I thought it would be best to start off with something so basic - so simple - yet totally missed by so many. This should be taped to the monitor of every webpreneur around the world so they see it on a daily basis. An idea should never get beyond the simple ‘idea’ phase without making sure that it passes this ‘test.’ Ready? Commit this to memory:

See a Need, Fill a Need.

See, I told you it was painfully simple. But trust me, if you follow this mantra, you will greatly increase your chances of success. If you spend any time on message boards that deal with starting forums or making money online (this concept should be applied to ANY business - online or off), you probably see groaning new admins complaining about their dead message boards that have been ghost towns since their fairly recent launch. “Why aren’t people joining my board? I spent all this money on a cool skin and vBSEO, yet I can’t get people to join and start talking. What do I do!?!”

My first question would be, “What keyword research did you do? And what did that yell you?” Often, they did none. They simply wanted to start a board on that topic. If you build it, they will come, right? Well, my friend, that just isn’t good enough in 2006. With around 50 million registered dot coms, you need a LOT more than just an interest in a topic to do well.

If people aren’t coming to your board (provided you have some rankings - which aren’t hard to get in MSN or even Yahoo!), or if they are coming and not staying, you probably are trying to fill a need that isn’t there. I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but it’s fairly black and white.

Okay, so let’s say you haven’t started your board yet - how do you make sure you are filling a need? It’s actually a fairly simple process. That, however, deserves its own post since for me, that part is lots of fun.

In the last post from the series I discussed the establishing of your forums within the forum. You need to keep it simple and limit the forums to 8-10 in the beginning. Before we get in to populating your forum and the best methods to do that, I wanted to touch on design. Earlier this year you might have read a post titled “Get Top Quality Design For Little Money”, and I feel this needs to be touched upon once again.

You are at the point where your forum theme is established in thought, but is not yet visually appealing. I have a wavering opinion about this and for the most part it has to do with your board, the competition and what you are looking to accomplish. You have the school of thought that says design isn’t important, especially in the beginning. People point to some of the long standing “Big Boards” and show you how some of them are using the stock forum skin, whether UPB or VB or a bland custom look. I understand that this is the case, but we are in a different time today. Many experts say that you have but a few seconds to grab a visitors attention with your design elements, a recent study said it was but miliseconds. I believe a design is important and in today’s world of online communities it will help to stand out and aim for uniqueness with your forum’s design.

There are a variety of ways to find good designers, an I recommend Talk Freelance (free to post a contest or design request) or Site Point (a cost of $9.95). You need to remember that a good design will likely cost a minimum of $100-$200 and that you need to make sure to set money aside for the coding of the skin/style as well. I have seen a vBulletin style coding job run from $150 - $250. These are the cost of doing business, something which you need to consider from the very beginning if you are looking to build something that will really grow and become special.

This question seems to come up alot and I get messages quite frequently about it. So I figured I would do a little outline.

Question: I just started my forums, I have it setup with nice features and a good looking skin. Now how do I get members? And don’t forget I don’t have any money (hehe) !

1. Of course the first and easiest solution is putting your site link in signatures at other forums. I’m going to assume you know what that is. But signatures can be very powerful. Not only can they advertise your site for you, but they can also be counted as IBLs (Inbound Links) although this could be debated. But remember when putting your site in your sig don’t just use your URL, use a text targeted link. Like I use “Cruise Reviews” . And try to keep it to a phrase that people may type in search engines. You might want to do a search here inventory.overture.com . Now don’t just do that at your current forums you participate in, start registering at any and every forum you find. I probably have 100+ forum accounts that I post on, and every time I do I am giving my site that chance to be seen by others that might be interested. Just think how much time it takes to make 10 posts on a forum, not very much. So the more sites your making 10 posts a day on the more your going to be seen.

2. Kind of like sigs you have Top Site Lists. Now you may or may not get any traffic from these but anything is worth a shot. You are just starting your forum so you should try everything. There are tons of Top Site Lists out there so just do a search and enter in as many as you can. Any publicity is good publicity.

3. Newsgroups. Join lots of newsgroups. This is kinda of like joining a lot of forums and using a sig. Do the same thing with news groups. But remember nobody likes spam, so make good lengthy posts with you site after your name. This is another easy FREE way to mass broadcast. I must add that this is a very valuable and underused option. Not only do people read newsgroups directly but they also subscribe to them, some sites even grab their feeds and publish them. This method can really boost your visability, just remember to keep the posts informative and “sneak” your link in there.

4. Yahoo! Chat. This option is spammy but what the heck, you need members. I even used this option before. Go onto yahoo chat and talk with people and every now and again do a blatant Spam post with your site. This way people see you are real and not a bot, and they get to see your site link. Again, FREE IS THE KEY.

5. Exchange links with anyone willing. I don’t care if there site gets less traffic than you, exchange links. I don’t care if the site is relevant or not, exchange links. The more incoming links the better. The more your site name is out and about, the more people will see it. But try to setup a link directly from your site, this way you can keep all links one one area and off your main content.

6. Do a press release. I think the site is prweb.com. Do one everyweek. Ok now I know this option isn’t cheap but I reccoment the $80 option. You will get picked up by all the major news portals and if your write up is interesting you will get gobs of traffic. But remember nobody likes spam so you have to make your PR less about your site and more about information. Write something up that somebody may have interest in, or a tip of some kind and include your links right after your name. They even have pay for professionals that will write something up for you, but they are not cheap.

