Type of Websites: Forum Websites
This is the easiest to put up, as all you need to do is install the script and you are in business. but you will need to customize to your heart's content, (eg color scheme, your logo etc), but there is a limit to how much you can customize.
A forum is a place where people hang out to gist, share ideas, yarn, help each other etc. It is not a serious site, although serious topics can be discussed.
The key difference is that you the site owner will mainly play a moderating role, once the forum is running and the people's parliament is in session. You do not have much control what people post on your forum, although you can warn and threaten, and ban in extreme cases. Again, most of the content is posted by visitors. So as a webmaster, you get content free of charge. If you are registered with Google Adsense, then you sit back and smile as forum members gist and yarn to their hearts content, and hopefully click on the adverts. Like the owner of a snooker bar, you just sit back and watch out for unruly customers that need to be shown where the door is.
It all seems well and good, but it takes a lot of work to get to this point where you sit back and smile.
At the start, the forum is like an empty market square or town hall. You need to draw people in, and get them talking, and keep talking up to the point that they will not notice that you have stepped out. Like pushing a car till it starts, it takes a lot of effort to push it to the point wire the engine starts whereby you can take your hands off and the car keeps going. It is tempting to think that all you need to do is set up a forum and people will start trooping in. In the early days, the silence can be deafening. You will definitely have to kick start the discussions by introducing the topics and sometimes carrying out a conversation with yourself until others join in.
Again, despite the well laid out rules at membership sign up, there are some folks that are bent on being a nuisance, and fouling the air. Some desperate webmasters/website owners look at a forum as a place to gain free promotion/traffic to their site. While there is nothing wrong in promoting your website at a forum, you have to do that responsibly, and be a valuable contributor before promoting your site. Also you can do it in a none intrusive way my attaching your URL to your signature. That way, people that find your posts useful will naturally want to check you out by visiting your site. Some members do more than spamming the forum with links to their marketing and pornographic sites, some actual post pornographic pictures in the forum!
So as a webmaster, your work is not finished when your forum is up and running, and the gist flowing without a hitch. You have to remain at your post as the nanny of the forum to throw out unruly members and jerks who post offensive materials by banning them from the forum.
Again before you settle for a forum, you have to decide whether you want to build a website or a business. Running a forum is hardly the route to building a business empire.
a) Web Presence
b) E-commerce Website
c) Information Resource Website
d) Marketing Website
e) Forums
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