Is it possible to build a large and active forum on the back of a private business?

Xenforo being the obvious example but they are a forum company after all.

I'm launching an online business selling futures trading software but would like to build and develop a large community that are interested in trading futures in general along side.

The one downside I see to this is the perspective that the forum side of things will never really have free and fair moderation due to an obviously biased forum owner.

Thoughts?

 

I would look at Sitepoint as a role model for this type of thing.

 

It is certainly possible to build a large and active forum on the back of a private business. You can do this by making a tab on your website to go to the forum. Since you are worried about being biased and not having much time, you can hire people to moderate the site for you. There are many people around websites like these looking to manage websites for a fee.

 

You can do anything that you set your mind to accomplish. Building an online community takes a lot of work, effort and dedication. Especially since you want to build a large and active forum on the back of a private business.

Just remember that content is the king here, search engine optimization is also important. Keep on writing content and attract new people to your forum, so that you can seed it with content. Remember, don't start off with too many forums because it'll make your forum look bad. Start off small and expand as your forum grows.

 

I should have qualified my statement with saying a start up private business

At this point I am a one man band, basically doing everything end to end and as it's a start up, revenue generated by the business is very low.

Perhaps at a future point it would be a consideration to hire some people to help me out with this aspect of things.

Definitely what I'm finding challenging at the moment is trying to balance things. When I focus to much in one area another tends to get less attention. It's particularly challenging with a forum as you need this steady stream of content to keep the place fresh and interesting and give people a reason to come back.

Perhaps the element of bias isn't as important as just ensuring things are fresh and interesting regardless of the forum owner/moderators perceived motivations.

 

I did a good bit of research on SEO in the last couple of weeks. Amazed to see it's an entire industry in itself and something that my analytical brain could easily get caught up in. I looked at a bunch of software like Moz and the like and while allot of it looks interesting, I think to an extent one can almost start missing the wood from the trees. Meaning you end up spending all your time analysing your stats as opposed to creating interesting content.

In the end I've settled on just using simple Google Web Master Tools, Google Analytics and the Free Moz Open Site Explorer. Will try and keep it simple on that front and become good with that base.

Regards your suggestion on forum numbers, I have 13 different forums on my main page now. I removed a couple of empty ones this morning based on your feedback. I must admit I go back and forward on this one

This is my site if you want to pass any further comments / suggestions: http://www.9gtrading.com/

I had a comment from a guy the other day that said it wasn't professional enough yet and kind of mumbled some stuff about the logo and something or other on the phone, I didn't quite catch it properly. I'm guessing he didn't like the design and was trying to get it across in as polite a manner as possible.

I wondered though if anyone else had that same impression?

 

Main problem I have seen with forums set on the back of a private business is the lack of time devoted to them, so you would certainly need to make sure there will be active staff around the place but also forum posters that make your community grow consistently.

Sometimes forum owners hire moderators or co-admins, but only a few people participate in forums leaving gaps between last posted and recently posted content.

These gaps usually scare away newcomers whether thinking the community is dead or it's so passive that is not worth to join it. Therefore, the need of fresh content is necessary, particularly after the forum setup process.

 

Sure. After all, Digitalpoint originally started as the forum for a private business, and then just grew from there. Just look at what it used to be like:

https://web.archive.org/web/20000819022904/http://www.digitalpoint.com/

Then a forum was added, and eventually it just kind of took off from there. You should ask @digitalpoint (who's a member here) about it.

 

Why do you consider yourself biased?

If it is what I think you are meaning, you might want to think about two different forums. A more independent one for the general topic of trading and one for your customer community to talk about and support the software.

In other words, if you feel there might be a general problem mixing the two topics in one forum, then split them up into two separate forums. It is a bit more work, but it might be what you, and more importantly your users, might need.

You just need to find out why you feel you might be biased and work on that. Is your bias something that can't be avoided? Is it possibly even necessary? Would it really cause conflict, depending on the subject matter of your forum?

Scott

 

The only problem I see with starting a forum on the back of a private business is the lack of dedicated time. You can easily get around the "fee" thing by going to other forums and asking for moderators. There are plenty of people who will moderate forums for free. You can let them know that eventually they will be compensated in the future and thereof.