How to Build a WordPress Website with a Forum
What would your website be without a blog? A static page with a photo of your product probably. But what if we told you could do a lot more than that with a simple blog platform? A blog is a great tool for establishing yourself as an expert in your industry. It’s a place to post valuable content regularly. And with the right plugins and some customization, you can make the most of the platform and build a functioning forum for your customers to engage with each other.
WordPress is one of the most popular content management systems (CMS). It’s extremely flexible and has a huge community supporting it. Which makes it perfect for use with a forum. In this article, we’ll show you how to build a simple WordPress website with a forum. You’ll discover a secret that will help you build a successful business with powerful tools already available.
Find Your Niche
The best thing about forums is they are fairly open platforms. Anyone can use them, but they can also be used for a wide variety of purposes. If you can find a niche that suits your business, you can use forums to build a community around your product or service. Use your business license number to search for online forums for your industry. You can also use forums to ask questions, get advice, and offer an unbiased opinion on your products.
Curate Content For Your Niche
A key to any successful forum is good content. With a blog, you already have content that is either free or affordable to post. You can use your blog to curate and share valuable information with your audience. Whether it’s about your industry or other topics that are relevant and useful to your audience, you can use your blog to curate content that will keep them coming back for more.
Make It Pretty
One of the first things you’ll notice about most forums is they’re not very pretty. The default themes of WordPress are extremely dull looking and don’t stand out much against basic HTML. That is, unless you give them some design work. Fortunately, you can with a little bit of CSS work. You can use a free online tool like Google Chrome’s Built with HTML and CSS to make your forum looks modern and polished.
Choose A Suitable Theme
As we mentioned, most forums are functional and can work on pretty much any kind of website. But that doesn’t mean they will make it easy for you to build a successful business. There are a few things you need to keep in mind when choosing a theme for your forum. This will include things like readability and how easy it is to navigate. Even better, there are WordPress forums available that were designed specifically for commercial use. So you can rest assured whatever theme you choose, it’s been tested and proven to work great for forums.
Use These Foundations To Build More Than Just A Blog
If you’ve been paying attention to the news, you’ll know that technology is constantly evolving and changing. With every new version of Microsoft Office, a whole new set of keyboard shortcuts and features emerge. The same goes for HTML and CSS. Even WordPress. Fortunately, this is where we come in. We’ve been building websites for a long time. And over that time, we’ve learned a few things that can help you use WordPress in a smarter way. Some of these things are available right from the get-go. While others require a bit of research or some trial and error.
Find The Right Hosting
When we talk about forums, we usually think about WordPress and an SQL database. But that’s only half of the equation. The other half is hosting. The kind of hosting you’ll need will depend on how much traffic you get. For example, do you want your forum to be available 24/7 or do you want to be searching for posts when the servers are offline for maintenance? There are several hosting providers who offer great services at affordable prices. So finding the right one is crucial to your forum’s success.
Use An SSL Certificate
An SSL certificate is a must if you want to build a secured connection with your customers. An SSL certificate encrypts your website’s traffic, making it more secure and convenient for your customers to browse your site without fear of being hacked. You can get an SSL certificate for free from letsencrypt.com. All you have to do is follow the instructions.
Use A Content Delivery Network (CDN)
A content delivery network is a group of servers that sit somewhere in the cloud. When a webpage or an email is requested, the request is delivered from the closest server to the user. This reduces load time, ensures speed, and helps prevent downtime. One of the best CDNs out there is cloudflare.com. And yes, they’re responsible for that adorable owl icon you see at the end of every URL.
Make Sure You Have The Right Permissions
You don’t want to run into any problems when building a forum with WordPress, especially if you’re used to working with static websites. It’s a common mistake for new users to leave default permissions intact. This is a mistake. You need to change the permissions of the WordPress install to match those of your hosting account. For example, if you have Apache running on port 80, you’ll need to change the WordPress site’s permissions to match. This is so that when someone visits the site in a web browser, they’re not confronted with a login screen. Instead, they’ll be presented with a nice, clean, unauthenticated WordPress login page.
Use A Responsive Theme
A responsive theme is one that automatically adapts to the size of the screen it’s on. This makes it much easier for website owners to design a single theme that can adapt to any screen size and resolution. For example, if you want to build a responsive website for iPads, you can download a free responsive WordPress theme from Themeforest. If you then resize the window to fit an iPhone, the design will automatically adapt. No guessing needed!
Use Post-Forms
A post-form is where you can add a contact form, an online store form, or any other kind of form. Once the form is submitted, you’ll see a list of the submissions. From there, you can use a tool like Google Docs to communicate with your customers. You can also use the form’s submission to send an email containing useful information about the form’s subject matter. You can do this by clicking on the word “email” found near the top of the form’s submission page.
Put These Tools To Work For You
These tools and resources can make all the difference in your journey to building a successful business. Whether you’re new to the digital world or have been blogging for years, there are several tools and platforms that can help you in different ways. Some of these are free while others require paid subscriptions. But they all make it easier to provide valuable content to your audience, engage with them, and grow a business that provides value and builds trust.
WordPress For Dummies
WordPress for Dummies is an incredible resource for anyone looking to get started with blogging or thinking about re-branding an existing blog. If you’re new to the world of blogging, this is a great starting point. It will teach you the ropes, including how to choose a good niche, build a successful community, and most importantly, How to use WordPress to create a beautiful, engaging blog that will make your customers feel valued and appreciated.
Blogging Platforms
In the previous section, we mentioned several tools that can help you build a successful business. One of these is a blogging platform. A blogging platform allows you to create and manage blogs within minutes. You don’t need to have any experience to get started. If you’ve ever written a journal or diaries, you’ll have no trouble creating a blog using a platform like WordPress.
Why should you consider a blogging platform? There are many advantages to using a blogging platform. To start with, it’s extremely easy to use. Once you’ve built your blog, getting additional plugins and features is a breeze. You can also use a free blogging platform like WordPress to create your blog. Using WordPress requires no setup or coding experience needed. Because it’s open source, it’s also extremely flexible and customizable. If you’re looking to create a unique, professional-looking blog for your business, you can do so with little to no experience.
E-commerce Blogs
An e-commerce blog is where you can create and sell products online. And since most people use the internet to find products they then purchase, an e-commerce blog can grow very, very quickly.