Discovering how to start a forum may seem very difficult to most of us, but it is not all that hard, if you have a plan to follow. So if you are interested in how to start a forum, but don’t have enough knowledge about programming, then this tutorial is for you. There is no reason to be afraid as you are about to learn everything you need to know about how to start a forum.
By the time you finish this tutorial you will know everything necessary to help you get a forum up and running.
How to Start a Forum – The Important Things to Considered:
Before you start your forum, you have to be knowledgeable of three key elements. These are: domain name, web hosting, and forum software.
- Domain name: The domain name is actually the URL or primary address of your forum. It’s your digital property. We suggest you to choose a domain name, which is short, but descriptive and represents your forum’s overall idea appropriately. If it is easy to remember, it will help you get more visitors.
- Web Hosting: A web server will help to establish your forum. All your contents of the forum will be located in that web hosting server. There are a number of hosting server, but I suggest not going with any free or low priced providers due to their limitations.
- Forum script or software is the key element for your forum, as without it no forum can be run successfully. If you are an expert in PHP and MySQL then you can write the script in your own way.
The Limitations of Free Web Hosting Provider:
It is essential that you choose a great web hosting provider for your forum. This hosting company must be highly reliable and give you all the necessary tools for managing your forum. So if you don’t want to ruin your project and waste your time go with the best hosting for the best result.
With a free service, you don’t have any right or chance to protect your forum as it can be removed anytime without any notice. Suppose you have made an excellent effort and your forum has now thousand of posts, but all of them are wiped out within a moment without any notice. Since you don’t pay the hosting company at all, you really have nothing to argue.
Beside, almost all free hosting server will show advertisement on your site without asking for any permission. If building a forum is a dream of your, then don’t risk it and get a real hosting company. The paid hosting doesn’t cost too much now-a-days. It may cost you around $7 – $20 monthly, but you will have both legal right and a lot of space.
How to Start a Forum – Setting Everything Up:
Almost all web hosting providers provide a tool called ‘click and install’ to help you installing your forum within a minute or even seconds. You should consider where you install this software very carefully.
- Main domain: If you want, you can install the forum on your main domain such as yourforum.com.
- Sub-domain: almost all the web hosting companies today provide with an easy control panel named cPanel. You can easily create a sub-domain before you install the forum software in that cPanel to make it even easier. Example of sub-domain will be like this- www.forum.yourforum.com.
- Sub-folder: if your hosting provider has a cPanel then there will must be a tool named Fantastico. Now if you are interested to set up your forum with Fantastico and install your forum in a subfolder, then you need not to create a subfolder while setting up. Pointing to the main domain type just the subfolder name and it will be automatically created by the Fantastico. Now your forum address will look like www.yourforum.com/forum.
You have now been introduced to the basics of your domain name, hosting and the software you will use to set up your forum. We have also discussed a bit about your cPanel and using Fantastico to get your forum set up. We can move on to the next part of this how to start a forum tutorial now.
Getting a Discount on Web Hosting (How to Start a Forum):
Your web hosting cost can be reduced or covered by giving ads in your forum site. For the forum owners, Google Adsense has been doing the job very effectively. Forums with a huge number of visitors can easily earn a handsome amount from this. For example, the Digital Point Forum approximately earn a $20,000 dollar every month by putting ads from Google Adsense.
Different hosting companies offer different hosting plans and discount on those plans can be received by using a coupon code. Here are some confirmed coupon codes which you can consider.
i. Hostican: ‘webhostingreality30-12’ is the coupon here and it refers to saving $30 upon your ordering.
ii. Hostgator: coupon code for this site is ‘freemonth’ which offers $9 is discounted on first month is guaranteed.
iii. Lunarpages: its code is ‘spring’ and allowed for only a 2 years plan.
iv. Thinkhost: ‘THINKHOST20’ is the desired coupon and it offers $20 discount on checkout.
You can start your forum accepting anyone of those offers very easily.
The Final Touch for How to Start a Forum:
There may be a number of reasons why you want to discover how to start a forum, but the main reasons are below-
- Friendship: friendship through A forum is different from social networking. It is more personalized and interaction can be made in a different ways, which makes it more unique.
- Helping community: If the forum is built for the members of a industry or occupation, it may help them to discuss their topics and get solutions to their problems.
- Saving both time and money: if you get connected with your relatives and friends through your forum it can be the best way of getting in touch for you with less effort.
- Helping others Learn: Probably the main reason anybody starts a forum is to help the entire community of people learn about something specific.
Creating a forum and maintaining it can give you a unique experience and it can even be converted into a money making machine. Now that you have a basic plan for how to start a forum you can take action today.
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