Why build a discussion forum? Businesses use them to enhance employee productivity or communicate with customers: Sports fans use them to discuss their team’s performance, schools provide educational support to students, ?foodies? compare recipes, and so much more. Forum audiences are as diverse as human interests. Because of this, their reach and influence as a search marketing tool should be studied and integrated in most if not all search engine marketing strategies.
How Do Forums Work?
A forum’s main topic is generally set by the owner, also known as forum administrator, but the bulk of the content is provided by members of the forum. In a forum, visitors have the ability to start ?discussions? with other members in the form of topics, also known as ?threads.? Once a forum user (guest or member) has read a thread, they’ll generally have the option to post a reply which can then be read by the community. These discussions can develop without all users needing to be online at the same time.
Forums can be thought of as containers, or archives, for information fostered by the community. Depending on the permissions community members have (as set by the forum administrator), members can post replies to existing threads and start new threads at will. Most forums allow people to browse through postings before registering and, once they feel comfortable, they can set up an account and submit their own posts.
Who Should Create a Forum?
If you’re passionate about a subject, there are few better ways to indulge your enthusiasm than by creating a forum for others to share and learn about the topic you love so much. Not only can you write about something you really enjoy, meet and become friends with people that share your passion, but there is often the opportunity to make good money while you’re doing it. What could possibly be better?
If you love kayaking, start a kayaking forum. If you love collecting Cherokee arrowheads, start a Cherokee arrowhead collectors forum. If you love skydiving, start a skydiving discussion forum! You can be sure of this: there will be others who share your zeal.
With over 2 billion people that now have access to the Internet, there really isn’t an interest, avocation or hobby that’s so obscure there aren’t others who share your passion. In fact, the more eccentric and unseen the subject, the more likely it could go viral and be of interest to a much larger audience. If your forum takes off and you have a large number of people visiting it every day, selling advertising space can often generate substantial monthly income for the forum owner.
Adding Community to Your Existing Site
Building a forum community is a great way to add value to an existing site and can create a sense of belonging for your visitors. This can encourage repeat visits and generate more interest in the site as a whole. With a discussion forum, there will be richer and more varied content being added to your site. You no longer need to be the sole contributor creating content, but rather many people joining in with their opinions and perspectives will help grow your site.
Also, if you’re marketing a product or service, you can generally rely on rapid and unvarnished feedback from a forum community. You can quickly find out how your product is working in the real world and respond more efficiently to customer needs. Moreover, forum communities foster personal relationships between members which can help get information rapidly disseminated as well as increase pageviews and product-use through word of mouth.
Creating a Forum
There are basically two ways to create an online discussion forum; the hard way, and the easy way. The ?hard? way requires a fair amount of technical expertise and involves installing forum software on a host server, creating a database, and configuring the forum once it’s been installed. Further, installed forum software will also usually require some level of ongoing maintenance to insure proper functioning.
The smart and simple way to create a discussion forum simply requires choosing a free, web-based forum host like the award winning forum hosting service ProBoards. For those of you not interested in taking on the responsibilities of installing software and configuring databases, ?remote? forum hosting offers a much simpler, more reliable, and less demanding free solution. Also, remotely hosted forums can easily be linked to websites or be operated as stand-alone entities.
About the author: ProBoards is the largest free forum host on the Internet. See why forum enthusiasts around the world, from beginners to experts, choose ProBoards as their forum solution: Visit us at Proboards.com and create a free forum today!
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What should I do with my new iPod touch?
I got anew ipod touch and I wanted to know what apps should I put on it. All suggestions are awesome.
Answer
Here are some apps that I have on my iPod Touch 4g:
(these are all free)
- Flashlight (comes in handy sometimes! Like when I’m trying to unlock my car in the dark)
- Google Earth
- CamWow (soooo funny! It’s like one of those trick mirrors that make your face look weird, good for a laugh!)
- the Sleepmaker apps (there are 5: waves, rain, streams, storms, wildlife. I like to listen to them at night, very relaxing! you can program it to stay on for how ever long you want it to as well)
- All Recipes (If you like to cook, or are just learning, you’ll love this one! You can choose your meals based on the ingredients you have in your house, and what kind of meal you wanna make. like breakfast, main course, or dessert, for example)
- TuneIn Radio (this lets you listen to radio stations from all over the world!)
- Virtuoso Piano (kinda self explanatory…you can play the piano
- Shazam (have you ever heard a song on the radio and wish you knew what it was or who sang it? with this app, you can find out! it listens for about 10 seconds and then tells you the name of the song, who sings it, what album its from, gives you the option to watch the video, etc. It’s very cool!)
- SoundHound (this one is pretty much exactly like Shazam, except it even recognizes song tunes and humming! it doesn’t really make sense to have both these apps, so if you wanna choose one or the other I’d choose this one!)
- Remote (lets you control your iTunes on your computer…from your iPod!)
- Touch Tennis
- Action Bowling Free
- Deer Hunter Challenge (if you like hunting, like I do
- The Sims 3
- Fish Food Frenzy
- Quarters (you have to flick a quarter into a pitcher of beer. haha. the more you miss, the more “drunk” your player gets and the more difficult it becomes. it’s entertaining!)
- Knots (kinda like Twister…but for your fingers!)
- iCopter (I find this one very challenging, but very addicting!)
- Traffic Master (you have to control a busy intersection and make sure there are no crashes)
- 3D Checkers
- Scrabble Free
- Scene It? Movies 2
- Solitaire (in case you can’t get enough of Solitaire on the computer! LoL)
Have fun
Discover How Online Discussion Forums Drive Visitor Traffic and Boost Website SEO
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