Your Own Online Community

by Dan Burbank

An active message board can be a great resource for any Web site. When message boards are implemented well and actively managed they're a great way for Internet users to connect and share information. Plus they keep your audience coming back to see the latest posts, and search engines love them. Search engines like to spider and index these content-rich pages.

But there are drawbacks to hosting an online community. Before you launch one on your site, you should carefully consider if you're ready for it.

1. Do I have the traffic to support an online community?
It's a classic catch 22. You'd like a message board to help generate some new traffic, but you don't have enough traffic to support a message board. Realistically, only a small percentage of your visitors will take the tame to post and reply to messages. And a message board that looks like a ghost town isn't likely to give you the benefits you want.

2. Do you have time to actively manage the community?
You've got the traffic, you launch the board and now visitors are posting hundreds of messages a day. That's excellent. But do you have the time to delete inappropriate messages? What about mediate conflicts? As the host of the board, you become the de facto president.

3. Do you have something to talk about?
Will your message board reflect the content of your Web site? The Web site of an outdoor supply store would be a natural place to find visitors sharing good fishing spots and hiking trails. But you might be turned off if they're telling dirty jokes. Does the topic of your site generally lend itself to a discussion in which a lot of people could participate?

Where to start

Once you've determined that you site is good candidate for a message board, there are a few different options for implementing one.

Host the board elsewhere

If you aren't technically savvy, and aren't inclined to learn, there are services online that will allow you to create, manage and link to a message board. These services let you have a message board without having to worry about any of the code that goes on behind the scenes. Some are free, some have a low cost.

One disadvantage is that your message board will appear on a URL that's unrelated to your site (e.g. http://username.freeboards.com/?forum=2889). You will also have limited flexibility in terms of the design of the page. You might be able to get the colors to match your site, but other elements might look generic. And if you use a free service, expect advertising on all of the pages.

Board hosts include:

Host it Yourself

If you are technically savvy, or are willing to learn, there are free scripts available, many widely used and well supported, that will allow you to launch a message board directly on your site. With this solution, you've got complete control over the appearance of the message board and its location (e.g. http://yoursite.com/forums).

Most of the free scripts available require your Web host to support PHP and MySQL. If you don't already have these on your account, you may need to upgrade your account. While you don't have to have expertise with PHP and MySQL in order to use software like this, it does help to have a familiarity with them. And, since the scripts and database that make the message board work are hosted on your site, if something breaks it's up to you to fix it. The good news is that most popular message board programs will have active forums where other users can answer your questions, help you get started, and provide support.

The two most popular message boards are:

08.05.2007. 23:59

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