Forum websites are a great way to build community and facilitate interactions between like-minded individuals. Members can exchange stories, swap opinions, and share advice. But, it might be hart to know where to start.
Fortunately, it isn’t as tricky as you might think. With the right tools, you can easily create forums for different topics, groups, or interests. You can also use memberships to set up private forums, which require user registration or payment to grant access.
In this post, we’ll discuss common use cases for forum websites. Then, we’ll show you how to make a forum website with WordPress. Let’s get started!
Why Should You Create a Forum Website?
Forums enable people all over the world to interact with one another about specific topics of interest. As such, they’re great for building tight-knit online communities.
Public forums work well for troubleshooting, problem-solving, or advice. However, you might be more interested in setting up private forums that require members to register (or even pay) to view and participate in discussions.
This is ideal when members share the same goals or interests. For example, you could set up a virtual book club where people can exchange opinions about their favorite novels:
Or, you could create a fan club website where members can connect with others who share their enthusiasm for specific TV shows, movies, musical artists, etc.
Another good idea is to set up a support group website. This way, you can bring together people dealing with the same struggles like mental health issues, substance abuse, or illnesses.
On top of that, you might want to know how to make a forum website for networking purposes:
Members could discover opportunities for mentorship, collaboration, and professional development by interacting with industry peers and experts.
In this instance, you’d likely set up a private forum, which requires users to register on your site. However, you could also charge a subscription fee to grant access, which is a great way to earn passive income.
How to Make a Forum Website (In 6 Steps)
Now that you know the multitude of options available with forums, you’re probably wondering how to make a forum website. Here are five steps to follow.
1. Set Up Your WordPress Website
When it comes to setting up a forum website, you’ll need a content management system (CMS) to house your forums and other content like blog posts, images, memberships, etc.
WordPress is great because it’s free, beginner-friendly, and highly customizable:
Better yet, if you lack technical skills, you can choose a web hosting provider like Siteground or Bluehost, who will set your website up for you. This is also a good option because many web hosts include free domain names and SSL certificates with their hosting packages.
A domain name refers to the web address where people locate your content. Meanwhile, SSL certificates are essential for providing a safe browsing experience. They encrypt data that members share on your website like personal information and payment details.
2. Install Useful Plugins
With the WordPress platform, you can customize your website in several ways. For example, you’ll use WordPress themes to change the design and layout of your web pages.
But you can also use WordPress plugins to extend the platform’s base functionality. In this tutorial, we’ll use the following plugins:
- bbPress – for creating discussion boards with ease.
- Paid Member Subscriptions – for creating a way for your users to register on your forum website and even becomemembers.
bbPress is a powerful forum software that lets you add discussion boards to your WordPress site. You can also add moderators to approve comments, and you can easily adjust the visibility and status settings. bbPress is the one giving your website forum functionality.
However, Paid Member Subscriptions adds more value on top of your forum, transforming the user experience on your site. The plugin helps you set up robust registration for the members on your site and provides more flexibility when it comes to restricting content access. And content restriction is essential in incentivising people to sign up for your forum site and take part in discussions.
The plugin is also necessary if you plan to sell membership access and accept payments on your website. In fact, when you install Paid Member Subscriptions, you can enable your preferred payment gateways by going to Paid Member Subscriptions → Settings → Payments:
3. Add Your Forums
Now you’re at the crucial stage of building your forum website.
With bbPress activated on your site, you can head to Forums → Add New to create your first forum:
If you’re experienced with WordPress, the forum editor will look familiar. You’ll enter the forum name at the top of the page, and you can add a brief description.
To the right of the page is the Forum Attributes section. Here, you can open/close forums, hide forums or make them public, and assign the forum to a “parent” forum.
This is a good way to structure and organize forums if you have many of them. For example, a book club might have forums for different genres. But it would also set up separate discussion boards (within these genres) to talk about each of the books they read.
Beneath this section, you can assign forum moderators to approve member comments. And once you’re done, simply publish the forum to make it available on your WordPress site.
4. Configure Your Membership Levels
Now it’s time to customize the user experience on your forum website and configure membership tiers for different types of users.
We’d recommend offering various membership options to cater to different users and even budgets. For instance, you might want to offer special tiers for forum moderators and simple users. Or a free membership that provides access to some forums (or certain categories of forums), and a paid membership that unlocks unlimited forum access. You could also offer higher-tier plans that might provide extra perks, like access to premium blog posts or a dedicated members’ area.
When you’re ready to set up your memberships, head to Paid Member Subscriptions → Subscription Plans → Add New:
Here, you can give your membership a name and enter a description. You can also set the price and duration. So, you could make it so that members pay $10 once a month. If you want to make your plan free, just leave the price field empty.
There are additional options if you want to charge a sign-up fee, offer a free trial, or enable automatic renewals. Finally, you can use the Status dropdown to activate the membership. Then, click on Save Subscription.
Note that if you have various memberships that relate to one another, you can add upgrades and downgrades from the Subscription Plans page. Here, you can also generate a pricing page, where members can clearly see which membership suits them best.
5. Create a User Registration Page
Now that your forum is live and your membership plans are ready to receive sign-ups, you’ll also need a way for your users to actually subscribe.
Paid Member Subscriptions makes it very easy for you to create a registration form and add it to a page. All you have to do is create a brand new page, give it a proper name, and add the PMS Register block to it.
This will create a simple yet attractive registration form on the front end:
6. Restrict Forum Access
When you install Paid Member Subscriptions, you get access to some neat content restriction rules. This allows you to grant exclusive access to premium content (like forums) to those with an active membership.
This is especially useful if you plan on monetizing your forum, as these restrictions can incentivise users to sign up for a membership and pay a recurring fee to have access to extra perks.
In order to easily restrict bbPress forums and topics, you’ll also need the bbPress add-on. This comes with every premium license of Paid Member Subscriptions. You can activate it by going to Paid Member Subscriptions → Add-ons.
If you’ve enabled the bbPress add-on successfully, you should find this setting at the bottom of the forum editor:
Here, you can choose exactly which membership plans can view and join discussion boards. Plus, you can select the specific user roles that have access to your forums.
You’re also able to customize the type of restriction for this particular forum. For instance, you could display a custom message or redirect unauthorized users to a different URL, such as your registration page.
Ready to Build Your Forum Website and Monetize It?
A forum website is a great way to facilitate online interactions between people who share the same interests, struggles, career goals, and more. But you can also sell subscription plans to provide access to private forums.
To recap, here’s how to make a forum website:
- Set up your WordPress website.
- Install bbPress and Paid Member Subscriptions.
- Add your forums.
- Configure your membership levels.
- Create a user registration page.
- Restrict forum access.
Paid Member Subscriptions Pro
Accept (recurring) payments, create subscription plans and restrict content on your website. Easily setup a WordPress membership site using Paid Member Subscriptions.
Do you have any questions about how to build a forum website? Let us know in the comments below!
