This guide is to be used for operating any community type website. Whether that community is using VBulletin, SMF, IPB, PHPBB, Wordpress, Joomla, Blogger or any community type interactive script that allows user interaction. This guide can also be applied to websites operated outside of these scripts in some cases as well. The principles that are set can propel any website to the next level if followed.
Creating a Successful Website & Forum This tutorial is perfect for anyone who is thinking about creating a forum, recently created a community, or operates a community with less than 2,999 unique visitors/day. This tutorial also has good principles to live by for larger webmasters - everyone stands something to gain from this article.
Common Questions that are Answered in this Tutorial:
- Where should I register my domain name?
- What is the best forum software script?
- How do I create a forum?
- How come my website doesn't have any traffic?
- How to make a profitable community?
- How can I affiliate with larger sites than mine?
- What is a proper website?
- How to become a respected webmaster?
- Where and when should I advertise?
- Should I put advertisements on my site?
- Why am I losing members?
- How to create a good team?
- What is a Forum Leader?
The First Few Steps:
- Registering your domain name: I prefer http://godaddy.com. Use domains by proxy and platinum registration services to ensure the safety and security of your domain. These features will run you close to $40/year but are well worth it. Alternatively my second place would be http://namecheap.com. Comes with free whois at a reasonable price.
- Finding a Safe, Reliable and Economic Host: If you are just starting out, you don't need to register a VPS or Dedicated Server. You need to get on a shared hosting plan. Companies all across the globe offer shared hosting. Your cost should run around $3-$5.00/month when just starting out. There is no need for more at this time. Some good companies to register cheap monthly plans are http://godaddy.com, http://lypha.com and http://inmotionhosting.com. Regardless of content (unless adult) you will be at any of these places when just starting out.
- Script for your Community: Personally I would choose VBulletin (http://vbulletin.org). Simply because I am more familiar & comfortable with this script, there are many modifications and a great support team for it. Alternatively I would use SMF (http://www.simplemachines.org/) or IPB (http://www.invisionpower.com/)
- Follow the guide below for more information.
Domain: The name of your website is very important. The extension not so much. People read too much into extensions anymore. You can create a successful website regardless of the extension. It's all about running it properly. Personally the longevity of a domain name and a higher TLD makes things easier, but as I said, it's not required. The sky is the limit provided you register a domain that sounds good, is easy to remember and flows well on the keyboard. You need to create a domain name that feels just right on the keyboard, that sounds just right when you say it, and can be tied into your creation to follow all of the steps in this guide. Sometimes it takes a long time to find the right domain. Sometimes it can be instant. Whatever you do, don't rush into registering a domain name, because once you do and start work on it, you are stuck with it. Take your time, think about it for a few days or a week even. Ask trusted friends which one they think is better, beat it around the bush with other people.
Hosting: Hosting is very important. When you first start out you have no need to register a VPS or Dedicated, you can operate your community for next to nothing on a shared hosting company. Depending on the content is another story, but I'm not here to get into the legalities of things. Hosting in the beginning should be kept to a minimum. You can always upgrade as your site grows, and that's the way it should be done to keep expenses on track with growth and return.
Script: The script that you use and the version of the script is also very important. If you are operating a forum, I would personally recommend VBulletin or IPB. SMF is also another very good script to use in regards to operating forums. Keeping in mind that VBulletin tends to run the heaviest of them all. You need to determine which is the best script for you. The easiest to work with, the one that feels just right. You need to also make sure that you don't go rogue and use a script that nobody develops for. Then you will have a script that will be costing you a fortune to have custom modifications made for, and that's just not necessary. Always be sure to use the safest versions of these scripts, and never use the most current. The newest releases always claim to be stable, but there is almost always a patch that comes out in 3-6 months after it's release. Almost every single time. Do your homework on these and make sure you get the right one for you, because changing them over can also be an additional unecessary headache.
Staff: One of the most important parts of your community is the staff. Your staff should reflect who you are and who your members are. The number one thing that goes wrong (and this happens all the time sadly) is that members of staff go on power trips. I see it all the time. Administrators and Moderators getting ban happy, not reaching out to members, isolating their community. These are all things that you and your team want to do the opposite of. Instead be the team that everyone remembers. The team who went the extra length. You want people working with you who are equally as motivated and have just as much time as you to put into your community. Don't hire any lazy people, don't hire individuals who don't know how to handle authority, and most importantly don't hire people who aren't willing to go the extra mile to help out someone. To send a new member a private message, to type them a custom introduction, to let them know in detail what they did wrong when creating a thread, to give them a break and instead of infracting, private messaging them. These are all things that will go a long way in developing active, loving and trusting members.
