How to Install a Free Forum on Your Website
A forum or message board adds a lot of functionality to your website or community. Many companies add forums to their site to let customers get to know each other, to provide support or to give satellite employees a way to communicate with each other. Forums are also useful for providing a general communication medium for just about any type of site. You can add a forum to your site for free by signing up for a free forum host.
Other People Are Reading
Instructions
-
-
1
Browse for a free forum host, such as ProBoards, Forumer, Conforums or phpBB, and compare what services they offer. Look for their features, how easy it is to use (since they are free, you can sign up for a test board to play around with one), support and up time.
-
2
Sign up to create a forum on the host you have chosen. You will typically get access to your forum via an admin account immediately, though you may have to activate your account via the email address you provided when signing up.
-
-
3
Link the forum to your website. Depending on your site's design, you can typically add a link to the forum to fit with the rest of the links on your site's pages. For example, you can add "<a href="URL to forum here">link text</a>" (without the surrounding quotes) to your page to let users click a link to take them directly to your new forum. You can also edit your forum to put a link that directs back to your site. This way, even though your forum is remotely hosted, it will function as part of your site as a whole.
-
1
Tips & Warnings
If you are new to using forums or a particular forum software and need help customizing your forum, most forum support boards have areas dedicated to helping others create and customize their forum. This includes adding boards, customizing profiles, adding themes and adding special functions.
