[Guide] How to start a forum and get it on the road to success

[Its_The_Anarchist]

here is a guide from my forum that i made
follow this guide exactly if you want your forum to be a success

Step 1: Get Money
To run a forum you are going to need money. For things like hosting, domain, theme etc. If you don't have money and you are only starting a forum to get money, get out.

You probably will need a starting budget of at least $100 or around that.

Step 2: Choose a forum software and set it up on your new host.
Easiest Step, Choose MyBB or you're guaranteed to fail.
Also, read up on The MyBB Docs, because they are there for a reason.
Step 3: Get Friends
To get your activity going you are going to need at least a few friends to post around a bit and contribute, and even help advertise.

Step 4: Get a custom theme
This is one of the most important steps, if you don't have a custom theme, you are guaranteed to fail.

Good places to order themes from:
✓ Dynaxel
✓ Audiento

Bad places to order themes from:
X FlatInk
XMybb.Solutions
]

Step 5: Choosing your Niche
Now this is important step because the number of general discussion forums are too damn high.

Saturated Niches (Do Not use these):
General discussion (You can have a lounge, just don't make random topics all over the forum)
Gaming
Leaks / Forum Resources

Ok Niches (Niches you could use, but may fail):
Hacking
Monetizing
Coding
Technology

Good Niches (Recommend Niches):
Computing
MarketPlace
Fansites
Any other exclusive idea you can think of (Sports, Personal Life, etc)


Step 6: Advertising
To get people to know about your forum, you will need to advertise good. You could buy paid stickies, header ads, etc

Good Places to Advertise:
Forumpromotion
RealityForum
HackForums
ForumKorner

you will also need to get good seo, you can buy seo packages from seoclerks.com


Step 7: Plugins
Plugins are things that add extra features to your forum, to get plugins you can check out forum resource sites like RealityForum, MyBB Community Forums, and LeakForums

Step 8: Don't be afraid to ask for help
If you need help with your forum, then don't be afraid to ask, the best place to ask for support (if you are using mybb), is community.mybb.com

Thanks for reading

 

[VirusZero]

You do not need money to run a forum. This is one of the biggest myths that I've seen perpetuated over and over again. Just because you have paid for a forum does not, in any way shape or form, guarantee you any measure of success. I've seen numerous forums from users here that espoused the "paid is the only way" mentality and the vast majority of their sites are dead and gone. Most of them gone before the 4 month mark. So be careful not to fall into this trap of thinking that paid is the only way.

Regarding themes... it's not THAT difficult to develop your own theme. There are also places that offer free themes you can customize or that you can get help building a theme of your own. So you don't have to rely on paying for someone to build you one. Even if you do go buy a theme, unless you commission a custom one, you're only likely to get a duplicate of an existing theme that they sell (so you're not unique at all).


When it comes to your forum's niche, despite some being a bit saturated that doesn't mean going with a less populated one will be any easier. Nor does it mean going with a saturated one will necessarily be any harder. Sometimes genres are saturated because they have a huge target audience. That huge audience may result in there not being much overlap (depending on advertising of course). So even if a genre has a lot of that sort, don't be too concerned with it if you have something you can add or do differently. (Just be aware that if you try doing the exact same thing as other sites that may make things a bit tougher. But that doesn't mean impossible.)


For advertising, promotion forums are a band-aid at best. They have a fundamental flaw in that most users on them are other admins. And many of whom have no interest in joining your site. So you may not find huge gains from promotion forums. This is not to say to avoid them, just don't expect them to make miracles happen.

Finally... one major thing that needs to be stated:
Be realistic in your expectations and be ready to put in some real time and effort. Forums take work and time to develop and grow. You will not likely see huge growth in a short time. (Most sites that do tend to die off equally quick because they can't sustain that rapid growth rate.)