All I want is a basic site and forum

Hello,
I just went to the bother of designing my own website via Weebly and after putting in hours and hours of customisation and content, I found out they want an additional $20 per month to add a forum! Not a chance!

I am not a web designer nor do I have any significant experience with web hosting.
All I want is a basic website (3-4 pages) and a forum...that's it...I don't think I am asking for much.

I am hoping that you fine folks could help me find the cheapest way to achieve this.
This is more of a hobby at the moment but with a view of making it professional and perhaps charging membership later down the road.

As I said, I just want to explain what we are about via the website and then have a forum for our members to discuss.
If I had a Home Page, About Page, Contact Page and a forum then i'd be happy.

If you need anymore info then I am happy to provide it.

Thanks in advance!

 

Try https://wordpress.org you can build and host your site there and then add a forum plugin: https://wordpress.org/plugins/tags/forum/

 

What Ali Luke learned from a year and a half of running her own ... Your business can have all this with a membership site: a private website, with ... Forums where you post regularly, providing help and support for your members. ... have a big event to get people involved — in fact, simpleis probably better.

 

Let's be real. As a visitor of a site, would YOU ever sign up on a Wordpress site using a "forum plugin" to frequent it as a forum?

 

This place looks pretty much like what I want.
I just want a small homepage where I say what we are about and then a forum... that's it... A contact page would be handy but if I can just get the first 2 for a reasonable price then i'd be happy.
I do need it to look professional though, so no ads (other than my own) and nothing that will make the place look cheap and turn people away.

I am setting this up now with a view to make some money in the future. Maybe.
I am a Forex Trader and I have bought up a .com domain with the business name I want to go with.
I just want to be adding content to it over the next few months or more and then hopefully be in a position where I can do something with it to make money.
I'd like to not paint myself into a corner either, so i'd like the option to expand or customise further if it goes well.

Muut wanted $20 per month just for their basic forum add-on (on top of paying Weebly for the rest!)

 

Thanks for this help folks!
From reading it all I got to thinking...what do I really want right now?

I guess at it's basic level, I want to make money from advertising.
I'll be adding educational videos to Youtube but I realise that making money via youtube is not as straightforward as one might initially assume.
Obviously if people skip the ad, I don't get paid. If I have a too long of an ad, they will abort the video and I don't get paid.

My "master plan" after thinking about that was to not put ads on my videos, but instead mention the name of my website at the start and end of my videos. This, in my head, should make for happier followers (who enjoys looking at ads...right?) and in turn, we build up a good rapport, providing they buy into what I am teaching of course.

So essentially, if they enjoy my videos, they will be more likely to visit my site which will have all the educational videos I posted on youtube, but packaged in an attractive manner which is far more educational than just viewing all my videos in random order on youtube.
I am not very familiar with ads and ad revenue but from what I can see... I can put ads on my site that don't need to be clicked (impressions?) and then obviously there are also ads that do need to be clicked or something purchased through. I think I am only interested in the non-click ads and the click ones, not necessarily the ones where they must purchase something (forgive my lack of ad revenue lingo please).

So I guess, if my youtube videos can drive traffic to my website, then I just need to ensure that they want to stay when they visit. For that, as I said above, I will have the very same videos that are on youtube, but packaged in a manner which is more beneficial to them and I will also add articles and news updates.
This means that Youtube carries the weight of my videos (they will not be stored on my server), all my site will have is the links to a particular order of the videos and then obviously some articles.

Perhaps I don't even need a forum? Maybe I just need a multi page site? With each page containing ad banners or whatever...

 

Self-hosted WordPress + free forum software like phpBB.

 

Thank you all for the help folks and even though I have changed my mind, your help was not in vain.
It's only after listening to you all and after I spelled out what my intent was that I have a clearer picture in mind.

I don't know why I was so caught up on having a forum.
Really all I need is a multi-page website with ads... for what I want right now at least...
I could add some form of chat or forum feature but the main thing is that I have the space to build up the number of pages and it's content.

You folks are awesome though!
Very helpful!...which is not what happened the last time I joined a forum to get a question answered.
You are all a credit to the place and I think I will stick around.
I don't have anything to add at the moment but let's see how it plays out.

I'm sure i'll have more questions for you all in the future...I'll try to be a bit more sure of what I am talking about next time

 

Nowler if you hang around for long enough you might change your mind

 

Probably the best bet. I purchased a PHP Laravel website and am currently using phpBB 3.2 Flatboots. Just started it and trying to get my users to start using the forum. Anyway, wordpress is where it is at because everyone is using it at the moment. I just need to learn how to accurately build a forum with sub-forums and categories. I think I did it right but I do not know. Glad Nowler figured everything out.

Do you use forums? What would be your favorite type of forum and why?

 

You can get a basic html and css website from a freelance or web design firm but please remember that in order to increase your business online you should have a dynamic and sophisticated website at least it should be a CMS where you can make some regular updates. It's always better to keep it live with regular updates and offers to be on top of all results and to give the best service to your customers.