Getting Started- Getting Your Forum Online.
There are alot of different platforms out there to build forums off of, and I looked into alot of
them... Frankly the most simple and BEST solution for me when I started was SMF forums.
Simple machines forums.
You are on one right now. Not too bad right?
Here's the thing, you can get a template for a forum just like this one for absolutely FREE!
Just go here and download it: http://www.simplemachines.org/
Now your forum doesnt have to be blue or anything like that when I say "just like ours"- once
your SMF forum is uploaded you will have a cpanel than any third grader (I mean that) could
navigate, and you will be able to change your themes and colors and whatever you want.
These forums work well with the host gator "baby hatchling" plan, I think it may cost $3.95 per
month... and I literally ran my forum off it for an entire year. The whole cost of running my
forum was $3.95 per month, can you believe it? I made 100k for an investment of $3.95 per
month!
Dont tell me it takes a ton of money to make money! lol
In the second year it got too big for the hatching plan so I had to go with my own dedicated
server which costs about $100 per month now, but its okay because the forum pays for itself.
If yours out grows the hatchling $3.95 per month plan, then yours will also be paying for itself
so it wont matter.
Now people are really passionate about their choice of platforms and some may say "No you
should advise v-bulletin... or some other platform, but as you can see, you are sitting in an
SMF (Simple Machines Forum) right at this moment- one that does do six figures per year,
and everything is fine isnt it?
Thats the truth. I love this forum, and havent seen one reason to ever use anything else.
80% of the stuff that you will ever need to do on an SMF forum are things you can do yourself.
Honestly, all you have to do is download the free template, buy a domain name and hosting
account... and then FTP it to your host, which may be hostgator... or whoever, once your
forum is online with, you can do almost EVERYTHING, even a NOVICE, by yourself because
its so self explanatory...
So getting it online is the first step.
Now if you dont know how to FTP your template to your host... there are people here who can
help you, just say it.
You can pay someone as little as 50 bucks to do that part for you.
There may little things here and there that you pay for, like for instance I paid $100 for our
banner and logo's to be created... and the same people who did that are here on the forum
and they will do it for you too, if you wish.
Basically once your forum is online you, even a newby can manipulate every aspect of it
because they are so simple, its 10 times easier than designing a wordpress site.
Now having said that, if you want to get the jump, then choose a platform Like SMF or V
bulletin, and get it online TODAY!
Your first major step is getting your forum online and every single person here could have that
up by tonight if they want to!
As I said SMF is very simple. So simple that you may kick yourself for not having done tried it
before. In fact it has all kinds of cool features that are really easy to navigate.
I created this invisible area of the forum just today (That you are now reading) which is only
visible to the people who bought this WSO, the rest of the forum cannot see this board...
I can configure boards any way I want to, even being NON technical minded, and set
permissions on each board anyway I want to.
So basically (You will like this) I just created a paid area in my forum this morning, that only
took about 5 minutes and a few clicks to create, and in the next article Im going to talk to you
about how easily you can do things like that.
In this thread though, if you have any questions please feel free to ask them and I will gladly
answer...this is the boring part, even though its also an exciting moment the first time you see
your forum online and say to yourself "Im a forum owner now" lol
I hope you are saying that by the end of the day today.
At very least , TODAY, you can download your free SMF template, and upload it to hostgator,
and by the end of "today" be saying "I am A Forum Owner".
The next part is where it gets interesting. Click Here:
-JD
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Hi all,
I supply content for a marketing forum. I decided to do a video to use as content when I
created a forum using SMF, and I want to share it with anyone who is intimidated by the idea
of installing one themselves.
It is actually very easy. The installation instructions are a bit daunting at first, but I use
Hostgator and assumed (correctly) that everything in the first 2 sections was taken care of.
You will see that in the video.
Probably the hardest part is creating a database, which I show how to do using cPanel.
I am no expert at this, as you will see (I spend some time reading and trying to figure things
out, but edited a lot of that out), but it worked out and the video is here:
http://chilp.it/8f4105
Let me know what you think. Enjoy!
Virginia
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Hi all,
You can set up SMF manually by creating databases etc,
or you can do it the easy way via Fantastico or Softaculous depending on the cPanel offered
by your hosting account.
I used the easy way -- via Softaculous in my hosting account.
Best regards,
Khai
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Quote from: teleopti on August 19, 2012, 12:17:31 PM
Hi all,
You can set up SMF manually by creating databases etc,
or you can do it the easy way via Fantastico or Softaculous depending on the cPanel offered
by your hosting account.
