JennyorAlice

Site Name: The Fireside Chats Site URL: https://firesidechats.home.blog/ Description: If you are an avid reader, this blog is for you! Site Name: Common Room Site URL: https://commonroom.jcink.net/ Description: A general discussion forum with a Harry Potter twist to it.

I've only ever tried Dreamwidth besides Wordpress. I like Wordpress over Dreamwidth because they have better themes in my opinion.

I would recommend Proboards, Forumotion or Jcink if you're using a free one. Wordpress is a good one, regardless if you're doing a paid or free option for a blog.

I feel comfortable with Forumotion and Proboards. I'm growing familiar with Jcink and starting to feel comfortable with that. Zetaboards was pretty comfortable to me till I quit using it when they were bought out by Tapatalk.

I'm using a free theme on my blog. I've found a paid theme on there that I like but I'd have to switch a purchased plan in order to be able to use that.

My blog is on Wordpress. Right now, I'm doing the free option but if I pick one of the purchase plans, then it'll remove the "this blog is on Wordpress" that you see at the bottom. Right now, I'm trying to figure out ways to make money on my blog.

I think my biggest hurdle is keeping the forum active and keeping people coming back to the forum. I am working on some ways to help with that. What do you guys do to keep your communities active?

You can have a place for members to post their suggestions or ask questions. Kind of a place for a suggestion box, if you will. It will allow people to vote on different things too.

My first forum had team leaders on it. Don't know that I've had team leaders since then.

Probably about 15 years or so (or something close to that). I think that's when I created my first forum was around that time.

If you have the time, you can do some exchanges with other people where you post on their community in exchange for them posting on your community. If you keep this up with 3-5 people then you can keep up a certain amount of activity to make your forum look like it's an active community to potential members.

I don't have any payment options right now for anything on my blog, however, I've thought about using Paypal. I know my husband uses it so I know he can teach me how to use it if I decide to make money off my blog.

I agree with this. I think you should start with this much, at least. You can't start with nothing and expect someone else to create content for you. Then, once you start then you can add a few people to you community that you can exchange with to make it look like your community is active to potential members.

I'll let the community vote and see if there is enough interest in that section before I'll add it. If there's not enough interest in it then that's your clue that you probably won't need it.

Every forum should have a place for announcements so you can tell your community when something happens. You should also have a place for new people to introduce themselves. And finally, you should have an off topic section regardless of what your niche` is on your forum.