With forum plugins you can easily create a forum on your own WordPress website. There are several options for this, including a plugin from the creators of WordPress themselves. First we explain what a forum plugin does exactly and why you should add one on your website.
What is a forum plugin?
With a plugin for WordPress you can easily add preset extra functions to your own website. You can download these plugins and then link them to your website. An example of a plugin is a forum plugin. As the name suggests, this plugin adds the possibility of a forum on your page.
On such forums, the visitors of your website can ask each other questions or have discussions with each other. The advantage of this is that as a website owner you increase the engagement among your target group and ensure that visitors come back to your site every time. Furthermore, a forum can help you to rank higher in search engines. Because the users of forums answer fairly specific questions, you score better on long-tail keywords in search engines. It also helps with this that new content is regularly produced on a forum, with which you also finish higher.
But: which plugins can you best use for this?
Plugin #1: bbPress
bbPress is a plugin created by the people behind WordPress itself. As a result, this plugin works perfectly with the website. In this way, problems between the plugin and the database of the website are reduced as much as possible.
bbPress not only works well, but also very easily. First of all, you can already download the plugin for free. Creating the forum and the associated sub-forums pages is also a piece of cake. Do you want to monitor these pages to prevent spam messages? Then simply add a ‘moderator’.
In most cases, you can work fine with bbPress. The only downside is that bbPress is a very minimalistic forum plugin. For example, you need different plugins for various extras on your forum and you have to connect the plugin to the stilj of your website by working with CCS code.
Plugin #2: wpForo
In addition to bbPress, wpForo is also a popular forum plugin. This plugin is also completely free to use. Depending on your knowledge of forums, you can choose from three possible layouts: simplified, extended or a standard Question and Answer forum. That way, the plugin always matches your knowledge.
Do you want to get even more out of the plugin? Then the creators offer you all kinds of add-ons. However, these have been paid. Examples of these add-ons are ‘Embeds’, ‘Advanced Attachments’ or ‘Private Messages’. The latter also allows users to send private messages to each other.
With a forum plugin you can easily add a forum option to your WordPress website. You enable visitors to talk to each other and thus increase the engagement around your website. At the same time, you score a lot better on the long-tail keywords in search engines. The plugin we recommend you use is bbPress: a plugin from the creators of WordPress themselves.
