Best way to start a forum

What is the best way to start a forum? i have registerd a site and own a vbulletin license since erlier, how can i get this forum going in a good way ?

 

1. Take care when choosing the type of forum and forum script or software that will be used. The forum should be easy to access, easy to use, and come with "visitor- friendly" features. All visitors should be made to feel welcomed and find the navigability of the forum, user friendly. Forum scripts and software, especially "free" varieties, may be overburdened with ads from the parent company and lead to a poor experience for visitors.

Some recommendations:

http://www.phpbb.com/
http://www.vbulletin.com/

2. The forum should have a good number of interesting and focused topics. The content should reflect the interests of the target audience, and every care should be made to have well-written and informative content that is updated regularly. This not only helps attract new members, it keeps older members from losing interest and defecting to other forums.

3. The forum should be Search Engine friendly. High activity forums, like popular blogs, provide a great reason for Search Engines to visit them frequently as they are brimming with fresh content all the while. Dynamic urls, session ids, etc. used by most forum software can be very detrimental to the forum health from Search Engine point of view.

When selecting a forum software, check if they are Search Engine friendly. Open source software like phpbb, have mods (modifications) developed by third party sources, to enhance the forum in many ways.

Here's a great mod for phpbb to make it Search Engine friendly: http://www.able2know.com/forums/about15132.html

4. The forum needs to have a clear list of rules, a disclaimer, and most of all, good solid moderation. Visitors will quickly become frustrated with forums that have no clear guidelines, or feature rude, obnoxious, or overbearing members. Good manners are required as much online as offline.

5. Promotion, especially in the early days, will take considerable time and effort. Forums can be difficult to start (members generally are "shy" when there are only a few present), and the more posts that take place, the more individuals will join. This is a "snowball" effect of forums, so marketing must be done consistently, day in and day out, until the forum becomes more self-sustaining.

6. The owner of the forum should take an active interest in the forum and SHOW this interest by contributing regularly. Above all else, people join forums where they feel they will learn from the owner of the forum, and if the owner is never present, they quickly lose interest in the forum.

7. The forum should be targeted, yet diverse, encouraging older members to contribute, without making newer members feel uncomfortable. Cliques can form in forums, and this type of behavior should be discouraged by the owner and moderators. Every effort should be made to answer questions or comments by all members as quickly and thoroughly as possible.

8. As with all other Internet related ventures, care needs to be given as to hosting and maintenance of the forum. A forum that is always experiencing "downtime", will lose members quickly, and a forum that has many coding mistakes will quickly frustrate visitors. As with Web sites, "cheap" providers of hosting and maintenance are not always "better".

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/10802

 

thank you for the tips i was also wondering a bit about topics and post, as of now the topic is empety, how would i start filling it up with posts and content? multiple accounts and talk to myself? it's a discussion forum about television, what would i do?

 

You could take a look at kunena which is a plugin for Joomla (if you fancy it as a CMS). Have not used it much, but you can take a look at it on www.tropical-plant.co.uk which is just a hobby site of mine (like to grow tropical plants when not working!!). That is pretty much how it looked 'out of the box', but as you can see it is not really active so can't advise you on how well it works particularly.

 

on page seo which google likes unique content. i had 1000 pages indexed in my forum in my first two weeks and i didnt submit one. Next is off page seo which is backlinks and more backlinks. Its a never ending process and lots of work but can be rewarding in the future. Good luck main thing is stick with it never give up.

 

this still do not explain how i bestly start filling my forum with posts :/

 

Just hire a writer, that is the hardest part populating the forum which will lead to search engine interest.

 

get some of your friends to post on it. Set up a couple of fake accounts i did 5 on mine. You can pay forum posters but make sure they are good.

 

There are three elements that you need to understand before you start a forum site: domain name, forum software, and webhosting company.
1. Domain Name: A domain name is your digital property in the world wide web.
2. Forum Software: A forum site cannot run without a forum software, or they call it forum script. If you are an expert PHP and MySQL programmer,
3. Webhosting Provider: Your forum will be powered by a server.

 

1) Find a host
- 1a) When finding a host make sure they offer free programs/software such as... SMF
- 1b) More than likely if your host says they offer "cPanel", they (should) offer SMF plus much more.

2) Sign up for a domain name and hosting account.
2a) Please know that it may take up to 24 hours for your new domain and hosting account to actually work.

3) Go to your hosts cPanel or free program area and find SMF. More than likely there will be an "install" button... click it and follow the directions.
3b) If the installation asks "where would you like to install SMF" and gives you something like: yourdomain/______ and asks you to fill in the blank, leave it blank if you want your forum to be your home page. If you want to have a separate home page and then have people click "forum" to go to your forum, then type "forum" in the blank. Please understand the second option means you have to create a home page or front end of some sort (and that's a whole other story). Note: You can move your forum to a /forum folder later if you want to build a home page.

4) As long as everything was completed, you should now have a forum. Now you should be able to go to yourdomain.--- and start working on your forum.

I will be a little more specific now and give an example of the host I use. I use GoDaddy, which some people don't like, but to me they are extremely easy to use. Plus, if you ever want to move, it's pretty easy to move to a new host.

1) Go to http://www.godaddy.com
2) Click Hosting
3) Sign up for (minimum) Economy Plan. I suggest going to the Deluxe plan since it's not much more, but gives unlimited web sites if you want to build more than 1.
4) Add a domain (if you don't have one already)
5) Complete Registration
- again, be aware that you may need to wait a day before step 6
6) Go back to GD and sign in to your account.
7) Look for "My Products" --> click "Hosting"
8 ) Your account should appear --> click "manage account"
9) Click "Content"
10) Click "GoDaddy Hosting Connection"
11) Click "Message Boards/Forums"
12) Click "Simple Machines Forum"
13) Click "Install Now"
14) Select your domain and click "continue"
15) Fill in the blanks:
- Database Description: (you can leave as is)
- database password: (something you'll remember)
- confirm db password: just retype above
16) "Install it into a folder:" {erase what is there to make your forum your main site} or {erase what is there and type "forum"}
- Note: You can move your forum to a /forum folder later if you want to build a home page.
17) Fill In The Blanks:
- Admin Name: (this will be YOUR username on your forum)
- Admin Password: (this will be your password on your forum)
- Verify Admin Password: (retype above)
- Email: (your regular email address)
- Forum Name: (this will appear on the top left of your forum)
18) Click "Finish"
19) GoDaddy will automatically set up your forum and it should be live in about 10 minutes or so. They will usually send an email to the address you listed to let you know when your site is complete.
20) Go to your new site!

21) Leave your forum as is and start getting new members, or
- 21b) Come back here and ask bunches of questions on how to customize your forum

 

Thank you for the detailed information i have also been interested in starting a forum but i didn't know how. I will apply the knowledge when doing my forum.

 

is vbulletin Free?

 

You can go over to Postloop and register your forum. There are people there who are willing to write content in your new forum for some pay. For a small investment, $47 or less, you can have several writers creating content in your forum until you feel the search engines are ready to do the rest of the work.

 

no, it starts from $195.. the details could be seen on https://www.vbulletin.com/order/