1. Decide the goal for your new forum.
2. Find a place to host the forum. Do you want to get a domain? If so, register one and point it.
3. Select which forum software to use, or will you write your own?
4. A good skin/theme is essential to the readability and use of your new forums. Be sure to select one that is clear, easy to read, and not too complicated. You could alternatively create your own. Be sure it fits its purpose. Get a good logo too. And don't forget a good pack of emoticons!
5. Create plenty of boards to post in. Don't exceed 20, but no less than 5. And make sure they are in the proper board categories.
6. Install any mods to the boards that you will find useful.
7. At this point, if you want to develop a site, be sure to do it AROUND the forum, as NamePros has done, for example. Use their database to store what you need to, etc. The site's design/colors should match that of the forum's.
8. Establish some rules and be sure they are clearly posted. Create the FAQ and make sure that the registration/login links are clear and easy to notice. Make sure that proper user group permissions are set and board permissions as well. You don't want a banned member posting in the admin only board
9. Provide an incentive for the first 100 members or so to register, to get started (if not all members!). This could be a special feature on your site, or if your forum has an economy as NamePros does, offer a boost at registration.
10. Now go out there and advertise! Be sure to stay active (as an admin) in your forum and keep posting - keep it alive. When a forum first starts, it can be hard to keep it going as people like busy forums the best. Keep it alive is your goal! Adverise advertise advertise!
After that, your forum will hopefully grow and grow and grow.
Now some tips:
- Make sure the forum stays moderated. 1/50 or 1/100 of your users should be moderators, and 1/500 or 1/1,000 of your members should be administrators. There should only be 1 or 2 super admins which have access to actual files, and the server.
- Maintain! Maintain! Maintain!
- Use any warning system effectively for moderation.
- Make sure members feel comfortable offering you their email address. NEVER EVER send them spam! NEVER! However, an email activation is usually a good idea to make sure they won't sign up with spam accounts. And, a dynamically-created activation code for the form (as an image, you've seen those) is a good idea as well.
More coming soon as soon as I think of them...
