some high quality posts to make your forum look good.
Social networking, there isn’t much to say about this. It’s straight forward. Almost everyone has a Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc.
Make a Facebook page and shuffle your link around. Same goes with the Twitter and Instagram. Blogs are good too, if you have high traffic there. Hell, you could even pay people to do this all for you! Your imagination is your only limitation.
SEO is very important. There are tons of tutorials on how to do this. However I will link you to one I found and it’s smart and good! http://www.theadminzone.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2893
A few tips to gain more traffic just by the look of your board:
• Your forum must not look empty
• Attach content to your forums
• Your forum must be personalized
• Display a welcome message for guests
• Custom welcome message
• Install popular hacks
Do not install too many hacks/plug ins though. The more code there is, the more vulnerabilities there are.
Advertising
You MUST spend money to make money. That phrase goes without saying. If you don’t have any money, it’s not going to work out so well for you unless your niche was just perfect. People need to know about you and what better way to let them know is that you are showing yourself in a professional way. I suggest using these sites for buying advertising on.
http://buysellads.com/
http://service.prweb.com
If you are looking for free sites to advertise on:
http://forumpromotion.net/
http://mods.mybb.com/
http://www.theadminzone.com
http://skimlinks.com
Anywhere and everywhere you should be putting your site’s name out. That is allowed anyway.
Administration
This is the last but very important. You most, MUST be a friendly, open minded admin. If you are a jerk or a douchebag to your members, you will lose your traffic very fast. Along with interacting with them, members love when you get involved with your community, take up their ideas and suggestions and make it a community not just a forum.
Do not pick too many staff members when you start out, you can run the site by yourself really until you gain at least 50 or so members. Too many staff members just make your forum look sloppy and unprofessional. Sections are important, if you want to make your forum look fuller. Too many sections on a small board just make it look empty and people will give one glance at it and leave. Try to merge similar boards together, give it that small, yet appealing look.
Making the descriptions for your sections should be concise and to the point. No need to make a paragraph for a section. Will make the look of your forum look strange. Just be nice, create good, quality sections for your niche and you will be golden!
Thank for reading and remember. This is all about personal taste, from one forum owner to another. These may or may not be helpful for you, but thought I'd share anyways.
RE: Tips on creating a forum - A Day To Remember - 12-14-2013
Thanks for the great tips, I was thinking about maybe starting up a new forum. I'll be sure to look back to this if I do. Very detailed and helpful, thanks again!
RE: Tips on creating a forum - Solar - 12-14-2013
It looks like you put a lot of work into this. If I ever decide to start up a forum, this will be the first place that I go to.
RE: Tips on creating a forum - Suicide - 12-15-2013
This is an amazing thread and has alot of valuable information on starting up your own forum. Thanks for this. I am sure it will benefit alot of people.
RE: Tips on creating a forum - Dean Winchester - 12-15-2013
That looks like some really nice and helpful tips. Everyone aspiring to start a dedicated forum must know these.
RE: Tips on creating a forum - Hypothermia - 12-16-2013
Thanks for the tips. I was considering trying to start a forum again.
RE: Tips on creating a forum - Master of Swords - 01-10-2014
You're being a hypocrite telling that general forums is the worst idea when this forum itself is a general forum. So pretty much what you said is eventually this forum will die.
lol'd.
RE: Tips on creating a forum - Wonder - 01-11-2014
(01-10-2014, 05:19 PM)Master of Swords Wrote: You're being a hypocrite telling that general forums is the worst idea when this forum itself is a general forum. So pretty much what you said is eventually this forum will die.
lol'd.
This fucking guy...
OT: Great thread, will definitely help some users start up their own forum. I'd say it should be pinned.
RE: Tips on creating a forum - Valentino - 01-11-2014
Great tips Dissociation
Personally for me, forums aren't about making money so my only tip (if I may) would be to make a forum about what you love and have fun doing it! =] I've seen too many forums just die off because the owners weren't into/passionate about what they were doing.
RE: Tips on creating a forum - Kyou - 01-11-2014
(01-11-2014, 01:38 AM)Valentino Wrote: Great tips Dissociation
Personally for me, forums aren't about making money so my only tip (if I may) would be to make a forum about what you love and have fun doing it! =] I've seen too many forums just die off because the owners weren't into/passionate about what they were doing.
That is honestly true. I am not into this forum for money at all, I do this for my own enjoyment so overall this has been a blast for me.