Tips on Starting First Forum

[TutorialWizard]

Hey - I was thinking about creating my first forum... what should I start out by doing?

 

[unixbro-patty]

Tips for creating your first forum.

1. Create a forum with something you have a lot of knowledge about.

2. Create it on a domain name that matches. IE a poker forum should not be on greatrecipes.com

3. Familiarize yourself with phpBB (http://phpbb.com) This is free forum software and it's great for a beginning forum. When your forum grows to a larger size you may want commercial software and all your phpbb forums can be moved easily to something like vbulletin.

4. When setting up the domain put your forum in a folder called forums or board or something like that. After your forum grows you may want to have people hit a static html page to tell them about your site before they hit the forums. The reasoning on this is many but here are some examples.

As a forum grows there will be a lot of posts on that forum not directly relating to the forum. When you get a new visitor to your site you may want to explain what the forums are about before they see all the other stuff on the forum.

A static html page will rank higher in search engines than a php controlled page like a forum. So people can find you faster.

5. Find real users to populate the forum rather than paying people NP$. Your forums will grow faster with people interested in the subject your building the forum around.

6. Make sure if you put a create a forum in your forum that you make the first post in it ... This will set the stage for the posts that follow.

Good Luck with this. Hope this information helps.

unixbro

 

[TutorialWizard]

Hey thanks man... I just downloaded PHPBB a little bit ago before I posted this... and thanks for all the info.

 

[youngspider]

Some From ME !

I am New ONe Here and Hope Soon i will Be THe Best One Here ....ok

So Man TutorialWizard Some From Me .

1 ) Try To Advertize Your Web Site A lot .
2 ) Genrate The Strong Team For Your Forum .
3 ) Give Respect & Warm Welcome To Every New Commer .
4 ) MAke a Surway that what people want and as unixbro said that Start a Forum with something you have a lot of knowledge about.
5 ) Forum Runing is a Full Time JOB So Give Your Full Attention to It ..

These All Are ONly my Thought so could be Worng ....and if u learn some thing from me ...Enjoy A lot

 

[GTAce]

Before you get too deep, I would suggest looking into SMF - It is, in my opinion, better than phpBB. It is more secure, with more features, and faster developing...That said, what is your forum going to be about?

It would be good to list out a few special promotions/features you are going to offer specific to the subject of your forums...if you don't offer something that isn't already out there, you could very easily struggle getting off the ground. People need a reason to come to your new forums.

 

[{insert name here}]

I would have to agree that SMF is much better than phpbb, it may not seem as easy to customize at first, but once you get used to it, it will be much better for you.

 

[TutorialWizard]

I was thinking about that and I don't want the conventional web design forum or anything generic like that... I don't have a definite topic on what I am going to do, but I was hoping to find some ideas around here.

 

[GTAce]

Jot down a list of the things you are interested in....and then search around to see what kind of competition you are up against

 

[peter phillips]

Once you have decided the forum software and topics of the forum the you should concentrate on other aspects.

Your forum should have a good number of interesting and focused topics. Every care should be made to have well-written and informative content that is updated regularly.

Your forum should have a clear list of rules and a good solid moderation team.

Promotion of the forum will take considerable time and effort. Marketing must be done consistently, until the forum becomes more self-sustaining.

As a owner you should participate actively in discussions and contribute.

 

[maroulis]

software wise I can only suggest VB.. if you're serious about this I'm sure you won't have a problem paying $160 for an owned licence...

 

[Masahiro]

Once you're started, take part in PostFusion @ www.adminfusion.com <== not my site, but GTAce's.
You post on people's sites and in return people post on your site. You can post on one site and have another post on yours - not always the one you posted on.
Do it when your forum is first online for a kick start.

 

[smub]

if you are not getting enough posts hire posters to do it in the beginning and then more people will come

 

[Masahiro]

I find Post Fusion works, and you don't need to pay.

Hiring posters is not the best solution.

 

[maroulis]

I'd rather have an empty forum than exchange posts or hire posters... stupid alternatives IMHO.... where's the objectivity in the posts if it's considered as a "business"...

if you can't get members or posts to your forum just consider you're not doing something unique so either re-work your forum or simply shut it down...

 

[GTAce]

Exchanging or paying for posts is not an end-all solution - it is a tool to get your forums started or to jumpstart them. Honestly, I think that one of these two solutions is one of the best ways to get a forum started - It will get some posts in your forums and that is what visitors want to see. Not many people are going to join an empty forum

 

[NP41215]

Before you get too deep, I would suggest looking into SMF - It is, in my opinion, better than phpBB. It is more secure, with more features, and faster developing...

I agree that SMF is a top choice. I've been sitting on SMF for over a year, waiting for version 1.1 when official documentation will become available with it.

Or is the documentation already available now for charter members?

 

[TStewartFan]

I went with phpbb for my sons karting site. its nothing special yet but was easy to integrate into the site once i figured out how the templates worked....and for a 5 year old....i am all about free.....heh

 

[designerslogic]

Start with something you have a lot of knowledge about. If you're serious about forum posting I can only suggest web design and development is the best option

 

[TStewartFan]

Knowledgable?!? Heck if that were the case I would still be forking out some serious bucks for ASP because I know ASP and not PhP but since I have better things to do then waste my hard earned money I installed a PhP Free Forum even though I have limited knowledge of PhP Scripting. these forums are simple and quick to install and require very little HTML and CSS experience if you decide to enhance your basic forum package.

 

[GTAce]

When he said to go with something you are knowledgeable about, he was referring to the forum topic, not the software itself

ie: Don't create quilting forums if you have never picked up a needle in your life