New Forums Checklist

I'm starting a new forums site and want to make sure I hit all the important things before "opening it to the public". Here's my checklist so far, please let me know if you can think of anything else to add. Its MyBB forums if that matters to you:

1) By Domain
2) Install Forums Software
3) Get (at least) two good skins/themes (one 'lighter' one 'darker') to meet most people's desires
4) Get site logo's up
5) POST POST POST. Make the forum appear active using 'fake' users (paid if needed).
6) Have anti-spam measures in place
7) Have Site specific forum rules in place
8) Have all your initial Forums and Categories in place
9) Have groups and promotion requirements in place (if you are going to use this)
10) Have any mods/plugins installed and tested.
11) Have advertisement/SEO planned out for 3-6 months after initial launch
11b) Have list of related blogs and forums. Become active on them before you launch site to gain credibility then add your site to signature and blog comments after site launch.
12) Have initial staff of admins/moderators in place and 'trained' with what you expect of them.
13) Have facebook and twitter accounts made and ready to go

I'm sure I'm forgetting some things, please make suggestions. Also this list is assuming you've already chosen your niche for the forums.

 

Forums are EXTREMELY hard to do good, the problem is most niches that are strong are already saturated with forums, if you do have a unique niche that doesn't have a good forum yet/or have something that differentiates your forum, go ahead with it i say, about the FAKE users thing, its true,nobody wants to post in a empty forum, i can't stress this enough, though, instead of using fake people, actually try to go to other forums that are near the niche/are on it, and use your signature and link backs to topics you make that are relevant to those topics on the other forum to get users to hop over,also, use every connection you have to pull people in,it needs to start working quite fast, people usually have very low tolerance to very slow forums.

 

Nice post - and I agree, new forums are hard to get off the ground - but one thing that seems to be effective for Forum owners - is the use of post exchanges.
What's that? Post exchanges are where you post on one's webmaster forum and they do the same as well.

And also - fake accounts aren't good because you'll eventually get caught.

 

it very good list to get it . but that easy to make to be a big forum .

 

before you start the forum, get some people to make discussions there when it is new, now a days forums are hard to make popular and maintaining a forum is not a simple task.

 

In my experience, post exchanges, join for joins, paid posts and fake accounts don't do much of anything long term. I guess it depends on whether you're in it for the short or long term if you want to try these methods.

3, 4 and 5 are great--yes, make sure your forum looks awesome, and like you put care into it. Be active--that's the best way to show your enthusiasm to those who try it out.

11b, 12 and 13 are really good to do--especially 11b which is where you can gain a core membership to begin to grow your forum based on, you know, the community. That's what a forum is.

Notice I didn't mention SEO. When your forum is just getting started, SEO is not going to do you a whole lot of good because people searching up on google are looking for an already active forum. Once your forum's off the ground with like 10-30 active members {that many logging in a day} you can start to benefit more from people reaching you through search engines. It can be useful to start the SEO at the outset just to get the ball rolling but your primary focus right at the start should be establishing a core member group.

As for boards and categories, less is more.

 

Before starting you should visit a lot of forums. Now a days something latest fashionable type of forums are on the spot. You can include some articles on various topic like agriculture, gambling, education, health, gastronomy, law, humor etc to make the site interesting. You can also include some part to answer the questions of the visitors. This will of course increase the publicity of your site. And of course you should use technology in your site. I can refer a nice site for you, you can just check it out http://whatafy.com/ by clicking on it. Say thanks if you got some benefit from the post.

 

I accept the point regarding paying money to make the forum look active. I definitely would not join a new forum that has hardly any discussions.

 

You missed the first step:
Pick a subject that interests you and nobody else has a forum about.

 

yep totally agree helps if you know something about your subject that way you can post on your forum and Do off page seo. I never created fake accounts but i'm still new. But i get around 3-5 signups a day. constantly growing next step is a facebook fan page and then a contest for posting.