RealGM

I have an idea that I think will be a huge success and it is basically a Blog/forum like this.
I was wondering how does someone start a site like this?

Anyone has any ideas?

Hire a website builder.

1. Find a suitable domain name here (e.g. realgm.com): http://www.networksolutions.com/domain- ... esults.jsp. You should put a lot of thought into this and find a name that is easy to remember.

2. Have the domain hosted. I use these guys for the sites that I maintain ($4.95 a month, unlimited bandwidth): http://www.webhost4life.com/webhost4lif ... osting.bml. The Windows hosting does support PHP/MySQL, which is what you'll need if you want to run most of the popular message board applications.

3. Design your website, or hire someone to do it for you. You can get some good templates here, then plug in your message board: http://www.templatemonster.com/

4. Download and configure PHPBB (you'll have to read the manuals, but it's not too terribly difficult -- just time consuming): http://www.phpbb.com/

5. Advertise. Research SEO and make extensive use of Google's Webmaster tools.

Edit: The goal of sites like this is to generate a ton of traffic so that you can pick up advertisers. Once the site is up and running, you'll want to use Google Analytics to track page views. This is free up to a certain point (depends on traffic I believe) and incredibly useful. People often wonder why so many retards are allowed to post on these boards without being banned, but it would be counter-productive to get rid of posters. Also, managing a popular forum is extremely time consuming and you'll no doubt enlist moderators to help you. The good thing is that if your site is popular then you will get lots of volunteers just because being a mod makes some people feel privileged, while others do it because they have an interest in keeping things tidy.

semi-sentient wrote:1. Find a suitable domain name here (e.g. realgm.com): http://www.networksolutions.com/domain- ... esults.jsp. You should put a lot of thought into this and find a name that is easy to remember.

2. Have the domain hosted. I use these guys for the sites that I maintain ($4.95 a month, unlimited bandwidth): http://www.webhost4life.com/webhost4lif ... osting.bml. The Windows hosting does support PHP/MySQL, which is what you'll need if you want to run most of the popular message board applications.

3. Design your website, or hire someone to do it for you. You can get some good templates here, then plug in your message board: http://www.templatemonster.com/

4. Download and configure PHPBB (you'll have to read the manuals, but it's not too terribly difficult -- just time consuming): http://www.phpbb.com/

5. Advertise. Research SEO and make extensive use of Google's Webmaster tools.

Edit: The goal of sites like this is to generate a ton of traffic so that you can pick up advertisers. Once the site is up and running, you'll want to use Google Analytics to track page views. This is free up to a certain point (depends on traffic I believe) and incredibly useful. People often wonder why so many retards are allowed to post on these boards without being banned, but it would be counter-productive to get rid of posters. Also, managing a popular forum is extremely time consuming and you'll no doubt enlist moderators to help you. The good thing is that if your site is popular then you will get lots of volunteers just because being a mod makes some people feel privileged, while others do it because they have an interest in keeping things tidy.

BINGO. This is what I was looking for. Brah I have an idea that I have shared it with my brother in law my best friend/partner and my girl. All three of them think it is insane and it will work like a charm.

I have one more person that I need to talk to and see if I can get him on our team. If and when this starts I will drop all the info for you and everyone else but thanks SS.

Or you can go the easy route and create a free account at "http://www.freeforums.org"
start a basic forum and once it gets going pull it and have it hosted with a domain of your choice!
my .02 cents

eckoner wrote:Or you can go the easy route and create a free account at "http://www.freeforums.org"
start a basic forum and once it gets going pull it and have it hosted with a domain of your choice!
my .02 cents

Ya I was aware of that, but I want to build one that is very unique and try to attract the big fish to it. I believe the concept and the glitch I have will take off like a wild fire so I want to start of very professional right off the bat.

But thanks for the info eck.