8 Tips for Starting and Maintaining a Successful Online Forum

Nothing promotes a business online better than staying in touch with prospects. The more interactive the continued contact, the more of a relationship that is built with a potential client.

This business principle of continued contact and business relationship building has given rise to the popularity of online business forums, and of course, "theme-related" online forums. Online forums quickly establish empathy, set forum owners up as "experts" in the eyes of visitors, and serve as a promotional vehicle for other products and services that forum owners seek to sell.

While online forums are popular and the perfect method of relationship building, starting a forum and maintaining one can be challenging, especially in the beginning when members can be "few" and "far between". The challenge for most new forum owners is to get beyond the initial start up phase and move onto a phase where the forum members themselves promote the forum simply by posting.

Although each forum is individual and personal, a few general guidelines should be followed or at least kept in mind when starting and maintaining an online forum. These are as follows:

1. Take care when choosing the type of forum and forum script or software that will be used. The forum should be easy to access, easy to use, and come with "visitor- friendly" features. All visitors should be made to feel welcomed and find the navigability of the forum, user friendly. Forum scripts and software, especially "free" varieties, may be overburdened with ads from the parent company and lead to a poor experience for visitors.

Some recommendations:

http://www.phpbb.com/ http://www.vbulletin.com/

2. The forum should have a good number of interesting and focused topics. The content should reflect the interests of the target audience, and every care should be made to have well-written and informative content that is updated regularly. This not only helps attract new members, it keeps older members from losing interest and defecting to other forums.

3. The forum should be Search Engine friendly. High activity forums, like popular blogs, provide a great reason for Search Engines to visit them frequently as they are brimming with fresh content all the while. Dynamic urls, session ids, etc. used by most forum software can be very detrimental to the forum health from Search Engine point of view.

When selecting a forum software, check if they are Search Engine friendly. Open source software like phpbb, have mods (modifications) developed by third party sources, to enhance the forum in many ways.

Here's a great mod for phpbb to make it Search Engine friendly: http://www.able2know.com/forums/about15132.html

4. The forum needs to have a clear list of rules, a disclaimer, and most of all, good solid moderation. Visitors will quickly become frustrated with forums that have no clear guidelines, or feature rude, obnoxious, or overbearing members. Good manners are required as much online as offline.

5. Promotion, especially in the early days, will take considerable time and effort. Forums can be difficult to start (members generally are "shy" when there are only a few present), and the more posts that take place, the more individuals will join. This is a "snowball" effect of forums, so marketing must be done consistently, day in and day out, until the forum becomes more self-sustaining.

6. The owner of the forum should take an active interest in the forum and SHOW this interest by contributing regularly. Above all else, people join forums where they feel they will learn from the owner of the forum, and if the owner is never present, they quickly lose interest in the forum.

7. The forum should be targeted, yet diverse, encouraging older members to contribute, without making newer members feel uncomfortable. Cliques can form in forums, and this type of behavior should be discouraged by the owner and moderators. Every effort should be made to answer questions or comments by all members as quickly and thoroughly as possible.

8. As with all other Internet related ventures, care needs to be given as to hosting and maintenance of the forum. A forum that is always experiencing "downtime", will lose members quickly, and a forum that has many coding mistakes will quickly frustrate visitors. As with Web sites, "cheap" providers of hosting and maintenance are not always "better".

All in all, online forums can be a great way to generate income, develop a good reputation among clients, and provide entertainment and instruction for many individuals. Like with everything else, however, they take marketing savvy, and a great deal of time and attention to detail. The old saying, "You only reap what you sow" really applies to the world of online forums.

Vishal P. Rao is the owner of: http://www.work-at-home-forum.com/ An online community of people who work at home.

---

Intro to Health Forums

Health forums are great for gathering information, resources, advice, tips... Read More

Milton Keynes - A City For The Future?

The two main features of Milton Keynes which distinguish it... Read More

Forums - Why You Might Want One And How To Get One...

Several people have asked me about setting up a forum... Read More

10 Commandments To Maximizing Your Time In Forum Participation

1) Gain an idea/keep in touch of what is happening... Read More

Using Online Marketing Forums to Jumpstart Your Home Business

One of the most wonderful things that I have discovered... Read More

11 Ways To Increase Forums Activities

Getting people to post in your forum is probably the... Read More

Join A Songwriting Forum - Its A Good Idea!

If you are a songwriter looking to get "plugged-in" to... Read More

The Demise of EZBoard

For years, EZBoard was a community that offered relatively cheap... Read More

Internet Forums - Six Ways To Avoid Disaster

Internet Forums are highly popular, they cater for all tastes... Read More

5 Proven Techniques to Build a Profitable Web Forum

You may have heard that having a web community is... Read More

Reward Your Forum Moderators

If you are a forum administrator and you have moderators... Read More

Using Forums to Promote Your Business

When is work not really work? When it's fun!Using online... Read More

How to Market on Forums and Message Boards Without Upsetting Anyone

Believe it or not, you can market on forums and... Read More

Get Traffic & Sales Using Discussion Forums

Message boards, discussion forums and newsgroups can all produce very... Read More

6 Forum Management Essentials

If you are tasked with managing a forum, congratulations to... Read More

Seven Must Follow Rules While Participating In Message Boards

Participating in message boards (forums) discussions is a great way... Read More

Some Quick Tips to Easily Improve the Success of Your Forum!

It is difficult to define a 'successful forum'. However, all... Read More

How To Get Free Advertising By Participating In E-mail Discussion Lists

Posting messages to e-mail discussion lists is a great way... Read More

Chat Forums and Blogs: The Unofficial Internet Posting Rules

Have you been hanging around in internet forums and/or making... Read More

Forums: How DO You Get People to Post!?

Running a web forum is no easy task. If you... Read More

Forum Signatures to Build Back Links - Helping Your Search Rankings

Building Backlinks! There are several ways to build backlinks. We... Read More

Forum - A Free Way to Get Traffic

Forum is a gathering of people normally have a common... Read More

The Importance of Forum Participation in Promoting an Internet Business

Many internet business owners are really lost when doing anything... Read More

Forums ? Should You Have Them On Your Website?

Forums have become a common feature in many websites. With... Read More

Dont Over Accesorize Your Forums; Give it Community Content

Have you been to those forums where when it opens... Read More

Forum Software 101 - Why It is Vitally Important to Choose the Best Software to Run your Forum

When you go through all of the work and trouble... Read More

Using Forums To Network Successfully

According to one of the entries found at dictionary.com the... Read More

The Benefits of Hiring Forum Posters

There are many business benefits to be realized by including... Read More

Make Money From Forums

If you have a website about a topic you enjoy,... Read More

Five Tips to Launching a Successful Message Forum

Forums a.k.a. "message boards" can be great marketing tools for... Read More

Marketing Via Messageboards & E-mail Discussion Lists - An Alternative View

One of the most suggested means of getting traffic to... Read More

8 Tips for Starting and Maintaining a Successful Online Forum

Nothing promotes a business online better than staying in touch... Read More

Business Forums

Forums are a community where a group of webmasters can... Read More