HOW TO SUCCESSFULLY START and RUN A FORUM

[Fleege]

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

 

[Mark]

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

 

[tolkein]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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

 

[NetworkTown.Net]

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]

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]

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]

Some great tips in here,
thanks for sharing!

 

[KF1]

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]

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]

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]

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

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]

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

 

[Fleege]

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

Thanks - The F1forum is just a little Tv watching enhancing "living room" for my buddies - but hey maybe one day. I dont have any time for it now - NOT even for F1.

We just launched a forum for people into community building. We will definitely not ever compete with NP or any other webmaster forum - We will just be a success sparring partner to forum owners. And a guide to anybody starting out with forums. We will have a Hall of Fame as well and I am advocating RJ to bethe first Inductee...

NP is a great inspiration - NP has a free spirited culture that is very admirable and I dont think any web related communities have even come close to achive such comfort yet professionalism. RJ one day here soon I'd like to do Forum Spotlight interview with you...if you'd agree.

 

[deleted984054565403]

The most important thing I've learned about starting a forum is never go with anything free. People will you see you as a cheap site run on nothing that will have no long-term support. Always use a domain and have excellent webhosting that is fast and reliable. Make sure you know the ins and outs of your board software.

Never advertise that you're looking for moderators, it's great way to bring in trolling everywhere, especially with a younger audience.

It is also very important, at least at startup, to have very few, broad forums to post in. I know I'd rather post on a site that has 1,000 posts in one forum than 100 posts in ten different ones.

Your challenge is to create something unique. Why should visitors go to your site rather than the competition? That's what preventing me from starting another forum site. There are so many sites that are simply forums. You'll want to have a main website feature to get people coming back.

Last March I started a forum that brought over 200 new members each month with word-of-mouth advertising. I recently sold the site after I stopped working on it, I made $500 from nothing. Luckily, I had a very loyal userbase. You won't find that often and you shouldn't expect it. If you're giving something away to start out with, word-of-mouth promotion is the way to go. It's the cheapest and easiest. Plus, if someone's friend tells them about it, they would naturally trust it more than a website banner.

If you ever need help or suggestions with this, please feel free to PM me. This is just a list of a few simple key points. I have several years of experience in starting and promoting forums.

Good luck!
Steve

 

[khuldun]

I started a new forum today on TV programs and soap, i dont how to run this one successfully, do i need to do something different here?

 

[RS]

I'd go with vBulletin, great software all around.