With our first tip I discussed the importance of finding a good niche. Once you have chosen the niche you feel is best, then next step is to secure a domain name. My personal registrar of choice is Godaddy, but there are several out there I also like such as NameCheap or Enom. Whichever registrar you are most comfortable with is the one you should use.

Now, there are several things to look at. Do you want a brandable name like my friends at Nexopia, a memorable name like SprintUsSprintUsers.Com, or a name ending with forum (or some variation of forum)? My take on this is simple:
1. Think it through according to your target audience
2. keep it as short as possible (15+ characters is getting very long)
3. Make a decision and stick with it!

I personally like the words forum or forums rather than chat, discussion, BB, talk, etc. I think the word forum is fast becoming a well known word online and offline. This will only increase over time as well. Let’s look at a few examples as well!

Examples:
abc123forum.com versus abc123chat.com - I choose abc123forum.com
abc123forum(s).net (the .com’s are taken) versus ab123talk.com - I choose the abc123talk.com (I like .com’s)

A few other things to consider in this growing market of forums covering multitudes of topics, is that a brandable name might more appealing. The old idea that have having your target keywords in your URL is now much less important as search engines have taken steps to prevent spamming. Also, branding just works! You don’t have to look beyond Yahoo! or Google to see that.

Finally, while I think you can find great domains for a $6-$9 registration fee at your registrar of choice, you may want to consider buying an existing domain. A domain with some age or even some prior use can have great benefits for your new forum. Google certainly likes older domains. If there is a domain for sale in your niche that can apply to a forum, and maybe for the past 2 years it was simply a site offering information on your topic, then this might be a nice grab for you if the price is right.

Your domain will be your name. Take the time to decide and make a wise choice as it is unwise to ever change this name.

I have decided after receiving many communications from people just starting a forum or soon to start building one, that I need to begin to elaborate on my bag of tricks and tips for a brand new forum. Today I will begin with discussing the most basic aspect of a new forum and I don’t mean the forum software!

Before doing anything you must first determine what the forum will be about. In doing this you first should look within yourself. What do you enjoy? What are you knowledgeable about? What do you feel you can talk about for the next 2-5 years and have it not get old or aggravating?

Once you feel you have several items you “could” talk about and enjoy doing so, you now need to determine if a forum covering those topics will be useful. If you know all there is to know about the Dell Optiplex line of computers, great! That doesn’t mean delloptiplexforum.com (no, I don’t have this domain registered ) is going to be a winning ticket. It must be a broad enough term that doesn’t limit your niche to 54 people. Also, in terms of a forum being useful, do you feel the forum topic would provide solid and helpful information as the content grows? This is very important. At this point in “forum time” a forum of people talking about nothing (off-topic or extremely general discussions) will likely lead to nothing.

Now that you feel you have a useful topic that has a large enough market, we must determine what there is in terms of competition. I will tell you now, that there is likely a forum already out there for 90% of the ideas you have. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing! I sat down one day and thought of nearly 50 topics that were what most would call niche markets. Out of the 50 topics, only two or three I found had no forum competition. This was just a test for me months back, which today helps provide you with some useful information. I would go to the “Big 3″ search engines of Google, Yahoo, and MSN and begin searching for your topic in a forum format. Search for “topic forum” or “topic message board” or “topic discussion”. I normally go about 3 pages deep and feel confident I have covered enough territory in my hunt for potential competitors.

Now that you have found some competition which is likely the case, take a close look at their forum stats and activity. Look at their search engine rankings and link popularity, using tools such as MarketLeap. If you feel you can provide a better forum in terms of content, rankings, and design then you have an excellent chance for success. If you see a competitor that is established, don’t necessarily run away. Think about the market size and determine what you can do that the competition isn’t doing. Can you do something better than they are currently doing? Is there another creative angle within the niche you can target? Take time to ask questions and then find your answers. Do not jump in to creating a forum that will take many days and weeks of your life to develop. Think first and then act!

I hope today’s “In The Beginning” tip was useful! Until next time…