I mean I love blogs, but writing articles on blogs just get boring after so long and theres less "help" being asked. I find a forum easy to transfer source code, answer questions and get questions answered by gurus themselves. So I want to make a desktop programming blog, then theres when I'm not sure how I would choose keywords for this site. Monetizing the site will be the simplest part for me using adsense as my methods always work (it's all about ad positioning in your forum software and I'm testing new things soon as well. I guess what I'm asking is: 1. How do I choose a niche for a programming forum for: C#,C++, etc.. desktop programming languages and stuff 2. Would it be hard to get traffic to this type of forum? What I have: 1. I have questions that I ask myself and other beginners might ask and google don't have results for which I can research and get answers to. 2. The programming niche (sub niches) have barely any competition for long tail results.
"I guess what I'm asking:" 1. Pick the ones you know best, and do it 2. Depends how much you enjoy doing that stuff and how much work you are willing to put in it. Many good places have started as a hobby, and then evolved (for example in 5 years) to massive money making machines. "what I have" Then... go for it?
I would start the forum off as a bit general in the niche that you want to target. Than as the forum grows and you see what topics are getting more attention, you can market towards those topics and build the niche up.
Starting a forum is probably one of the hardest things to do on the Net as there are so many out there already covering every topic. What Teo123 means about "seeding" is that you will have to be active on your forum and put out some discussion topics that may be contraversial or will help other people, therefore uou have planted the "seed" and others will help it grow. It will take a lot of time and effort but Good Luck
Hmm, or join a few sites that deals with the niche (if I can find any), gamedev.net is a good one. See whats being talked about. Slowly build a forum around them questions by making some sort of tutorial area write detailed articles, refer my articles to them try to see how the conversion rates increase. I'm just afraid of how forums die in a matter of time that its almost impossible to keep active to more then 20 members. I've seen forums die quick less then 24 hours quick.. (opening day, 200 users registered at my friends forum, next day 5 returning visitors. Week later it was just him)
Anything is possible Demonic, the question is, Is there room in any niche for your Forums. The reason Forums die out is because of a lack of new content. If someone isn't seeding, the pages go stagnant and people stop coming. My advice. If you can't find more than 5 forums in your favorite niche go ahead. If you can join them and have fun. You never spoke of your goals what do you want out of your forum. Money, Power, Fame? Setting up your own is relatively easy with free tools from sites like Vbulletin, but you have to host their ads. As to the marketing of your forums, that's a pretty large subject, I'd start with social networks, maybe Twitter, and see if anyone is in your niche and invite them. Just a few bits
Get vbulletin and hire some posters for the first 1000 posts. In the meantime promote the forum as hard as you can.
Check communityspark.com and other similar blogs. You will learn a lot. Oh and ensure you have a REAL passion for the topic before attempting a forum startup.
Seeding them is putting your own posts in there with a few questions and answeres so it looks like the forum is already being used by people.
I do not think it would be tough to get traffic if you provided quality content, people love to have free coding resources and help forums.
Another way to get people coming back is by offering them something so you could run competitions or just give stuff away to luck members like number 100, 500 etc
My advice; start small, go big! Often of the time (when people start new forums) they try and 'crunch' everything under the sun all into one little place. Don't overload a new forum with to many topics until there are enough people involved in it to keep those topics going. Forums don't "look right" (nor last long) when there are hundreds of topics to choose from and, say, only ten members who are an active part of the community. If you have too many topics and too little people to keep those threads going most of those topics will just stay idle until they die off altogether and, let's face it, dead threads don't look good for ANY forum (people go where the activity is). Start with a main focus, find your niche and STICK TO IT! Once you start getting more members then, and only then, should you focus on adding additional forums/topics. Of course, you can't attract everyone with only one specific topic (obviously, not everyone is interested in the same things) so, if you have the know how and feel up to it, add a little 'fun' into the mix as well (a few games never hurt anyone, but don't go overboard, information overload is just as bad as information underload). In addition, if you have knowledge and experience to share (in regard to what you are focusing on) don't be afraid to share it. Often, forum owners start up a forum and then simply 'disappear', leaving their members and staff to run the show. As a forum owner it is imperative that you stay a part of your own community, so get in there and be as active as you can and be as helpful as you can (whatever you do, don't leave a members' questions/concerns sit unanswered day after day, that is a HUGE drawback and makes a member feel unappreciated). Also, when it comes to members and staff (I'm stating the obvious here), treat them as you would like to be treated yourself; with respect. As for getting traffic to your site, wow, there are plenty of options to choose from (traffic exchanges, linkbacks, search engines...blah, blah, blah). However, I'll leave that to later, probably better to take "one step at a time" and let you get your website off the ground first; rather hard to bring traffic to someplace that doesn't even exist yet, lol. Anyway, good luck and much success to you. Hope you'll keep us updated, either way you decide to go. Tara
I don't if this would be for you, but a full social network would probably do well with this content, I started a few social networks and having a great time. i used socialgo service, has three plans one is free if you want their logo on the site. my two networks are littleprayerbox.com and prosocialgo.com, you can see what can be done with a little CSS and Java script. I have the premium plan 24.99, and their white label for my prayer site which strips all signs of their brand out. It's like ning, but has a open API and all member data available for further development. It's a very open platform which was the draw for me... I have to snap the leash when my pray site gets too big, and there was no way to do that with other services... they basicaly own your member info. their forum is pretty basic, but their still in beta, and working on beefing it up.
Yes, it is possible.. if you have the courage to reach your goal then you can do all the things that you wanted... just have patience and work hard on it
http://www.forumotion.com also provide a free forum hosting service, based off a simplied version of Invision Power Board 1.3, they are recommended for those looking to not spend a time and still have a customizable online community.