I used the easy way -- via Softaculous in my hosting account.
Best regards,
Khai
Thanks Khai for the helpful contribution. It's cool that you have your site up already, care to
share what kind of plans you have goin on there? Would love to check it out. Dont worry I
have seen a bare bones forum before, we are just starting out , thats understandable.
Quote from: virginiad on August 19, 2012, 08:58:11 AM
Hi all,
I supply content for a marketing forum. I decided to do a video to use as content when I
created a forum using SMF, and I want to share it with anyone who is intimidated by the idea
of installing one themselves.
It is actually very easy. The installation instructions are a bit daunting at first, but I use
Hostgator and assumed (correctly) that everything in the first 2 sections was taken care of.
You will see that in the video.
Probably the hardest part is creating a database, which I show how to do using cPanel.
I am no expert at this, as you will see (I spend some time reading and trying to figure things
out, but edited a lot of that out), but it worked out and the video is here:
http://chilp.it/8f4105
Let me know what you think. Enjoy!
Virginia
Virginia THANKS!!! This is awesome, you even helped ME, to add value to the class... I
appreciate that.
I suck at video stuff, although I may attempt some with this. I know who to go to for help now
though! Grin Great work!
You cannot be the kind of giver you are demonstrating here, and not have huge success.
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Quote from: Phone Pro on August 19, 2012, 08:32:04 PM
Thanks Khai for the helpful contribution. It's cool that you have your site up already, care to
share what kind of plans you have goin on there? Would love to check it out. Dont worry I
have seen a bare bones forum before, we are just starting out , thats understandable.
Hi John,
Internet Marketing is one of the major passions of mine, and each day I spend most of my
time on trying to truly develop an Internet Lifestyle for myself. And I know I spend a lot of time
on the WarriorForum.
Hence my forum is:
Internet Lifestyle Forum.
My aim is to grow it into one of the premier Internet Marketing forums on the Internet.
Probably it will never catch the WarriorForum, but dreams are free.
I am just struggling to work out the Categories and Boards. Do you mind suggesting the
Categories and the corresponding Board to me?
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Quote from: teleopti on August 19, 2012, 11:23:15 PM
Hi John,
Internet Marketing is one of the major passions of mine, and each day I spend most of my
time on trying to truly develop an Internet Lifestyle for myself. And I know I spend a lot of time
on the WarriorForum.
Hence my forum is:
Internet Lifestyle Forum.
My aim is to grow it into one of the premier Internet Marketing forums on the Internet.
Probably it will never catch the WarriorForum, but dreams are free.
I am just struggling to work out the Categories and Boards. Do you mind suggesting the
Categories and the corresponding Board to me?
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Hi John,
I can't figure this one out.
I want to have a Members Only category that guests can't access or see the boards, much
like your Gold Membership area. When a guest clicks on any board in your Gold Membership,
he can't get in, but he still sees the category (Gold Membership).
In my case, when I disallow the guests from my boards under the Members Only category,
guests can't see anything, not even the category name -- the category is hidden as well.
How can I let guests see the category but not have access?
Thanks.
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Hi John,
I can't figure this one out.
I want to have a Members Only category that guests can't access or see the boards, much
like your Gold Membership area. When a guest clicks on any board in your Gold Membership,
he can't get in, but he still sees the category (Gold Membership).
In my case, when I disallow the guests from my boards under the Members Only category,
guests can't see anything, not even the category name -- the category is hidden as well.
How can I let guests see the category but not have access?
Thanks.
Lemme Check it out Khai, hang a sec Cool
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If you want the category to be visible but the boards to not be visible, then I suggest this:
Make the category itself visible to ALL, and make a board for Gold members within the
category that is invisible.
I would also make a board within the category that IS visible, and it would be "Join Our Gold
Membership Here" With instructions on how to join.
In short , just make the category visible, but whichever boards you choose within it invisible.
In OUR case, we are located in the VIP category (Our class) but not all VIP's can see it, only
those who joined the program.
Once a person joins your new category and pays then they can see the gold members actual
"Area".
Does this make sense. It wont to anyone who hasnt uploaded their forum yet.
If anyone is having trouble withh that please ask here.
Also skype john.a.durham
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John,
It would help me a lot to see a hierarchical list of these jargon terms, going from big to small...
forum, category, board, area, thread, post, etc.
I'm probably missing a term or two.
