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To design a successful forum, there are three key questions an administrator should ask before creating the forum.

  • Objective n. ° 1. How will you gather a critical mass of members?
  • Objective n. 2. What will force members to provide content?
  • Objective n. 3. How will the forum survive after the first year?

In this article we cover objective n. # 1: How to Assemble a Critical Mass of Members.

Be a niche

Your forum should make a name for itself as an authority on a topic. All successful forums have something that sets them apart from the rest. For example, it could be the unique content of the site, an underserved demographic they are targeting, or the personality of the site administrator.

If you’re creating a forum, ask yourself, “What will people get from my forum that they can’t get elsewhere?”

All successful forums have a purpose. They exist for a specific reason, to achieve something. Connect people with common interests or facilitate conversation on topics related to the site.

One of the main reasons many new forums fail is because there are too many forums on the same topic. Forums will not be successful if their sole purpose is to generate traffic for the main website.

Choice of forum software

Doing this well is essential. There is a high probability that existing forum posts will be lost when switching to different software later.

Consider search engine optimization first. Since 85% + of new traffic to your website will come from search engines, it is essential that search engines find your discussion forum posts.

Before choosing a discussion board software package, make sure search engines can find and rank all posts within the forum. Most discussion board programs hide posts from posts in such a way that search engines simply cannot crawl them.

One way to find out if the message posts within a specific forum software package are optimized for search engines is to visit a site using that software, copy a recent forum title and paste it into Google and do a search (circle the search title with quotes for Google knows exactly what to look for).

If your post title appears within the first 50 pages found by Google, you know that the forum has been optimally indexed. If the title does not appear, you may want to search for a different forum software package.

Most of the major forum scripts are designed for SEO, but there are ways to further improve results by adding search engine friendly URLs or, in the case of vBulletin, adding vBSEO (a full suite of SEO enhancements).

Dynamic URLs, session IDs, etc. used by most forum software can be very detrimental to the health of the forum from a search engine point of view.

Be careful when choosing the type of forum and forum script or software to be used. The forum should be easy to find and use. Some forum scripts and software come with mandatory ads posted by the parent company and lead to poor user experience.

Focus content and discussion

Users will sign up and post to your dashboard if they find existing content interesting and find it worth participating. Establish several interesting categories within your forum, without being over the top.

When you start the site, you won’t have many members, so keep the content focused on a few discussions just to avoid empty rooms. It is much better to have 4 active sections than 15 empty ones.

Don’t be afraid to group similar topics. Once a forum grows to a size where threads are sent to pages 2 and 3, consider dividing a forum into two smaller ones.

Don’t have too many discussion areas off topic. Instead, create an introductory discussion or two, where new users can post about themselves and existing users can welcome them.

Know that before making the forum public, it is a good idea to create maybe two or three threads in each area of ​​the forum, so that visitors have a place to post. Many new forum users are too shy to post new topics on their own.

Function over form

Users care more about content and community than about design. Image-heavy sites have a high first impression, but therefore low usability. Image-rich sites take longer to read threads, make a new post, move between forums, etc. If the page refresh is slow, users post less and are less willing to return. Google and Yahoo are not particularly attractive search engines, but they are very successful that observed the law of efficient page updating.

The design should not be the center of attention, but should enhance the user experience with clear and easy-to-use navigation, few buttons and fancy images, and make sure everyone understands the functions of the site. There is no substitute for good form design, consistent branding, clear and legible typography, and ample white space.

Use hacks, plugins, and features sparingly

Many forum scripts have hundreds of plugins available for free, for example vBulletin, including plugins for social media, live chat, shops, and game rooms.

The trick here is to use fewer functions, but get them done right. Avoid making the mistake of adding so many features that it becomes a visual barrier for new users or delays publishing for existing users. If you add too many features too quickly, you won’t have enough time to measure them or allow your users to adopt them.

A simple and clean design with features that promote registration, reference and publication is all that is required.

Super easy registration

Almost all forums have some barrier to entry to filter trolling and spam. However, a common mistake among forum administrators is complicating registration.

For example, some forums force you to accept rules, answer security questions, validate your identity via email, and wait for approval from the moderator. While these measures counteract spam, if your registration process is long and tedious, many users will give up. Try to strike a good balance between security and ease of use.

In addition to making registration easier, offer registrants some kind of benefit to join other than permission to post. These can be gifts or downloads.

Set your barriers to entry to be large or small. Large will provide you with fewer members, but quality; the small thing will win you more users but of mixed quality.

Member referral schemes

Many forums fail for lack of publicity. Tell your friends to join in and if they find it interesting, they will tell their friends, who will in turn tell their friends, etc. This can dovetail nicely with a recommendation scheme, whereby users are rewarded for recommending other users to the forum. Word of mouth advertising, along with other forms of advertising such as SEO optimization, Google ads, link exchange with other forums, can result in a powerful combination that will attract more and more users to your forums. .

Seeding links in other forums

Get people to know about your forum / site for free, simply by joining other forums and having their link in your forum / profile signature. Email sites with such requests can attract negative publicity, as recipients may perceive you as a desperate spammer.

The best technique is to join another forum. Have a link to your site in your signature and try to make 10 posts each week. If you get a great reputation on the forum, people will see your link. If you’re credible, people on those forums are likely to join you.

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