Adding a forum to your website is a great way to have your visitors participate and communicate with you. But simply adding a forum isn't enough, we are going to help you create a forum that is both useful and successful.
Website forums are an excellent way to invite users to participate in your website. Having a strong community can also make for a valuable marketing platform, generate content and can also be used to spread the word about other services or specials your website is offering. Creating a forum is not as difficult as it may sound; all you need to do is spend a little time each week participating in your forum and create a pleasant space where your visitors feel comfortable. Below are some design tips that can help make your forum an important and successful part of your website.
Create an attractive design. The way your forum looks and feels will impact how your visitors and member see you. The more engaging, professional and customized your forum design is the more likely it is to attract new visitors and entice them to join and participate. Ensure that the look of your forum is appropriate for the type of community that is participating.
Make it easy to use. When designing your forum it is important that it is easy for participants to create new topics, access existing threads and navigate in general. To make creating topics easier for users minimizing the number of topic areas is suggested. Doing this will reduce the amount of time you will have to spend moving threads to the proper locations. Provide participants with generalized topic areas where they can easily participate.
Generate content. Generating content can be done by simply creating new threads to help the conversations thrive. You can also connect your forum to blog topics or a news feed that can be found on your website.
Promote your forum. You can promote your forum by participating or linking it to conversations that you may be a part of on social media sites. Being an active member on other forums is a great way to drive traffic to the forum on your website. This will also help your company seem more approachable by people who may not be familiar with you or your services.
Maintain a level of maturity. Forums may get out of hand by members posting negative or inappropriate comments on a thread. To avoid this it is important that you or someone else constantly moderate and maintain the level of respect you want your forum to have.
A forum is an excellent website tool to utilize. It offers members a chance to get to see the personal side of your business and not just see you as a website without a real person behind it. Forums can help generate participation and get your website some much needed attention.
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