When you start a forum, you can rush to do everything and forget to think about what you want to do and how exactly. Here are some things to think about before doing it.
1. thinking about your forum
Before you start setting up and hosting your forum, you should first consider what your forum topic will be, and therefore who your target audience is. This information is vital if you want to promote your forum in the most effective way possible.
Also, when choosing a theme you should think about several things, these include:
– The competition. If there are hundreds of established forums that share the same topic as the forum you want to create, then you won’t have much of a chance. When someone wants to join a forum on a specific topic, they will probably search on Google or another search engine. So unless your forum has a fairly unique topic, it probably won’t rank decently compared to popular forums.
– Your audience. As mentioned above, knowing your audience will mean you know where to advertise, and you also need to think about whether your target audience will be interested in a forum anyway. For example, creating a forum for young children will not do you much good!
– Your knowledge of the subject. Don’t start a forum about something you don’t know about just because you see potential there. Instead, do some research and then get started. If you are going to create appropriate categories for your forum, you will need to know more about it.
The next thing to consider is what forum software you are going to use. If you have the cash, I would definitely recommend vBulletin. It looks professional, is easy to use, and has some advanced management features. The only downside is that it is not free, it will cost you around $80.
If you don’t want to part with the money, that’s fine, but in my opinion, you will be at a disadvantage. However, there is always the option to upgrade later, although it can be a bit tricky. I have to say that the best free forum software is myBB. It’s very similar to vBulletin, but vB just takes the lead for me.
Both programs are available on the web, just Google their names and you will find a result.
Once you’ve chosen your software, it’s time to choose a host. In this section I won’t mention any specific hosting companies, but I will tell you what to look for. When hosting a forum, you have two main options. One is to find a standard host (free or paid) and install the forum yourself. The other way is to find a host that is dedicated to hosting forums. These will automatically create the forum, and if they’re free, they’ll most likely want you to post to their own forum to showcase your activity. Also, with free hosts, you may not have your own domain, it may just be a subdomain.
Having your own domain really sets you apart from everyone else who isn’t willing to spend $ to get one.
When choosing a host to set up your own forum on, ask if the packages are upgradeable and start with the smallest, then upgrade as needed. Most of the free forum software can be installed in cPanel via fantastico automatically. If not, you will need to visit their website and upload it.
And the last thing, before we start. If you want to boost your forum, you may need some paid banners or a posting contest, and this costs money. It can take $100 to get a nice set of posts to start with. However, don’t give the impression that you MUST have money to start a forum. This is not the case at all. It just helps.
Thank you for reading.