Introduction

After looking around a bit, I managed to find numerous tutorials on how to create a good web site. But most of them talk about developing a template and/or managing a (static) web site. Next, there are few of them that deal with Content Management Systems, and even less tutorials mentioning forums (and if they do, it's pretty raw, in my opinion). So that's what I'm going to deal with – forums – or better to say, bulleting board systems (BBS).

What is a forum?

A forum, also referred to as a message board, is a way of communication between people connected to the Internet. It is similar to chat, but can't be called instant messaging, because users aren't connected at the same time. To overcome this “problem”, messages on various topics are saved and available for reading to anyone. That way, a user can read a message five days after it had been written, and then reply to it. I will not go into details when talking about a forum's functions.

Why do people tend to use message boards on their web sites?

As I already mentioned, by using a forum, you can lead an active discussion without being online all the time. These discussions attract a large number of visitors, thus improving a site's popularity. After all, everyone wants their web site to have lots of visitors. Sometimes, a forum can be the whole site, whereas in other places it is just a mere addition to the content on the main part of the site. In both cases, it is used to keep a web site “alive”.


First steps

The main thing you have to realise before even starting is this - creating something good with investing no money is nearly impossible. I am telling you this from my own experience. Sure, there are a few good forums on free host, but the people that created them must have been extremely lucky. So this leads us to rule number one:

• You must be prepared to invest some money into your forum.

What does “some money” mean?

If you are a starter in forum administration (not to say a newbie), you could manage with only about $40 a year. That includes a domain name ($10) and hosting. If you don't want to spend more money, you will also need a free forum software – I will deal with this choice later on.

On the other hand, if you think you are ready to start it big, you'll have to separate a larger amount of money, probably over $100. Again, you need it form a domain name, a better hosting, and this time a paid forum software.

Choosing a topic for your forums

Before choosing a domain name, you must decide what your forum will be about! If you already own a web site, it will probably not be a problem – just make it fit with your site. If, however, you are starting with a forum, it will be a big problem. In order for a forum to be successful, it must have a way to attract visitors. The best way is to have some unique content – but how is this possible when everything already exists on the Internet? That's one thing you will have to think about. Unless you are ready to take your chances, be very, very careful.

I have had multiple forums with many topics – books, technology, games etc. Of course, none of the succeeded, just because all of that already existed. However, my current forum is doing pretty well. It has 120 members and a lot of posts. It might be nothing compared to Astahost, but it's a good for a forum that has existed for six months. And how come it is still working? Simple – it is a forum meant to “unite” students in my country (Serbia). Since nothing like that exists, I have quite an influx of visitors/members

• Choose a topic for you forum that is unique (as much as this is possible) and is bound to attract visitors (because of its popularity in the world/your country)

Choosing a domain name

After you have chosen a topic (and a good one, I hope), it's time to buy a domain name. Best domains are the ones with com and net extensions. If you are making a forum in your own language, a country TLD (top level domain) will also work. Do not use subdomains, as these put off visitors that will see you forum as a cheep one (which it is if you are using a subdomain).

Domain names need to be short, catchy (www.j9-8yfaww.com doesn't seem appealing) and have something to do with the topic. These three things make them easy to remember. Try avoiding numbers and hyphens unless necessary – letters only will do.

• Make your domain short, catchy and site-related

Choosing hosting

Probably the hardest part to decide on (and the most expensive one, too). People usually aren't keen on paying and annual fee, but they fail to realise how important that is. Free servers are rarely good (Astahost is one of the good ones ), have a lot of downtime and bad support – on the other hand, paid servers are good because you are paying for them. If you make a good choice, you won't be disappointed.

You need to think how popular your forum will be. For a beginner, 1GB of bandwidth will be enough, but if the forum starts developing fast, you will have to upgrade. As for space, again, 100MB is enough for a beginner, and a few gigabytes is enough even for a bigger forum. You'll have to “predict” these things yourself.

