Portal / Home Page

[companydreams]

So i have heard that just having a forum as your main page is not too good... I want to create a portal / main page but am not sure what it should be. Should it be a regular website, linked to my forum? What i really want is something... like a navigation menu on the top but when you click forum it just changes the bottom, kind of like an iframe, but with forums?
Example is http://www.phpbb.com/

Now... I would also not mind something like a standard website layout, but i dont really want a website, mainly a forum. Atleast until my member total rises. So how should i go about doing this? Anyone that can help me design a portal/main page?
The website is at http://www.companydreams.com
Its a small business forum for those who want to work at home. Sometime small business forums are better just left alone, others have main pages... Anyways.. let me know what you guys think!

 

[spyka]

IMO, it's *not* good idea

Unless you actually have some content to go on it then it's useless.

Even though I am a web dev and have plently of experience on the web, I find them hard to navigate.

Some are OK, but others take a good 5 minutes just to find the link to the actual forums themselves. Not only that but they don't have any actual content - just stuff from the forum in a different way. And half of that stuff is just stats which very few members care about.

If I were you I simply wouldn't bother.

 

[Murder he Wrote]

If you really want, you can simply create a basic page and have a live feed from your forum, displaying your most active topics etc etc...

If i were you, i'd download a free flash welcome page and have it re-direct to your forum.

Otherwise, as spyka said, it's not worth it until your numbers are up.

 

[companydreams]

Thanks for the feedback guys =)

 

[companydreams]

I really like what was done here at forumpromotion.net

How do i do this for my forum?

 

[FireKisses]

I wasn't sure if I should start a new topic for this or just add here... but I use InvisionFree as my host. Are portals available for IF or are portals for pay customers only?

 

[Murder he Wrote]

I wasn't sure if I should start a new topic for this or just add here... but I use InvisionFree as my host. Are portals available for IF or are portals for pay customers only?

I don't see it on InvisionFree's features page.

Unless it's on your Administration Panel somewhere, i doubt that feature is available for free forums.

 

[Beetlejuice]

I wasn't sure if I should start a new topic for this or just add here... but I use InvisionFree as my host. Are portals available for IF or are portals for pay customers only?

Yes portals are available on Invision Free. Go into your Admin Control Panel and click on IPDynamic Lite Set-Up. 😀