How best to create a forum like this one on my site
Submitted by jptrader on Thu, 08/16/2007 - 13:06.
Jeremy and/or others,
This is proving to be a very valuable service to me and others to have this forum. Thank you.
I would love to add a forum just like it on my website related to my topics. How hard is this to do? Is there an easy template to buy? Would it be easier to do with Dreamweaver, wordpress (I think its called), etc.?
Does having a forum increase your site rank quality. It seems like it would add loyalty, pages, fresh content (created by unique visitors not always me - 100 heads are better than one), allow you a way to capture contact info from users, a reason to keep coming back, help in your searches as forum content would keep adding relevant keywords, etc.
Thanks. :D
How best to create a forum like this one on my site
There is software specifically for forums with VBulletin and phpBB being two of the more popular. This forum uses phpBB (look at the bottom of this page). Setting up and administering a forum is a little different than setting up a web site. I think the biggest challenge you will face is getting people to your forum and then getting them to post.
Lee Dodd is probably one of the best known individuals who has been successful with forums, might be a good place to start:
http://www.leedodd.com/index.php
A Google search will provide you with a lot of good information.
It takes some work and has a
It takes some work and has a learning curve, but I am finding one program handles all desires. The program I am using is Tikiwiki available at Tikiwiki.org and is open source.
With a little learning you can use the CMS, Forum, Blog, features as well as a paper trail where your customer is like on a large site such as amazon.com uses. You can import your web page from your favorite editor, provided the code is compliant, or add html to a page you want linked into the Wiki.
As far as SEO back linking a wiki blog or forum seems to be quite easy as there are many social network search engines to help with this task.
One word of of warning: don't use any installer for this program that is in your cpannel as upgrading is not a sure thing, and as most of the dynamic site programs develop security issues with time, timely upgrades should be a priority.
Kevin
How best to create a forum like this one on my site
I've used VBulletin in the past on non affiliate sites and it's a relly simple interface to work with as long as you read the help files. It's pretty easy to customize to your website and to add your own logo and maybe some Ad Sense.
I definitely recommend paying the extra to have them install it for you, unless you have a realy good understanding of installing message boards and databases.
James
How best to create a forum like this one on my site
The one I'm beginning to really like is SimpleMAchines at SimpleMachines.org.
very easy takes 3 seconds with simple machines forum
if you know how to create wordpress using simple machines forum just scroll down on fantastico and click simple machine forum and you will be good to go. Thanks.
If you have Fantastico on
If you have Fantastico on your server, you can use install phpBB or SMF in seconds. If you don't like either of these you can take several fora for a test drive here ---> http://opensourcecms.com/
I'd suggest you should have a lot of visitors to your site to make it worth while though. A forum with very few posts just looks sad! Also, if many of the posts will be directed to you as the authority in your field, you have to consider the amount of time it takes to reply to all the posts.