Is it a good idea to have a website along side your forum. What the best way to get members. Just starting out on my forum.

What type of forum are you building? A website alongside your forum can be a great idea, as it can help support and promote your community.

 

 

 

You can consider adding a ‘Resources’ section or directory to your forum. This can be helpful for listing guides, tools, or other resources related to your niche. If you prefer, you can create these sections directly within the forum instead of using an add-on.

 

 

 

Building your community will take time, especially in the beginning. I recommend seeding your forum with engaging content and actively participating in post exchanges with other forum owners to help grow your user base. The Growth and exchange marketplace is a good place to find other forum owners to collaborate with.

My forum which is complete is a forum for my favorite NHL hockey team the Minnesota Wild.

Is it a good idea to have a website along side your forum. What the best way to get members. Just starting out on my forum.

Forums and online communities require an audience.

 

If you have a captured audience already, then your forum can survive.

 

But if you don't have an audience and need of build one to feed your community, then you do need to build a website of resources and content.

My forum which is complete is a forum for my favorite NHL hockey team the Minnesota Wild.

Which forum software are you using? If you're using Xenforo, they have a pages plugin you can get where you can write articles about the Wild or write opinion articles about how the team did in past seasons. Though I would mainly focus on your community first and then once you gain traction maybe think about integrating the pages plugin or use Wordpress if you want a full on blog system to post articles on.

Which forum software are you using? If you're using Xenforo, they have a pages plugin you can get where you can write articles about the Wild or write opinion articles about how the team did in past seasons. Though I would mainly focus on your community first and then once you gain traction maybe think about integrating the pages plugin or use Wordpress if you want a full on blog system to post articles on.

Thank you. I will check that out. I do have Xenforo.

Forums and online communities require an audience.

 

If you have a captured audience already, then your forum can survive.

 

But if you don't have an audience and need of build one to feed your community, then you do need to build a website of resources and content.

Did you already have an active audience when you built your communities?

 

 

 

Not every forum starts with an audience, you can build one by consistently providing valuable content. The key is to feed your forum with the right content, such as:

 

Resources that help members solve problems.

 

Guides and tutorials that provide in-depth knowledge.

 

“How to” posts that keep users coming back.

 

Every community is different. You can capture an audience by building a strong presence on social media while also growing your forum organically. It’s all about creating value and giving people a reason to engage.

This is 100% true, you can't go wrong with this one.

Every community is different. You can capture an audience by building a strong presence on social media while also growing your forum organically. It’s all about creating value and giving people a reason to engage.

 

Portal or no portal? Site or no site? Good question.

 

Here's my personal experience. My forum is 100% a forum. No website, blog or portal attached to it. Why not? Because it never worked. I tried many times to "add a site" to my forum and it didn't get any views. No traffic, no traction, no nothing. People, old and new, members, anonymous visitors, would just hang out in the forum. No matter how well the portal was integrated, it didn't resonate.

 

So I figured it wasn't worth it and stopped trying. Whenever I need a content format that's more static, I use Xenforo's static pages, or their "article" type threads. It usually does the trick.

 

That said, it depends on what kind of forum you're running. As Cpvr said, the ultimate goal is to add value and motivate people to participate in the discussion. If within your niche, a site/portal/blog drives people to participate in your forum, then yes, it's absolutely worth it! :)

Everybody posted incredibly solid advice. I’d consider what type of website content you could add that isn’t abundantly available elsewhere. For a fan forum niche for a sports team, I think a lot of the value would be in creating alluring discussion around game predictions, player and team performance analyses, creating a space to debate why your team performed as is, etc.

 

If you’re particularly good at analyzing hockey games, perhaps you could do an odds or betting predictions set up before games where you post vital statistics that can be used to help form opinions on how one thinks a game may go?

I have two forums that provide links to each other, both are in the same niche, but different. If you have a second site, it doesn't necessarily mean you'll get more members. Everything you can do to boost your forum, helps.

Thank all for the thoughts on this. I'm won't be doing a website for now. Thank again.

Edited February 5Feb 5 by Gophers

I think it depends on the theme and whether or not you're able to keep up with a website as well as a forum. I think it could be such a great add-on and way to get people introduced to the forum.

 

If you're going to have a website and forum you have to make sure that everything is updated because if not it's going to look bad and make people not want to log back on.