I would suggest using Computing Host, since it offers good plans for little money, and is quite reliable.

• After finding a hosting company, google a bit to find opinions on its service. You don't want to choose a bad service, do you?

What software to use?

All the talk up to now wasn't actually about forums – anyone could use it for creating an ordinary web site. And here we start with the main thing.

As it is on computers, there are usually more than two programs that serve u purpose (for example, Microsoft Word and OpenOffice Writer). In the BBS world, there are four “programs” that stand out, in my opinion. The free ones are phpBB and SMF (Simple Machines Forum), whereas the paid ones are IPB (Invision Power Board) and vBulletin. Here's a bit on every one of them.

phpBB

Probably one of the most spread forums, but the least secure one at the same moment. PhpBB is known to have multiple security holes, and the developers just can't seem to fix them all. Even a ten-year-old could get into one of those! On the other hand, most people say it's the “prettiest” forum because of the number of available skins. There are also various hacks – but they bring even greater insecurity. I strongly advise you not to use phpBB if you don't want to pay.

SMF

While not being as good-looking as phpBB, SMF is one of the most secure (free) forums available. Why is free in the parenthesis? Because it might be safer than some paid forums. Anyhow, if you want security and bunch of options, SMF is the way to go.

IPB

Next, we have a forum that cost some money. You will have to pay $70 for a one-year licence, or $185 for a perpetual one (see this link for more info). This is what I use for my forums IPB is rather secure (SMF is more secure than older IPB versions), has a lot of mods/skins available and a large number of “worshippers”. Best quality for the given money.

vBulletin

This is the most secure forum I know, and it's not too expensive. That means that is cost approximately the same as IPB. It overcomes IPB when it comes to security, but it loses when we are talking about design (this is just my opinion, people might disagree). It is a tough choice between IPB and vBulletin, so be careful if you are buying a forum.


Organizing a forum

Some people like to start their community as soon as they install their chosen forum software. This is something I like to avoid, because nobody likes "under construction" sites/forums. That's why you need to complete everything before inviting visitors to join. It would be a good idea to disable member registrations until you are completely satisfied with what you've made. Of course, the first thing you should handle is the back-end stuff (configuration), but I will not cover that topic in this tutorial.

What should be done first?

In order to start managing your forum, you need to think like visitors would. When you visit a forum, what makes you register? Probably the content, or better to say what you see right away. Therefore, the first thing you need to deal with is making different categories/forums/sub forums. From my experience, I can tell you that it is not a good idea to create a forum for every little thing, because that way you will have too many places for people to post. Furthermore, to new visitors, it will seem a bit empty when posts are spread like this. Because of that, I'd advise you to create 2 or 3, maybe 4 categories, and not more then 6-7 forums in each of them (add sub forums if necessary).

What forums you will create depends on the topic you have chosen. For example, on my music web site, I have an Announcements/Forum Stuff category (all the news, complaints, praises etc. go here - that's the "official" part), a Music category (obviously, the main one), and an Off Topic one (most forums have it, and it's useful for increasing the number of posts). But don't forget to ask other people what they think! They might not like something you think is good!

And after organizing the categories..

..You should move on with being a visitor yourself. Let's say you decide to register - you click the "Sign up" button and get the "Terms of Service" page (just an example, might not be the same on different forum software). Or to put it more simple, the Forum rules. Try not to skip writing them, as they can help a lot when your forum gets bigger. Also, don't COPY some other forum's rules - it is best when you make them yourself and customize them for your website.

Here you should include:

• Posting rules/limitations
• Avatar content/size (if enabled)
• Signature content/size (if enabled)
• Overall behaviour

And one more thing you might want to add is that every member is responsible for his/her own posts. Since new members must accept the rules, they automatically take all the responsibility - it's just a good safety precaution

Completing the forum

Finally, you should decide on which template to use for your community. I think this is best done in the end, because everything else is complete, so you know what the forum will look like (I know, the sentence is confusing). Again, you have several options.

