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How To Add (or, "Adding") A Forum To Your Homestead Website
OK first off, you can't add a forum to your homestead website. That's not a part of the SiteBuilder program or Intuit for that matter. Here is how you can set up this very valuable traffic generator to your website portfolio though. Once you have created the forum and begin adding content, you can then create an anchor link to your main website that goes to your forum.
Go Daddy is where I create all of my communities using the free Simple Machines Forums included in the hosting package.
Here are the steps that need to be taken.
Log into Go Daddy and purchase a domain name that is related to your website. You will not be able to use a domain name that is hosted at Homestead. I would also advise, do not try to create a sub domain at Homestead because that won't work either. Your going to have to purchase a domain name and hosting with Go Daddy.
1) Purchase a domain name
2) Purchase a hosting package. You can get enough hosting for $7 dollars a month to host several forums.
3) Get a phone technician to walk you through setting up the Simple Machines Forum.
4) Start working with the forums functions. It's not really very hard to configure the “Topics & Boards.” There is a menu on the left side that is really rather easy to work with.
5) The Simple Machines help forum is a very useful asset. If you have questions, someone in the forum will help you.
6) The look of the forum can be changed by downloading a different theme from the community and then using the “Browse” feature in your new forum to upload a different theme. Modifications to the forum are available also.
Here are a few of the forums that I have created.
Like every website building program, there is a learning curve involved. The installation is really not difficult as long as you get the Go Daddy personnel to help you get it installed. Working with the default theme for the forum is pretty easy too. The difficulties begin when you want to change the looks, add Google Adsense, or upload modifications. Here again, the people in the help forum are very nice and knowledgeable about making these things work to your advantage.
A word of caution though, do not start a forum unless you already have traffic coming into another website where you can post a link. I made that mistake in the beginning. It's hard to get people to participate in a community where there are no people interacting. I used several promotionals to get mine going. I gave away Starbucks gift cards and had contests for T-shirts, music CDs and an Ipod Shuffle. Just adding a forum to your Homestead website is not going to generate participation, it's going to take a lot of effort to launch the community and get people involved.
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