Content: Content is King. You must make sure that your website is setup to encompass enough content to for growth. Try to find something that your website can stand out with. A different kind of content that other sites in your scene don't encompass. Try incorporating something that is new and different. Stay agile and be observant of the trends around you. If you see sites starting to decline & your scene is saturated, you need to think of ways to innovate and become different - to stand out & to continue growth. Content is a top priority! If you focus on unique, genuine, pure content, you cannot lose.
Community: This step is very simple. I just want you to read what the definition of a community is (A group of people living together in one place, esp. one practicing common ownership: "WJunction.com)". and I want you to live by this every single day you login to your AdminCP. Never forget that you alone are not what makes your website, but everyone. You and your team should treat yourselves as equal to your members. Respect them as you expect them to respect you. Give them breaks and chances on things that are not so severe. Be the kind, but firm Administrator. Be the leader they hope you will be.
Branding: Creating a brand is very important. You want people to remember who you are, and you do this by branding yourself, who you are, your website, what it stands for and your members. You can create a good brand by following all of the steps in this thread and being proper. Running a community proper is a good start for a brand. Going beyond that to solidify your brand is entirely up to you. You must be unique and stand out. You don't even have to stand out in positive (although it is suggested that you make a positive impact on individuals and communities that surround you) way to start a brand. All you have to do is continue making noise, never let people forget who you are, never let people forget what you did. Always strive for perfection and being unique in some way. Once you have successfully branded yourself and your creation, there is no looking back.
Propaganda: A great way to generate attraction and visitors is to create propaganda. The term propaganda is most commonly used in war times as "Propaganda Magazines" to incite motivation and to uplift the people in the region. This is what you need to do online. You need to motivate the public and uplift your members. Creating propaganda can be in the means of an aggressive (but focused) slogan. Letting your members and visitors know that you have attitude, lets them know your serious.
Attitude: Don't be Dr. Jekyll one day and Mr. Hyde the next. Have the same attitude from day one - until the day you die. Maintain a constant performance. Try not to let yourself get dragged into public disputes (which is difficult and will happen) because it never looks good. Things can be taken out of context and people are always watching. You want to maintain a positive, innovative and excited attitude at all times. This trickles down to your members. If you are a grumpy, self righteous, egotistical maniac, you will not relate to your members and will probably wind up destroying your community just because your a douche.
Knowledge: Increasing your knowledge from a Junior Webmaster is important. Learning new things every day is important. Figuring out how to do things on your own is king, but not a must. It's not always the knowledge you posses, but the people that you surround yourself with. If you can create a dynamic part of you that people are intrigued by and respect your following will increase. You need to have some sort of basic knowledge in all areas pertaining to - Networking, Coding, Security, Advertising, Graphic Design and so forth. Anything and everything that pertains to your community, you should know and learn about first hand.
Understanding: Understanding is a very important part to being proper. Understanding who your members are, where they come from, how old they are, what they like, what they are expecting. Understanding who you are, your faults and your positives. Not one single person is perfect and a lot of people who have talent also have a hard time understanding themselves and the people around them. If you do not have understanding, it will be very hard for you to create a successfull community. Once you can master the art of understanding, then your members and everyone around you can understand your visions. Once your visions are understood, then you now have the power to lead your members on an incredible ride.
Relating: This ties into the understanding section above a little bit, but isn't exactly the same. You need to relate to your members (which is different than understanding them). Relate to them in some way, so that way they can feel comfortable and call your community home. Relate to their wants and needs. It's impossible to relate to everyone, but try your hardest anyways. It will go along way to make someone feel like you are right there with them. Trust me.
Investing: This is a very important topic. Many webmasters create sites for the sole purpose of generating income. In the very rare cases if someone creates a site that starts to generate substantial income ($5,000+/month) they will never re-invest it back into there community because they got lucky. However, the majority of the large sites that you see today that are reaping in the profits are doing so because they invested. You must spend money in order to make money. For example: If you decided to launch advertising campaigns on the top of WJunction and one banner cost you $500/wk, you are investing. But on the flip side of that, you would need to go and announce your advertising campaign on other communities and let them know how much you are spending and how much traffic you are anticipating. Then you can turn around and sell advertising on your site to fellow webmasters for a marked up price to help generate some of (or if done properly more) that money back. Once you have the money returned, you then re-invest. You continue doing this process and continue working on your community using every single step in this guide and you will see a steady improvement in all facets. If it doesn't happen, then your not following this guide.
