Now , First you want to make sure your staff member doesn’t abuse his power. So those members really dying to be staff usually have a separate agenda than others. So those are members you really want to interview and make sure they don’t go power crazy. The last thing you want is a staff vs members issue on your forum. You as the Admin would have to try and side with the staff to show a unity (depending on the issue) but if you see the staff member is really wrong , then you will have to address the situation as you see fit. Even if its letting the staff member know he/she was wrong and you’ll be reversing the decision.

So to avoid from this happening you want to know the staff member coming on board. So make sure the mod has a mature , responsible head on his shoulder and don’t just add a staff member cause they ask or you just want to create content. A lot of admins add a staff member and ask them to fill up a section or create traffic just cause they don’t want a dead forum. So try to concentrate on content and when you need a staff member just look at your members and try to find the best qualified.

An uncontrollable staff member will be a future issue if you don’t nip it in the butt. So once you start seeing something that doesn’t sit right with you , You have to speak up and guide the mod in the right direction.

1.) Forum Base Software - I personally use Vbulletin for every Forum I’ve ever created. I have used phpbb2 , Invision , php nuke and others so please dont think im just a VB lover cause it was the first thing i tried. But I find Vbulletin to be the most powerful of the group with its extensive features and add ons. (Of course your welcome to use any software you like.) Especially since Vbulletin 3.7 Is about to step out of beta, The features it brings allows you to take your forum out of the norm and into the social Networking realm with its new members account options. That alone is a major plus over the rest.

2) SEO Modifications - Once you have your forum installed you should look to increase its visibility with SEO modification you can find free on Vbulletin.org and other Vbulletin forums. Here are the Best Modifications I recommend to do just that.

1.) Zoints SEO Version: 2.2.2 - I wont be listing the features but just know this is a complete SEO mod that will give you all the tools you need for SEO purposes. For the FREE option this is just as powerful as vbseo’s $149 deal.

2.) Zoints Thread Tags - GREAT for SEO

3.) Adding H1 Tags to your Forum and Threads - This is very helpful to your forum as it will help your titles be easier to find come index time. Thanks to Joeychgo for the write up.

4.) How to Remove - Powered by vBulletin in title tag - Pretty self explanatory.

5.) vBSEO Google/Yahoo Sitemap Generator - The “vBSEO Google Sitemaps” plugin provides a solution that allows your forum to be indexed by the Google (and also Yahoo and Ask) search engines faster, more completely, more effectively, and with less bandwidth consumption.

Now once you have all that setup and configured you can go about creating your forums. You don’t want to show the board live at anytime of this process as first impressions are very important and you don’t really need anyone seeing the construction take place.

Don’t add to many forums on the first week your up. You don’t want your forum looking empty and lonely. Try to pick the 6 - 10 most important topics your forum should have to make it complete and stop right there. I know you want to go crazy and get everything on there but it takes time to have a big full forum. Only try to create new forums when your forum has a need for it. If you don’t need it yet , it shouldn’t be on the forum. You don’t want to have a forum with 20 different topic forums and 1 or 2 post in all of em by you the Administrator. It will look ugly and dead and thats not the goal. The Goal is to have a few forums but look full with the many posts you and a launch team (your buddies) will be putting up.

People don’t like to post on deal forums so try to keep it alive once your ready to go all out. Don’t forget to go through your setting and set it all up. Now that we have our forum all ready and good to go well get ready for the next phase which is promotions and traffic. That post will come tomorrow as we are doing Forum Week! Enjoy