Armchair analyst

Forums are something that I’ve had quite a lot of experience kicking off and I though I would right a post to share a couople of top tips on how to do it. So here is my top 10.

1. Pick your Niche

Probable by far the biggest choice you will make is what niche to build your forum around. To choose this you need to thing about what community you intend to serve. A forum is a tool to allow a community to effectively commuicate with it’s self. Your top function of a forum should be to serve that community. So how to pick a niche? Well the general rule of thumb is the bigger a ninch you pick the more compertition and the less use your forum would be a forum on for example:

• Animals is a bit vauge
• Dogs forum is better
• Yorkshire terrier will serve a very spefic community
• Yorkshire terrier that have lost one eye probable too small

I think all of these apart from the last one could have a forum built on them. The animal forum you would need to put a lot of work in to get started. The dogs forum would still need a fair amount, The Yorkshire terrier would work very well, wouldn’t require too much investment of time.

One fo the best ways to pick a niche is to go with what you are an expert in or are really interested in (i.e. want to become an expert in) this will help no end towards the forums success. I have seen forums appear in a fraction of the time it take normal one to appear purely around the knowledge of one esteamed expert (for example Arron walls SEO forum and Martin Lewis’s money saving expert forum).

2. Pick your software

Thier are quite a few software out their which your can based a forum on the two most popular are phpBB and vBulletin. Now neither are better than each other they are just different and really when you breaks it down not that different. These are the difference as far as I see it:

phpBB:

• It’s Free
• Simple Customisation requires coding
• Not very secure, tends to get hacked

vBulletin

• Cost about $160 for a licence
• Most customosation is a available through control panel
• Good active community providing mod and hacks.
• Forums tend to be faster (Better optimised)

I’m trying my best not to sound baist but I like vBulletin.

3. Setting out your categories

Some people say start your forum with only a few categories and add more later on, I disagree.   Your categories should be based on the needs of your community.  If you leave out categories because it will make your forum look empty, you will be left with a small and un-useful forum.  Also people will not find the forum until they exist, so if you don’t create them you sacarific a lot of traffic, that you probable need to establish them.

Pick your forum around the needs of your community. Predict people needs at the beigning, then if they don’t need them later on, merge the posts into another category.  A good forum has a lot of categories, they help people navigate the mess, don’t just create a few, you’ll end up with a mess that no one can find anything useful in.

I always have a few standard forum categories I add. Introductions, Chit chat, and suggestion and feedback.

4. Design

The function of a design on a forum is.

• Let people understand the niche at a glance. It is useful for people to be able to just look at the design and understand what the website is for and who it is aimed at for example this  Beauty forum leaves you in no doubt to what the forum is about. On the other end through Mezz forum, is just confused. The most simple way fo doing this is by adding a description under the title.

• Look like a professional set up. You really want your design to inspire confidence in the user, this isn’t hard to do, don’t go over the top. Just don’t look shabby.

• Look different. To build a community you need to  kind of build a brand. You need you site to look a bit different from the others, so that people know thier on your site and not just another forum.

seed the forum

Forums are like resturants, no one wants to eat in an empty resturant, because you presume it not going to be  any good becuase no one else is their, plus the waiter just stare at you, it’s uncomfatable. If your forum has no posts in it, no one is going to post.