• You can use the default template. I wouldn't recommend this for SMF, since I think it's rather ugly, but the other forums have a rather good one - especially IPB, which is professionally-looking.
• Or, you can download a free template and use it instead - there are hundreds of these available online.
• Last, but not least, you can make your own template if you are skilled with HTML and CSS. I highly recommend this to people who already have a web site; it is always a good idea to make the site and the forum look similar.

After all of this has been done, you can move on to getting people to register!

Expanding the community

This always proves to be the hardest part. In order for people to register, they must be attracted by your forum. This is usually achieved by having a lot of quality posts (like on Astahost ), but what to do when you are just starting?

Then answer to this might not seem really fair, but it sure is wokring. Before advertising your forum anywhere, create several accounts on your own (5, 10, why not more?) and talk to yourself. It is silly, but helps develop a topic. Also, I just mentioned avertising. This is probably the most spread way of popularizing anything. But, guess what? It costs money... Free link/banner exchanges don't really help, and you should ignore them. However, AdWords and similair programs do help. As you already said, you must invest.


All in all, this is not an easy job if you want to create something good. But you can at least try! I sincerely hope that this tutorial has been, and will be helpful to anyone who has decided to start a forum

Ah! Forum setup and management - the non technical side. I like this article. I have had a forum before and it failed after limping on for about one and a half years. Why? Well, I did a big mistake that you stated - I hosted it at InvisionFree. Man! It was so difficult to get people there because of the obscure URL. And moreover, I did not make it unique at all. I left it with the default IPB forum skin.

Anyway, I have now restarted the forum, but under the domain name of my already running Website. It has not yet got many members, but again, I have not started to work on publicizing it yet. (I have it hosted here at AstaHost). Also, I used SMF as the forum engine, and created a theme/skin for it to make it unique. But yes, the topic is such that I will be contesting against some of the big players - that I cannot help because I am very passionate about the topic.

The only payouts, in order from smallest to biggest, are domain, hosting and forum. All can be free (Co.nr or .tk, Here, Smf) to fairly high ( com/biz/info, dedicated server*, Ibp). Ibp > Vbulletin > Rest are free.

* One I go on, with about 85k members now is on four servers.

It's a good clean article / tutorial, keep up the good work.

phpBB and Simple Machines Forums software is pretty good, especially considering they are free, but I would have to say that using SMF and getting it to look unique and decent is not easy.

Thanks for all that info. I have been looking for a good forum to use but right now I was thinking about making my own. I don't have any money and all the free stuff is just something that someone made as a beta probably 20 years ago or it has some MAJOR security problems (to tell you the truth if you wana learn to hack start with phpbb forum then move to Stick Arena from xgen). I'm not a hacker thats just what I think. I never hurd of SMF and to tell you the truth I thought it ment SMART AND FINAL INC. Im going to look as SMF forums now. (Hope it's good).
~Sparkx~

Making your own forum with PHP and mySQL isn't too hard, I have one on my site, it's not fully feature filled or anything, it's basic but works well thus far.

Really good tutorial! I think I must put a forum on my site!

Cant wait for the rest of the tutorial!

A very good tutorial. Nice work. It was also very detailed, which will (or might) help many people to create their own forums. Once I have my website up, I might come back to re-read this thread again, before I start with my forums.

Phew, just wanted to let you know that I've finally found time to finish this tutorial. If you find any mistakes, please report them here I hope you find it useful.

Lol I agree with you. Expanding the community is the hardest part. For me, my website is greate but I don't have any forum perticipation lol. I am going to try making multiple accounts and starting topics (as suggested).

It seems like a good idea but it is kinda risky. Takes time to log in and out lol. Any suggestions to what I should call these accounts (regular names) or just numbers so that it doesn't take a real person's user name? Also wouldn't it look funny for me to be going back and forth asking questions? Im going to try it and hope I get people on my site lol.