101Geek

How To Build A Forum

How To Build A Forum – If you’ve got a website you’ll probably be interesting in adding a forum, this could be for many reasons, whether it’s to add value to your site, get a community of people together, create something different, even to just make it easier to answer people’s enquiries. Whatever your reason, I’m going to teach you how to build a successful forum that gets users and keeps expanding over time.

Build A Blog (Easiest Way)

In order to build a successful forum you’ll need some sort of blog. Whether the forum is built on the back of your blog or the blog is a sub category on your forum, it’s 100% necessary.

Why is a blog important? 

101geek is soon to get a forum, this is something that’s really been needed for a while now and will hopefully grow strong.

The reason why it’s needed is because 101geek gets around 50 comments per day, I can’t answer all of these and a lot of the comments talk about the same information.

I do my best to answer them to the best of my abilities, but if I had a forum everyone could ask questions, help each other and naturally grow it without hardly any work.

So, by using my blog I’ll grow the forum, then if I incorporate the advice below, it’ll grow at a much quicker speed making this blog more valuable and raising earnings.

So, just use this guide on creating a blog in 30 minutes and then post a few articles per week, build it up along side your forum and you’ll see a massive expansion in views and user engagements once you open a forum.

Get A Good Forum Plugin

I’ve been testing loads of forum plugins in order to find the perfect one for 101geek. This isn’t something I’ve had much luck with, but after a few hours I managed to create a pretty nice forum using the famous BBPress.

This is probably the best forum plugin to use on WordPress websites, it’s quick, easy to setup and doesn’t slow down the website or create any unnecessary problems like loads of other forum plugins I’ve tried.

Fill The Forum With Content

Once your forum is complete it’s time to fill it with loads of content. When filling a forum with content I create article style threads, some give really good, quick advice and others are questions. I do around 5 to 10 in each category and even though this takes a few days to do it’s really going to help the Forum gain value.

Tip: Go onto similar forums to your own and see what the most viewed topics are. Then just create a thread and post something similar with all the advice inside it.

You’re just trying to add value to your forum.

Answer All Users At The Beginning

I do my best to answer as many people as possible at the beginning of a forum. With the upcoming 101geek forum I’ll answer every person, for the first few months and then I’ll do my best to continue this momentum.

This gets the forum more populated with content and it also makes people use it to get hold of you.

Be Specific Inside an Industry

It’s very unlikely that without a million plus dollars you’re going to create a new industry forum like Black Hat World, Digital Point or Warrior Forum.

These are all very difficult to build forums and they costs loads of money to maintain and grow. But instead of going for a whole industry, you can just do a sub industry.

So, my forum will just be about money making and getting views to content. I can then focus on providing loads of that content and keep my users happy.

Start small and then if you see gorth start to scale and add new categories.

Promote

The most important things you’ll have to do is promote.

Promote With Banners (On Your Site)

If you’ve got a blog then go to Fiverr, get banners created and point them all to your forum. This allows people to know you’ve got a forum and will drive traffic their.

Pay People To Use It

At the start of my biggest forums I usually pay users on Fiverr/Freelancer to fill the forum up with answers and content.

This usually costs around $50 and I get 100 + comments and at least 20 users. If I really want to build the forum I pay even more and get up to 500 + comments and interactions and around 50 users. This really does speed up the process of building a quality forum.

  • Fiverr
  • Freelancer

Advertise

There’s loads of ways you can advertise your forum:

  • BuySellAds
  • Buy advertising space on blogs using other forums
  • Get radio shoutouts (Something I’ve started doing)
  • YouTube video
  • Social media

Use Other Forums

I always look and monitor other forums in my industry, I look for good topics and things people react to. I also get advice and use the signatures to drive traffic straight to my forum.

You can’t build a good forum without monitoring competition and making your forum better than there’s.

Keep Moderation High

One of the main reasons why I couldn’t open a forum earlier was because people would abuse it with spam and advertising. It’s only recently that I’ve decided that it’s worth managing, but normally I’d only open a forum on a high paying niche site or main money site.

So, when you open the forum you’ll need to be on guard ready to ban spammers and trolls. You need to keep it clean and delete hate, otherwise people will stop using your forum.

Create Loads Of Meaning

You need loads of meaning, people will not use your forum without it. There needs to be 100 + reasons why your forum is kickass and you need to be the solo creator of meaning for at least the first 2 months. Even if you see your forum is going well, keep creating meaning, the more your create the more people will come back to your website.

Remember a forum is a great way to keep your website being updated without having to actually release articles everyday.

Reward Users

I reward all my highest users over the first few months with prizes, shoutouts, one on one sessions and Q and A’s. Do the same and advertise the fact that you’re doing that.

People love meaning and it makes people compete and get excited.

How To Build A Forum – Building a forum don’t have to be hard, you’ve just got to follow that advice consistently and not worry too much about instant gratification, you’ll usually see forums take a few weeks to months to expand before anything really happens. If you need any extra help then please remember to use the comments and I’ll point you in the right direction. – Sharing is amazing, so please share. – 101Geek.