Before social media, community forums reigned supreme as the primary digital medium for customer-to-customer communication. While social media has taken over in popularity, millions of people still use forums to interact with other customers and discuss different products and services online.

In this post, let’s look at how you can create a forum website for your business.

1. Pick a location to host your forum: The first step is deciding where you want to host your forum. It can be a page that’s found at the end of the URL, like www.example.com/forum. Or, it can be a sub domain located at the beginning of the URL, like forum.example.com. Where you choose is dependent on your current web hosting provider and how you’ve organized and built your site.

2. Choose a content management software to create your forum website: Once you have a web addressed picked out, the next step is to choose a content management software. This software builds your forum’s pages and lets you design and categorize its content. The right software makes all the difference, so be sure to select one that can match the theme and features of your current website.

3. Organize your forum’s structure: Before creating pages, you should consider how you’re going to organize topics. It should be easy for customers to find what they’re looking for and your forum’s navigation features should support its visitors’ needs.

4. Design your forum’s theme: Your forum’s theme should match your surrounding website. It should use the same colors, logos, and layout as your existing content so customers aren’t confused when they navigate to a new page.

5. Create user rules for your forum website: Visitors should feel empowered to participate in your forum’s discussions. To do that, all users will need to abide by a set of rules that promote healthy, informative conversation. These rules ensure discussions stay on topic and everyone feels comfortable with contributing.

Some example rules you can start with are:

• Be respectful, even when there’s a disagreement.
• No foul language or discriminatory comments.
• No spam or self-promotion.
• No links to external websites or companies.
• No NSFW (not safe for work) content.

6. Start conversations with interesting discussion topics: Before you publish your forum, you should write some general discussion topics that encourage conversation. This will break the ice for new users, especially when your forum is starting out. After all, it’s much easier for users to comment on a post than it is for them to write their own.

7. Publish the forum on your website: Now it’s time to publish your forum. Set your pages live and connect your forum’s home page to your primary site. Users should be able to easily find your forum when they visit your brand’s home page.

8. Advertise to your audience: Now that we’ve covered the technical steps you’ll need to take to create a forum, the next step is to make it an active community. Like an awkward middle school dance, getting participants engaging with each other can be a lot easier said than done.

Start with reaching out and advertising to your most loyal customers. These people are genuinely interested in your brand and will be excited to participate in your forum. If you can get them talking, other visitors will be more likely to join the conversation.

9. Increase engagement with badges: Of course, engagement is something that’s hard to kick start. You don’t want to manufacture it and have the conversations seem stilted. A great to encourage engagement is to provide incentives. For example, one incentive you can provide is badges.

10. Moderate user participation and respond to customer inquiries: Forums are living, breathing, active communities, and once you create one, you need to participate in it if you want it to thrive. This means your business should be leading discussions and leveraging the forum as a continuous resource for customer feedback.

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