Maintaining a Community-Based Website
Copyright © 2004 TopHostsReview.com

Sometimes, the key to having a successful website is to have a supportive online community that sees your site as a virtual hangout. If you’re thinking of creating a site about a certain movie, television show, video game, or geographical area, then an online community may prove to be beneficial for you.

When you’ve decided to form an online community to go with your website, there are certain plans you have to make in order to begin building the community. First of all, how will this community be established? Popular choices seem to be chat rooms and. Some webmasters may even take a step further and allow their members to have blogs or online photo galleries. Whatever choice you make, you need to acquire scripts or software needed to create the chat room, message board, etc. you want. The software you need may come with your hosting package, or you can download them for free. Some chat or forum software may cost you $100 a year, and that’s entirely up to you if you need the extra features that go along with the price tag. You may also want consider if your forum or chat room will be hosted elsewhere or with the same host as your site.

Once you’ve set up your forum or your chat room, you may think that you don’t need to do anything else to make your community grow. However, having members means that you have to do a certain amount of work to keep them interested in your site and your community. If you have a chat room, it’s best to always have someone in it. You can hire moderators or be in the chat room yourself. The reason why this should be done is because oftentimes, when a user enters the room and sees that no one is there, they leave at once. If there is always a person present in the room, then the users who enter the chat room will have reasons to stay. There are some scripts available that allow your members to see if the chat room has any users in it, and you can look into them as they can be useful in gathering your community together. If they see that there are more than 10 people in the chat room, odds are, this is reason enough for other users to come in and participate.

Another way to keep your community interested is by holding special events related to your site. You may hold debates, special discussions, or even have celebrities or important people drop by at a scheduled time to attract your community members to interact with one another. It is important for you or your other community moderators to attend these special online community events, because this will help your members (especially the new ones) feel welcome. Keep in mind that a growing, well-moderated online community may be your site’s greatest asset. It’s best to have the proper amount of planning and maintenance to keep your community strong.

More Reviews
Easy CGI | InMotion Hosting | Jumpline | Hostsave | Simplehost | Aplus Hosting | Hostway | Yahoo Hosting | WebsiteSource | Netfirms | Dot5Hosting | Apollo Hosting | Homestead | Lypha | HostingPlex | Energized hosting | Omnetix | Hosting Zoom | Host Color | Hostony | FineWebHost | Hostcats | Imhosted | Hostexpress | PagesGarden | |Advanced Network Hosts |Vistapages |Site5 |ThinkHost |TBhost | Iniquinet.com | Interland | Intermedia | Olm.net | Routhost | Ready Hosting | Sedna Hosting | Winsave | NetworkEleven | ZZ Hosting | 2MHost