Is it hard to make a forum

tpw · 2012-02-20T04:36:20

Making one is not hard.

Keeping the riff-raff out is a full-time occupation.

Getting traffic is the same with any other website. Build links and built interest in the community.

Lou Diamond · 2012-02-20T04:37:06

Hello,
the hardest thing you will find out about running a forum is dealing with all the spam postings, deleting that alone is a full time job, good luck.

MarketingChad · 2012-02-20T04:38:13

Agree with tpw....if you have a site with cPanel, you can use fantastico to set on up really fast. Cultivating the community is what takes time and talent. Think of it like list building but try to elicit more interaction between the community. It's going to take time for sure!

raisy7 · 2012-02-20T04:39:11

Wow thanks for the quick responses guys i will study solid for 6 months here before taking any actions. Let me know any tips on starting a forum.

tpw · 2012-02-20T04:40:43

The owner of this forum was leading the masses for several years, posting daily, and building interest in the value of information offered here.

He was here several hours a day every day for years, before the community could continue on its own without his daily contributions.

raisy7 · 2012-02-20T05:23:19

What i mean im going o learn all that seo stuff and after 6 months open a forum slowly get traffic and keep doing it for years till i get lots of visitors

triobacklinkbuilder · 2012-02-20T05:31:00

Hey op,

can hire some reputed member from here who are expertise at there filed. Just go for JV that you can give share when your forum gives you back, I mean revenue(ads/services/donations). Belief me its tough to know all the things at IM after that you run a forum. Its to time consume. may contact me

~~Take care .

CircleofDocs · 2012-02-20T05:31:55

Yes. Easy to make

tunity · 2012-02-20T05:36:46

If you have proper mods and plugins, you can almost automatically put spam out. The major spam you would have to deal with daily are human spammers who deliberately post rubbish on your forum.

Also, you'll need to post everyday...Building a forum is more than putting up a forum. It involves building a community of people that talk to eachother.

I do have a forum myself that has 500 members and i do more of the posting myself. I can tell you that its easier to get someone to read something than to get them to participate and interact.

it will take longer to build a successful forum than building a blog. With a blog, you get them reading...with a forum, you have to get them to participate...

YasirYar · 2012-02-20T05:37:31

Making a forum is not hard but attracting traffic is a full time job that requires a lot of dedicated hard work and patience.

Geography · 2012-02-20T07:19:28

It takes alot of time and effort, be sure to recruit someone good moderators to help you With support and spam deletion. If you get it to work its a wonderful thing since the users create the content for you. And there are amny ways to moneytize a forum. But be prepared for someone really Hardy work initially.

Good luck!

wizzard74 · 2012-02-20T07:47:07

Above all you have to strike a balance between what the members of your forum want in the way of features etc and what is actually possible, listen to your potential members suggestions, don't BS them if something isn't possible to do.

Or hire your self a php developer to deliver what your members want.

Hiring a developer when you're starting out though would be low on the list of priorities, stick the bog standard default skin up and use the default settings and build content.

Dann Vicker · 2012-02-20T08:03:13

There's always a Day one in the life of a next google, facebook or warriorforum. So don't be discouraged.

If you can set up a system of removing spam posts and moderating your forum, then you've done 90% of the work. The only 10% would be driving traffic to it, and that altogether is a different ball game.

raisy7 · 2012-02-20T09:06:37

SO I need to put lots of content on it to keep my members reading and stay alert also need to keep out the spam and get some moderators to monitor. What I will be using is mybb as the forum is set-up already and I just need to add lots and lots of content and get traffic. Which I know will require patience and consume A lot of time. But what shall I target my forum at I can see alot of majar forum are to do with hacking or sites like warrior forum.

nycbroker · 2012-02-20T10:05:58

https://www.vbulletin.com/ + experienced programmer = YOUR NEW FORUM

Ord Allenbea · 2012-02-20T10:23:32

Creating a forum is easy, maintaining and getting active members is a little harder. I have run several different forums for years and they do take time to get built up. As far as spammers they are easy to take care of if you put in the proper elements.

First you should be asking yourself why you want to build a forum and then you should be doing research on managing and maintaining a forum before starting one.

I just upgraded my forum last night to VB Suite 4.0 so I will lose some links juice and rankings but they will shortly come back in no time.

Originally Posted by raisy7

what are your thoughts on setting up a forum based website and how you will drive traffic

David Mcalorum · 2012-02-20T10:26:11

It all depends on the route you want to take.

If you want to host it yourself, then you just have to
do the research on what is the best script to use.

Otherwise, there is a ton of free options...

You can google that as well, but I do know for a fact
that weebly has a forum feature and it is SUPER easy to use.
Try it out, its free

Kierkegaard · 2012-02-20T10:30:19

Making one worthwhile is more difficult that setting one up (which is very easy) and attracting traffic (which is easy if you're in the right niche).

You must be on hand all day to keep things going. People won't come back if they can't get a response to their posts within at least hours but at best minutes.

Once you have about 10 active members make them all mods. They will help delete spam posts. But you'll need lots of anti-spam measures.

The best thing to get started is to pay for some service that will populate your forum to begin with. Or pay individuals a set about of money to visit a couple of times a day and make posts.

Let's say, 5 people, $5 a day, 5 days a week = $125 a week.

Also buy some PLR articles and post these as the admin. The idea is to give people something to read and discuss.

Bear in mind, however, that forums can be difficult to make money from. Not impossible but there are usually easier ways.

sunray · 2012-02-20T10:45:00

One other thing to consider is that if enforcing ACTA will be successful, free and open forums most likely will be closed down soon. You will have to moderate every single post before publishing it. Are you able to do it?

WillR · 2012-02-21T01:51:16

One way to instantly stop a lot of spam (when using Vbulletin) is to use the Question and Answer verification rather than the captcha. You will also want to change those questions and answers every week or two so bots can't learn the answers. That will keep out a lot of riff raff who will just go somewhere easier to post their rubbish.

The Copy Warriors · 2012-02-21T02:46:04

You know what my advice is regarding forums?

It's this: "make sure you have a very clear niche focus, and make sure every sub-forum is laser-targeted at a topic that users in that niche will want to talk about."

I will never forget the experience of watching a friend of mine build a general "local lifestyle" board and having it grow to 30,000 users (600 online at peak hours), only to get destroyed as Facebook took off. The site now has 10 users online at peak hours, which must be like a 5000% or more usage decline.

The bottom line is social networking has killed boards that lack a clear purpose, so make sure your niche focus is tight.

Kael41 · 2012-02-21T02:49:52

No, it's not hard to make a forum. How you promote it and manage it IS. I've got 18 forums that I operate right now for profit, and no, they're not membership forums and they almost all exclusively are "offliners". These forums target people or communities offline and give them a voice so that they can interact. But with exposure comes hassle. One of the best things I ever did was hand over the day to day reigns of managing a forum to those i trust in the community. Hell, some of them are even paid

Is it hard to make a forum

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