Bulletin Board & Forums – Web Design Resources
Categories / Blog, Web Design Resources By Web Hosting Staff
A bulletin board, also called a forum, is an application that allows users to exchange messages and ideas on the internet. Users can write messages and have it posted to the board and respondents can do same. Almost every website has a bulletin board today. It serves as one of the means through which website owners can interact with their visitors. It also creates the platform for interactivity. For sites that feature hobby subjects, there has been no greater way to build community information than to install bulletin boards.
You will need a bulletin board for your website for many reasons. It will primarily help you generate unique content, and since every post on your site differs from the other, you need to have unique content that will help you get your pages get indexed in the search engines and ensure you a better placement.
In choosing a bulletin board, you will have to consider how easy it is to administer. Many bulletin boards come with WYSIWY administration interface. You should be able to monitor posts and approve members based on certain criteria. Lastly, you should be able to approve registration before members are able to post on your bulletin boards.
There are thousands of bulletin boards available, but two free, most versatile and most popular ones are Phpbulletin board and Vbulletin, which can both be downloaded from the Internet and installed without any complications. Many web hosts also have bulletin boards as free scripts in their admin panel, you simply must click one of them and install it from your hosting account.
The bulletin board must be an integral part of your website. Visitors should see and interact with it as if they are still within your web pages. For this to happen, you need to give your bulletin board a color and theme that blends with your existing website. This way, they will be able to identify with it and make good use of it.
Bulletin boards are a must have resource for every one planning a website. They ease content management, bring interactivity to the site and at the same time make it an interesting place.