Add a Forum to Your Website
Using Message Boards to Create an Online Community
Adding a bulletin board to your website increases traffic and adds interest to your site.
A forum (also referred to as a discussion board, message board, or bulletin board) is web software that can serve as an entire website (the website consists of nothing but the forum), or it can be integrated into a website (it becomes one of many pages on a website). A forum's general purpose is to create an online community. A forum's particular purpose is to provide support for, or exchange information about, one specific topic. There's no restriction on the subject matter of a forum: it can be a place to discuss a software program, events at a church, or caring for pets. You have complete freedom to choose the subject, or purpose, of the forum.
Forum Terminology
A forum consists of posts, or messages, that are added by forum members. For organizational purposes the posts are categorized into topics, or threads. Each topic, or thread, is further categorized into a group. Each group can be referred to as a forum (which complicates the terminology, because each group can be referred to as a forum, and the entire message board itself can be referred to as a forum). This article's figure is a composite of a few screens from a message board, and illustrates the key terms used in talking about message boards.
Build a Community and Increase Traffic
By adding a forum to your website you provide a means to develop a relationship with your site visitors, and a way for site visitors to interact with each other. This both increases site traffic and increases visitor satisfaction. Visitors who have an easy means of providing feedback and asking - and getting answers to - questions are more satisfied visitors. You'll find that these people make frequent return visits to your site to check in on the forum and, perhaps, to also visit other pages of your site, click on ad banners, and even make purchases.
A forum brings past visitors back for new visits. A forum can also generate new first-time visitors to your site. That's because forum posts, or messages, often get indexed by search engines. When you define the categories of subjects in your forum, you'll include subjects related to your site or the products you sell on your site. When visitors post messages under these subjects, the text of their messages will of course include keywords relevant to your site. While a forum on your website won't catapult your site to the number one spot in a Google search, it may help boost its ranking a bit.
Adding Messages to the Forum
After adding a forum to your website and listing the categories, or subjects, your forum is ready - but empty. It won't initially include any posts. You'll want to jump-start the forum by adding some initial posts yourself. You can include a few administrative-type posts such as announcements and tips. Then ask friends and relatives to visit your forum and make some posts. Getting a few messages on the forum encourages other visitors to chime in with their own questions and comments.
A forum is an easy-to-add, and easy-to-use, addition to just about any website. A forum becomes a help desk, FAQ page, promotional tool, content-generator and social scene, all rolled into one.
