RosalindGardner.com

Learn Blogging & Affiliate Marketing with Rosalind Gardner

No Forum, No Articles… My Bad

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Just when you thought things can't get worse, they do.

Long story short, while prepping to upgrade the Forum to phpBB version 3 yesterday, I thought I'd do a little ‘pruning' of posts first. Well, I accidently ‘pruned' 3/4's of the posts. No problem, I'll just use the backup.

At least that's what I thought I could do.

Turns out that cPanel was in the midst of a major upgrade and I couldn't access the interface — not until after the upgrade was complete and by that time the latest forum backup available was the one with only 451 posts. Ugh.

Then, my attempt to convert the Forum was so botched that in mucking with the mySQL databases, I somehow trashed the main password to the ArticleLive database as well.

So, not only do we not have a forum. We don't have access to the article database either.

Anyway, when my hero Steve Hetrick comes to the rescue (for the zillionth time), we'll be back up and running and perhaps the lessons will have been learned once and for all. They are:

1. Backup first.
2. Hire professionals.

Cheers,
Ros

10 Reasons to Start a Discussion Forum

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Riches, fame, glory … OK, that's perhaps exaggerating somewhat, but running a successful forum can certainly make you very popular and bulk out the wallet considerably.

Here are the ten best reasons to start your own discussion forum:

  1. Meet People – Do you love to garden, do wood-working or build model airplanes? Visit a forum on any niche topic and you'll meet others who are also interested in that topic.
  2. Share and Learn – Help others by sharing your knowledge and learn from those with new and different experience.
  3. Increase Branding – Repeated posting is a great way to get your name out there.
  4. Enhance Credibility – Become known as an ‘expert' by providing thoughtful answers and suggestions to questions posed on the forum.
  5. Boost Traffic – As you become more widely known as an expert, your name and URL will be mentioned elsewhere on the web, which then brings more visitors to your site.
  6. Improve Site Ranking – More visitors means better page rankings at Google and higher search engine listings at all the major search engines – which in turn means MORE traffic still!
  7. Create Information Database – Any product or service sold generates a set of commonly asked questions. Post answers on your forum and then send people directly to the specific answer on your site. Having them go to your site will also help boost your page rank and bring in still MORE visitors!
  8. Reduce Workload – Regular forum participants will answer questions that others have posted, thereby reducing your workload.
  9. Gather Information and Feedback – Need new ideas for products? Post your own questions to find out what your forum visitors most want and need – then use that information to:
  10. Promote Products – Display ads for products related to your forum visitors' interests at the top and bottom of every page. Ads can be for your own products or for merchants with whom you are affiliated. Post new messages when you have a new product that your visitors will be interested in.

Those are just the obvious reasons – I'm sure you'll discover many more benefits when you become master of your own forum.

Start Your Own Forum Today

How to Start a Discussion Forum ToolkitIf you want to start your own forum, you may have questions like:

  • Which software should I use?
  • Would it be better to utilize an off-the-shelf forum service?
  • How much will I need to pay (or can it be done for free)?
  • Even once established, how should I go about promoting and driving traffic to my new discussion board?
  • How should I moderate or control my forum?
  • What ground rules should I set?
  • Can this really turn into a worthwhile or profitable tool for me?

Get your questions answered by Michael Green, owner of the world's biggest Internet marketing forum.

Michael has created the web's first ever eGuide tutorial which shows you precisely how to establish your very own online Discussion FORUM. Discover everything you need to know in order to create and draw visitors to your very own FORUM today at How to Start Your Own Forum or Discussion Board Over 82 sources of FREE forum software included.

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