Affiliates: Starting off is a hard time for webmasters. Do not be discouraged if you are having a difficult time landing new affiliates that can actually send you traffic. The best way to land substantial affiliates is to create something proper. By following this guide you will be doing more than 99.9% of the other webmaster who create their own. This will give you an edge over your competition. Never forget, that just because you are small - doesn't mean you can't find a large affiliate. People who are smart can see a good thing when it's small. Also, we all started off at the bottom one way or the other. Most of the guys you want to affiliate with will probably turn you down. But that doesn't mean if you approach 1,000 of them that you will have 1,000 denials. Part of the process is just how persistent you are and how you reach out and talk to people. If you can master everything in this guide, there will be no looking back.
Advertising: The majority of people create websites to generate income1. There is nothing wrong with advertising. However, don't be the guy that floods their brand new site with advertisements. This is an immediate failure. In most cases an operator should refrain from promoting advertisements until the website actually requires funding that exceeds $500 USD per year. When you decide to create a community, you should never place a paid advertisement on your website. It shows an immediate sense of greed and is a turnoff to your visitors. Excessive and premature advertising also increases bounce rates, activity and genuine assistance from experienced webmasters like myself. Instead, be generous and thoughtful to your new visitors. Show them that you care about the community. This creates a trust between the users and administration. People respect websites with less advertising. Starting out is tough, and you having zero advertisements in the beginning is one way to stand out from your competition.
Advertising should only be applied once you progress to Senior Webmaster
The 12 laws of being a Proper Webmaster:
- Registering the perfect domain
- Understanding Advertising
- Creating a likable Brand
- Understanding & Relating to your Members
- Investing in what you Believe in
- Using the best Script
- Team members that people Love
- Creating an Active and Exciting Community
- Developing strong Partners & Affiliates
- Increasing Personal Knowledge
- Finding a Reliable Hosting Solution
- Grow with your Community, stay Agile & Adaptive
Words from the Author: I created my first site in 1998 when I was 11 years old. My website was a sports related distribution site. My focus changed very early on as I was kind of at a loss in what to do online. I did find other scenes to venture into over the years and I've learned something since that first site in 1998. Almost every 3-5 years a scene will "die" or become so saturated that it appears to be "dead like". This is a sad but true story. What I learned was to adapt and move and change with the times. This is something that people have a hard time doing. I was able to learn to incorporate and move into new scenes or merge into multiple scenes at once to accumulate as much traffic as possible. Nobody wants to have a dead community, so incorporating more things that were of great interest to people helped keep me alive.
Along the ride I learned a lot of things. Many things I had to learn the hard way, but they all encompass who I have become today. It's all about what you decide to do with the events that occur in your life. How you progress from them and use them to your advantage. Not everything bad is necessarily bad, unless you let it become "bad". You can turn a negative into a positive very easily. This is common practice for me in real life and online. When a competitor arises - view it as competition. It is a good thing to have competition because it doesn't allow for you to become stagnant. Stagnancy is one of the worst things that could ever happen to a webmaster, because it WILL trickle down to your community. No matter what cards you are dealt, just roll with the punches. Not everything is good and merry, not everything is bad. You just need to know how to deal with things when the time comes.
Just as in real life, online - who you associate with represents who you are. If you hang out with coders, your probably going to be a coder. If you hang out with entrepreneurs and investors, you too are probably going to be in the same pool as them. You need to associate yourself with all types of different people so that your makeup represents everything and everyone. Hang out with individuals who have skills in a lot of different fields, but make sure that these people are healthy individuals and respect others no matter of their knowledge or skill. If you associate with people who are known for causing disturbances, well let's just say those people never last for long.
At the end of the day you want to be the best person for yourself and for those who look up to you. You want to be someone who brings positives to your members and to the world. If you truly believe in yourself, then others will believe in you. Do not seek attention for things that will soon be forgotten. Do not seek attention just because others have been in the spotlight. Create your own story, create your own spotlight. Don't just do it for yourself, do it for your community and the people who worked with you along the way.
You need to be a leader. Being a leader is important. If you haven't developed proper assertion skills then you should try practicing them with your friends. If you do things proper and do things righteously without greed and with fairness you will create something so grand that people will never forget. You and everyone who knows you will be in for a great ride. Your friends, team and members will be recognized everywhere for being on the great community that you took the time to build - with their help. We all know compensation doesn't happen for team members, so the least you can do is to create something that allows them to propel their careers and hobby as well.
Thank you for reading this tutorial first released here on WJunction.com on 5/1/2013.
If you have any questions or comments, please feel free to share them.
You may also feel free to share this tutorial elsewhere, but please be sure to include a link back to this thread here on Creating a Successful Website & Forum (Webmaster Tutorial).
Kind Regards,
To0
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