For many webmasters, forums (also know as discussion boards) are one of the most important tools they have to employ.

Forums provide your online business a place to hear out other people’s comments, suggestions, and conclusions on your products or service. They can also be used to provide support - or even as a way to attract new customers.

Many webmasters are put off the idea of starting their own forum simply because they think it will be complex to setup.

However I'm about to show you how you can establish your own forum in around 2 minutes flat, complete and ready to use. I don't care if you've never installed a script in your life. With the method I'm about to show you, even a child could easily set up their own forum.

To do this, you will need a system called "Fantastico". This is included as part of many web hosting packages. If you don't have Fantastico already, I'll give you the details of an excellent hosting package which includes Fantastico and much more, at the end of this article.

Fantastico can automatically install a huge selection of useful scripts, but we're just going to focus on forums in this article. To use Fantastico, login to your web hosting Control Panel (or Cpanel) and click on the Fantastico icon (it's usually a big blue smilie).

Fantastico generally offers several forums, but the most popular and probably the best for general use is PHPBB.

PHPBB is a highly reliable program, with an easy to use administration panel and user interface, along with good support (should you need it).

Here is how to install your forum:

1. Using Fantastico, click on the PhPBB2 option (under "Discussion Boards" - the technical name for "forums"). It can be found in the list on the left side of the screen.

2. Make sure that you have enough “disk space” in order to install the application - Fantastico will tell you if you do not.

3. To start the installation process, click on the "New Installation" link on the right hand side.

4. Choose the domain that you would like to install your script on (only relevant if you are hosting multiple domains on the same web hosting account).

5. Enter the name of the folder (or "directory") where you want the script installed (for example "forum"). Fantastico will create the folder for you.

6. Select an admin user name and password which you will use to login to the forum admin area.

7. Enter the site name (this is actually the name of the forum and will be shown to users). Enter a short description of the forum. Enter your e-mail signature (usually just your own name or the name of your business). Enter the admin e-mail (i.e. your own email address).

8. Click "Install" button to start the process. Fantastico will show you a few technical details and a "Finish installation" button. Click this and the installation will be completed. It will only take a few seconds - and then you will see something like this...

/home/..../public_html/forum/config.php configured
/home/..../public_html/forum/data.sql configured

with a "Please notice:" note below and the link to your admin area and to the forum itself. Ignore the "email details of the installation to yourself" box.

Your forum is now setup and ready for use.

That's all there is to it!

You just installed your own forum.



You can install several different forums on the same web hosting too if you wish. Simply use Fantastico to install each forum into a different folder on your web host.

Fantastico can install lots of other scripts for you automatically too, such as emailing programs, blogs, full ecommerce scripts and many other useful web applications. Take a look through the list and choose the script you want, then follow the simple step-by-step process.


If your web hosting doesn't support Fantastico - or even if it does but you're not 100% happy with them, you should take a look at our superb Web Business Pro membership site. We offer top of the range web hosting with full Fantastico, huge bandwidth and disk capacity, support for an unlimited number of domains (so you can host as many sites as you want without paying any extra) and much more, all for just $9.95 a month, with no setup costs.

For full details, please visit...

Hostgator Web Hosting