Re-opening an inactive forum

Hello NTWIC Help readers,

Firstly I would like to apologise for my inactivity in the blog posts here. I am now back and hope to continue with the help guides that I create.

If you are trying to reopen a forum project that has become inactive for a long period of time it may be hard to try and get it active again as people may be scared of it closing again or people may no longer be interested for whatever reasons they may choose. My guide today is to help you reopen an inactive forum.

Firstly what i would do is email all old staff and give them 7 days to come back to the forums. If they do not then you should remove them and go to a promotion or admin forum and ask for members of staff (they will get your forum with new posts and help you with other things that need changing. My second tip to you would be to go through the forums and remove all spam and other worthless or out-of-date topics that may have no use to the forums when they reopen. Thirdly I would change themes and graphics and maybe even the forum areas, you must try to get the wow factor back into the forum again if you wish for it to be active once again. You must, and this is one of the biggest things you need to do. You and your staff members must make a load of posts and topics so it will give the old and new members something to discuss in that is newly active. If this isn't done you wont get any activity as all the posts will be too old. Finally, you have to promote the forum as you would do with a new forum this includes; Buying, exchanging, services and just general promotion.

I hope this guide helps you reopen a forum if you ever wish to,

Martin J. Willard

Creating The Perfect Forum

When creating a forum you always hope yours will be better than the other forums that are to do with the same genre as yours. There are steps you should take before and during creating your forum. I have a list of tips below that I recommend you use when you are making a forum.

-         Find a good host

-         Get people dedicated to work as staff

-         Get suggestions from people on the web on what you could include.

-         Review a load of forum software’s (then choose the best one based on reviews)

-         Get some plugins for the forum

-         Choose a theme for your forum (custom is better but not needed)

-         Get the main graphics you will need (banner, advertising banner, signature image, affiliate image

-         Add the graphics and all the areas to the forums (more can be added at a later date

-         Get you and your staff to create topics in the forums to make the forums filled

-         Do member and post exchanges to fill the post and member count up

-         Advertise your forum

After all of this is done you will find small updates or suggestions that will need to be done but it won’t be that hard! I also recommend never use a dark theme for your forums as me and many other people think they don’t look as professional. If using a dark theme add some brighter colours to it

Martin J. Willard

There's More Than Just Dafont :0

When you make graphics or are just typing you always want to use a font that is eye catching and isnt something that nearly everyone with a computer would use. The most common place where people get there fonts is from www.dafont.com but if you have seen all of there fonts and want something a bit different than there fonts then I have a few links that will help you get some better and different fonts.

http://www.urbanfonts.com/
http://www.1001freefonts.com/
http://www.fonts.com
http://www.1001fonts.com/
http://www.fontfreak.com/
http://www.acidfonts.com/
http://en.fontreactor.com/
http://www.fontface.com/

Now I dont use all of them sites so I dont know what they are like so if you have any comments on the sites and the fonts from the sites please leave a comment below and I will read up on it :)

Martin J. Willard

The World Of Graphics

Forums, Websites and Blog's all need to have good graphics to get noticed by people on the web! I am okay at graphics but I usually request graphics from other forums or get someone to make them for me. This way I am sure I will get the best graphics made for my websites and I will get good notice from visitors. Some readers here might be good at making graphics and have Photoshop or another great graphics creator whilst others may try to make graphics for there forum with Paint. if you use Paint then I suggest not using them on your website as they wont be as good as they could be! I have made a small list of the best forums and websites where you can order graphics from.

http://www.xcodehq.com
http://cooltext.com
http://gforceforum.com

I know its a small list but I know the people at all of the forums and websites and I can promise you the best graphics possible!

Martin J. Willard

List Of Advertising Forums

Since everyone that owns a blog, forum or website needs some source of promotion. Below is a list full of loads of sites you can promote at.

• www.aiforums.info
• http://forumpromotion.net
• www.forumsrule.com
• www.advertisehotspot.info
• http://www.higherculture.net
• http://adminbb.org/
• http://www.adminforums.org
• www.iwebbuddy.com
• www.wober.net
• http://www.forumhype.com
• http://www.simpromote.com
• http://www.adminjunction.net
• http://web.master-forum.org

Hope this helps with your promotion,

Martin J. Willard

[FORUM] What forum software?

When looking for a forum software you always want to look for something that meets the requirements below:

• Fast
• Good Looking
• Useful Plugins
• Good Support
• No Bugs
• Later Version (not a new forum software)

This is why I have made a little list on the best forums software's that I think you should use when making a forum and why.

Free forum softwares:

MyBB- Great themes, plugins and support. Easy to install and customize   (suggested for beginners)

PhpBB- Great themes, Support and customizable                                     (suggested for pro's) 

Paid forum softwares:

IPB, VBulletin,Xenforo

Although I have not personally used these myself I have seen the design of the forums and have administrated at forums running these softwares. They all have a great design and custom features.

Free hosted softwares:

Zetaboards- Has great support, and good feedback from all people I know that use it.

Forumotion- I have used this myself. Love the themes (most of them) support is great and most of the forumotion forums grow well. Even though I dont like it anymore (because of customizations) but it is good for starters.

Hope this review helps you to choose the software for you and if not sorry :)

Martin J. Willard

Welcome To NTWIC Help

Hello fellow readers,

This is my first proper blog I have made and it is free hosted with blogger. We are a blog that is called 'Now thats what I call help' or NTWIC Help for short :)

We are a blog dedicated to showing you the best ways to help you on your forum, website or even blog. We give you great ideas to take and maybe use them for yourself. Anyway our first post will be up soon I will just need to make a few more edits to this blog and then I will post the first help post.

If you are interested then please join our partner and creators forum @ www.aiforums.info

Thanks,
Martin J. Willard