HOW TO SUCCESSFULLY START and RUN A FORUM

Fleege · Aug 4, 2005

I believe that forums are still very much on a ground floor level. Well maybe not in domain names and webmaster arena in general but I think the mainstream web surfer hasnt quite discovered the power of forums - yet.

I am seriously thinking about starting one.

What are the specific steps.

1) get a domain - Check V

GeneCosta · Aug 31, 2005

InvisionFreeSkins and a few others aren't doing too bad.

WebForging · Sep 1, 2005

TheAdminZone.com

Great board for Forum Owners, Admins and Mods:

www.theAdminZone.com

Commonly called TAZ. Please tell 'em WebForging sent you.

Regards,
Keith

photoshopfreak · Sep 1, 2005

abs636 said:
Yep, sometimes people like starting their own forum so they have full control of what's going on.

Exactly, that was the main reason i started my forum so i could have 100% control because other similar forums had inactive admins/mods & many problems & i knew i could do better...

Starting a forum is HARD mine took about 1-2 years to get quite active now my forum is never empty there are always members online with about 50 guests or so, but if your hearts in it, it is worth it, otherwise just stick to site building i believe...

abc123ben · Sep 10, 2005

Fleege said:
I believe that forums are still very much on a ground floor level. Well maybe not in domain names and webmaster arena in general but I think the mainstream web surfer hasnt quite discovered the power of forums - yet.

I am seriously thinking about starting one.

What are the specific steps.

1) get a domain - Check V

they would only Join if it's a DOMAIN why?

RJ · Sep 10, 2005

Tip: Grow your site with your community. Don't look at an established forum like NamePros and assume you also need to have 40 different sections for discussion. That just makes your board look empty and encourages people not to signup.

Starting NamePros, I only setup 6 individual forums. As the activity dictated, more forums were added and existing posts for those specific topic were moved into the new boards. That way there was never empty forums.

Have a look at NP from March 2003, and compare to our current list of forums.
http://web.archive.org/web/20030325033343/http://www.namepros.com/

Best of luck!

RJ

Mark · Sep 10, 2005

Nice advice -RJ- , makes it better for SEO as well IMO.

tolkein · Sep 10, 2005

azt said:
2) choose forum software
3) set up software
4) figure out what you can do to make your forum unique
5) offer incentives to people to join and post on your forum
6) a month later, mass email everyone with another promotion to get the people who just signed up for the original promotion to come back
7) advertise you are looking for mods
8) let the board run itself, while you advertise the heck out of it.

At least, that's what I plan on doing....

What kind of incentives to offer? I have a very nice domain - EPLforum.com, stand's for English Premier League forum.

FYI, EPL is the biggest soccer league in the world. Because of the domain, my site ranks high on search engines without much effort from me, e.g. number 1 on MSN.

And because of this, I get about 30+ visitors everyday. The only problem is none of them are posting

Mike_Wiseman · Sep 16, 2005

Get people to advertise it, and advertise it yourself, ask all your friends to join it, and ask your friends to ask their friends to join. Thats how a boosted my forum from 0 to 700 posts in 2 weeks

lilgee · Sep 16, 2005

I send my friends an email about it and telling em to post some many times and send tha email to there friends and so on. Its get people to know your website is out there with out spaming people. Its a good way, it works for me

DOMiNIC · Nov 12, 2005

Well this has been a very educational thread.

Thanks to everyone.

My buisness partner wants me to create a forum and we have many domains that could be used. However I don't want to run a forum on a topic that I am not an expert in.

For this reason, I am considering developing BumDay.com because it will just be a fun forum with no limitations on the type of people who would like to join.

I think my biggest obstacle will be keeping it fairly clean.

I've joined many forums usually as a way to advertise Domains fitting the category of the Forum.

What I have observed is the lack of people posting, even when many people return to view. Daddy Halbucks Forum is a great example. Plenty of people pop in and out but few post.

I think what has made NamePros so active is the incentive to post, the NP system is the winner, especially as you can give to charity.

I want to incorporate something similar in BumDay.com - "So you think you had a Bum Day Today?" - "Help the people who have a Terrible Day Everyday".

I think this would give my light hearted forum good exposure for press reviews and things.

Any advice would be really appreciated.

Thanks

user-7256 · Nov 13, 2005

Wonderful idea - use SMF, IPB, or vBulletin for this task, very good.

NetworkTown.Net · Nov 13, 2005

well all of this was helpful for me too coz im going to start a forum site too on hosting thanks all of the people that posted a tut

peter phillips · Nov 15, 2005

tolkein said:
What kind of incentives to offer? I have a very nice domain - EPLforum.com, stand's for English Premier League forum.

FYI, EPL is the biggest soccer league in the world. Because of the domain, my site ranks high on search engines without much effort from me, e.g. number 1 on MSN.

And because of this, I get about 30+ visitors everyday. The only problem is none of them are posting

Introduce a referral program with the help of existing members, offer incentives for a particular number of postings in your forum like giving them a trial product, offering a little free advertising, giving them a link on the main page, allowing them to post their website in the main forum, etc.

You can also start a reward store in the forum where in order to purchase store items members need points and they must post to receive points.

Wybe · Nov 15, 2005

I think making sure your forum has something unique is most important. Nowadays, millions of webdesign fora pop up from the ground like mushrooms, 99% of them is doomed to fail. They generally make the mistake of too many empty fora, and an unimpressive template altogether.

AlexK · Nov 20, 2005

Some great tips in here,
thanks for sharing!

KF1 · Nov 21, 2005

Im gonna try some of these ideas on my forum and hopefully get me some more members

My forum started 2 days ago and has 17Members

Fleege · Feb 27, 2006

With the help of these great posts I started one today.

www.FormulaOneTalk.com

Take a look and If you like F1 Join me...

Lyte · Feb 27, 2006

Fleege said:
With the help of these great posts I started one today.
www.FormulaOneTalk.com Take a look and If you like F1 Join me...

Hey Fleege!

Congrats on your new forum! Good luck! :tu:

A question for RJ ... when did you begin the incentive (NP$) program? If you didn't have it from day one, when did you know it was time to add it??

Thanks!

Lyte

RJ · Feb 27, 2006

Lyte said:
Fleege said:

With the help of these great posts I started one today.
www.FormulaOneTalk.com Take a look and If you like F1 Join me...

Click to expand...

Hey Fleege!

Congrats on your new forum! Good luck! :tu:

A question for RJ ... when did you begin the incentive (NP$) program? If you didn't have it from day one, when did you know it was time to add it??

Thanks!

Lyte

Yes, it was in place when the site launched. More importantly though, we took it seriously from day one. There were real benefits to getting it (domain names) and it was only earned from site particpation and referrals.

Lyte · Feb 28, 2006

-RJ- said:
Yes, it was in place when the site launched. More importantly though, we took it seriously from day one. There were real benefits to getting it (domain names) and it was only earned from site particpation and referrals.

Thanks for responding! Good insight. :tu:

Lyte

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