7. Many sites love people that write articles. So get to writing and submit them to other sites. Again you put your site link in the article and boom, instant advertising.

8. Make use of digg.com. While you may not have anything worthy of getting a top position it’s always good to get your name out there from time to time. Again any traffic at this point is good traffic.

9. Post exchanges. There must be 1,000’s of other startup forums on the net right now. Get to know these people and establish relationships with them. Mention that they get involved on a 1 on 1 post exchange. This way you help them out and they help you out. It’s a simple idea that can go a really long way. I remember doing this in my early days.

Anything that is free is worth doing. And do it until you can’t stand it any more. If you want success you have to do anything to achieve that.

Remember it’s always good to know other people in the forum business. These are the people that been through this before, so take their advice whenever you can.

This is the very basic beginning for those that are just starting a forum, but of course it doesn’t hurt for those old timers either.

Rex Bowden @ CruiseLineForums.com

Now that we have picked our forum software as discussed in the third tip in our “In the Beginning” series we must begin to look at design and implementation. This is the part where you need to do a bit of planning as well as outlining. We must keep a few things in mind when establishing a brand new forum. First, you need to keep the number of forums to a number equal or less than 10. I feel this is the magic number so to speak. The less forums you have in the very beginning, the better. It isn’t always the case that you can do this, but try your very best. Keep in mind that you will only be seeing 20-100 posts a day in most cases for the first few weeks, and you definitely want your forum to “appear” as populated as possible. Guests and lurkers coming to your site don’t want to see empty forums or forums that have been posted in for 2-3 days. The smaller number of forums you can have the better. Of course as your membership grows and the daily posting activity increases, you will be able to expand your forums. I like to do this on a “need only” basis. For example, I waited for more than 3 years to break up the General Discussion forum on Sprint Users and create a separate category and forum group for our members to discuss phone manufacturers. Only expand when there is a need to expand. Less forums that are busy look much better than a long list of forums that are dead. I hope you have enjoyed the 4th tips from our “In the Beginning” series.

With the first two posts of our “In the Beginning” series made, covering the topics of choosing your niche and selecting a domain name, I feel it is time to dive in to the world of forum software today. With so many choices, how do you know which one to choose? Which software is stable and which isn’t? Why are some free and some aren’t? How easy are they to learn? I know there are many questions and I hope to help settle some of them with this post. I will be looking at some of the leaders in the forum software world: phpBB, vBulletin, Invision Power Board, and SMF.

phpBB
This forum software is the most widely known and used forum software on the market (by a large margin). It is likely the best free application you can use. Since it has been around the middle of 2000, you will have the advantage of a wide base of hacks, mods, skins, etc to choose from. For a free solution, you have plenty of options at your fingertips. On the positive side, the admin panel is easy to use, hacks are relatively simple for even a newbie to install, there is a decent amount of flexibility for customization, and the support forums are active so you can typically find plenty of help with any issues. The downside of this software lies mostly in its stability or lack thereof. I know of more phpBB boards that have been totally ruined than I can count on both hands. This is something the developers are working to prevent, but it still remains a major concern in my eyes.

vBulletin
This is my personal favorite, what I believe to be the best of the paid forum software solutions. For $85 a year, the price of a leased license, or $160 for a lifetime license, I feel this is the best of what is readily available. Regarding hacks, flexibility, technology, styles, and a knowledgeable user base there is none better im my opinion. The positive side is full as vBulletin gives you outstandint and lightening fast support, an extremely secure backend, tremendous flexibility, and all the hacks you can think up. Since vBulletin is a true leader in forum software, there are many great sites providing valuable resources for your vBulletin forum. I can’t say enough good stuff about vBulletin software and I back it up with the fact that I own 7 licenses. Regarding leasing versus the outright purchase of the license, I always say just buy the thing. Yoou are in it for the long haul with your forum, no need to pay more to lease the license.

Invision Power Board
This is is similarly priced paid solution, very comparable in pricing to vBulletin. The yearly license will cost you $185 and the yearly (rented) license will run $70 a year. I have the least amount of experience with this particular software. It was once a free software like phpBB until late 2004 when they moved towards their Premium Software label and began charging their users. This is a solid and stable forum software. While it is behind in sales compared to vBulletin, there are many that say it is a top notch software.

SMF - Simple Machines Forums
The last of our forum software overviews happens to be another free forum software package from the folks at SimpleMachines.org. This is a much newer forum software that first came on the scene in Beta format in December of 2003. It really didn’t begin to gain in popularity until early 2005. It has now become one of the players in the free forum software realm. Installation is simple, finctionality is decent (always improving), support is okay as well. Nothing is particularly fantastic about this software, but it is still in its youth. At this point, if you had to choose between free softwares, this would rank as my 2nd choice behind phpBB. It has less to offer along the lines of skins, mods, hacks, etc.

When making a choice between forum software, think about your financial resources and your goal. If you plan to have the forum grow, profit, and be something you are still working on 1-2 years out, then I would say invest in a lifetime vBulletin license. If you are unsure of your goals or your desire to make your new forum concept work, then try a free provider like phpBB as you can always upgrade to a paid solution down the road.