Thanks,
Mark
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Well folks, I have some good news for those of you who use Godaddy.com as your host. They
have an easy install, similar to the ones they have for WordPress, Joomla and Droupal, for
Simple Machines Forum. All you have to do is to click on the icon, and follow the prompts
(name data base & set password; tell it which of your sites you want to append it to with the
option of making it a sub-domain or a /forum install and push the install button. And as soon
as it propagates, forum is installed and ready for use. I love Godaddy!
Jason
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Quote from: DrMarkRhodes on August 23, 2012, 07:54:02 PM
John,
It would help me a lot to see a hierarchical list of these jargon terms, going from big to small...
forum, category, board, area, thread, post, etc.
I'm probably missing a term or two.
Thanks,
Mark
Good idea, I will work on that this evening. Any tips you have for making the class more
comprehencsive are appreciated.
Mark, what kind of forum do you have? Would love to hear a little about your experience as a
forum owner. What are you looking to get out of the class that I can help you with...? Its not
often that you get to talk one forum owner to another, which is another reason I am going to
love this section of the forum as we develop people.
@ Jason,
Thanks for the tip brother!
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Is it better to post questions here or on the Skype group?
I just posted this on the Skype group and then it occurred to me that this might be the better
venue:
[1:31:02 PM] Jason: Is there a way to set up these forums so that that last entry is the top one
on the front page rather than having to scroll many pages?
Another question: I can see on my new forum where I can subscribe someone to the forum,
but I can't figure out how to set it up so that if they click on the forum it will direct them to
subscribe. Maybe it is already set up but now that it recognizes me, I don't get to see that
option. Could someone click on my forum and see what happens?
http://MyCoachJason.com/forum
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Quote from: jjasonw on August 28, 2012, 02:38:22 PM
Is it better to post questions here or on the Skype group?
I just posted this on the Skype group and then it occurred to me that this might be the better
venue:
[1:31:02 PM] Jason: Is there a way to set up these forums so that that last entry is the top one
on the front page rather than having to scroll many pages?
Another question: I can see on my new forum where I can subscribe someone to the forum,
but I can't figure out how to set it up so that if they click on the forum it will direct them to
subscribe. Maybe it is already set up but now that it recognizes me, I don't get to see that
option. Could someone click on my forum and see what happens?
http://MyCoachJason.com/forum
When I clicked on it, I saw "welcome Guest. Register here". I answered your other question in
the skype class but will be posting excerpts from the skype class in here today anyway...for
those who dont skype for one reason or another.
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Quote from: Phone Pro on August 27, 2012, 12:46:45 PM
Mark, what kind of forum do you have? Would love to hear a little about your experience as a
forum owner. What are you looking to get out of the class that I can help you with...? Its not
often that you get to talk one forum owner to another, which is another reason I am going to
love this section of the forum as we develop people.
Hey, John. This is pretty funny.
I am a forum owner just because I installed SMF!
You said that by the end of the day you hoped we could say "I'm a forum owner!" So I did.
Cheesy
Actually, SMF was a simple install on Hostgator using their Fantastico icon from cPanel. The
jargon we have to put up with!
I have used forums for a long time as a user. Once, someone invited me to be a moderator.
Both ways, I made money. Not too many doctors contribute on health forums, so I sort of
stand out a little. I can help people (patients with chronic health issues) somewhat from long
distance, so they eventually call me for help.
Anyway, this time I'll own the whole thing. The forum fits into my big plan that has 4 main
parts.
1. Forum with a theme of hormones, nutrition, and certain other health topics.
2. A Bower 2.0 directory of alternative healthcare practitioners. I have been helping them (for
15 years) to become better doctors.
3. Several Kindle books on health topics that I specialize in.
4. More online training for those doctors.
I work on the directory pretty much every day. One goal is to get passive income from
premium listings. I list only those kinds of doctors that I would send my own family to. Patients
looking for great doctors in their locale will be presented with a list that I have "blessed" so to
speak. Now, I can send both doctors and patients to this new forum.
The general part of the forum will be aimed at patients who are researching their own chronic
illnesses. However, I can now have "secret" parts of the forum be for doctors who pay for
training memberships. I know from history that if I write toward the well-read patient market, I
get doctors interested, too.
Directory and forum will eventually be authority sites that link to each other of course. They
both provide strong backlinks to point to other pages, too, like doctor websites (doctors that
bought premium listings).
OK. The Kindle books deserve their own websites in a way. But, why not tie them into the
forum instead of separate websites? I can start separate categories or boards that mirror (and
really promote) each Kindle book.
John, this WSO really helped me pull a bunch of stuff together.
Mark