How to kick-start a forum, Part 1

Making a forum is nowadays one of the easiest things to do.

Starting one, on the other hand remains hard, the same as it used to be.

A forum is a unique form of site, a unique form of communication. I remember explaining to an older guy what a forum is, and he replied “isn’t it dumb to ask something and get a reply a day later? Or a conversation to last a month?”

No hard feelings, the guy had not lived the experience, he did not get it. If you sit down and think about it, a forum is a hack job of a communication system. It works though, and it works amazingly well.

The problem is, that fora (that is the correct word, not forums) either work or they don’t. And those that work seem to be because of things their owners did not control, like good timing, good ranking for a gadget, a reputable member etc. So, since all these factors are out of your hands, there is nothing you can do to make a forum successful.

Oh. Wait.

Out of your hands? Timing? Good ranking? Reputable members?

How are those things not in your reach?

Of course you can time the forum launch just right. If for example, the forum is for an upcoming game, you can grab a good domain very early. You can leverage on the buzz its company is building anyway, and you can rank for the keywords since not many sites are going for them yet.

Lets take an example, a real niche.

The game Starcraft has a fanatic following. Its sequel, Starcraft 2 has been in production for years, but players still await for it.

Anyway, how would we approach this niche, if we wanted to make a forum about Starcraft 2?

First of all, we need 3 domains. Yes, 3. One for the forum, and two for the supporting blogs.

What we need are keyword domains, so starcraft-2-forum.com is great, starcraft2-forum.com is as well, etc.

We also need a starcraft2news.com, and a starcraft2cheats.com. Those are the supporting blogs.

Now, we install the sites, using Wordpress for the blogs. Of course, the best forum engine is vBulletin, using something else means finding problems down the line.

After that we need simple templates. Anything close to the game’s theme is doable, just pick a clean theme and add some of the game’s graphics to the header. Same thing for the blogs. You don’t need a 500$ design, just something that resembles the game theme (sci-fi, cars, magic, blood, kids game whatever).

Fill up the blogs with as much content as you can find of the game’s release. Depending on how big the game is and how close it is to getting live, this may vary. Make up stuff if you need to, no big deal. You might even get accidental linkbait. Just make sure you know what you are talking about.

Now, the key element are RSS + email subscriptions here. In a prominent place on your blogs you should remind the visitors to signup so they can get all the latest news and buzz about the game. That is propably the most important part of the whole strategy.

The idea behind that is, that while the visitor just searched for the game and stumbled on your site, he is still interested in the game a month later but he (we assume) has a life, he can’t remember to check on the game, or remember your site. That is your job, to remind him and bring him back.

By using Feedburner you can do both RSS and email subscriptions. Just remind the visitors to sign up.

After that, you need to set up a google alert on the game’s title. So do that step, and google will let you know when there is something new about it. Of course, whatever gets published, repost it on your blogs. (use the same content on both blogs, the “cheats” domain is for ranking after release, the “news” is for pre-release.)

Now, to set up your forum, you will need a bit of content. Screenshots, videos, sneak peeks whatever. Make your forum sections accordingly, and setup the forum just like you want it to be. Keep the number of subforums small, dont put any section that is empty. Empty fora are not good looking.

That is it for now, the rest on the next post. Signup at my RSS feed so that you don’t miss it.