It is easy for any business owner to take an isolated approach to the Internet. Your attention is focused on your customers because these are the people who bring you revenue. Without regular customers, you would not have a business at all, and the Internet presents a great opportunity to find new customers and retain your existing ones. As a priority, you work to create a website that keeps your brand in the limelight at all times.
But in the majority of cases, your business is not isolated. In fact, you are part of a larger industry that is full of other companies offering similar products and services. At times, you may strive for the success of your rivals and the customers they manage to attract, but this is not a productive approach. Instead, you need to realize that every customer who has chosen a rival over you is still a potential lead for your business.
So how do you connect with people who have already chosen another company over yours?
Leading web hosting provider JaguarPC has put together the following overview explaining why launching an online community that serves your industry – not just your business – is an effective way to expand your list of prospects. Read on to learn how one type of message board hosting, phpBB hosting, makes creating an entirely new website that invites qualified customers to connect with each other an affordable strategy for any budget. Finally, learn how you can use phpBB to begin connecting with these leads as a business.
Successful businesses fill their websites with content customers can use
If there is one secret to capturing and maintaining the attention of potential customers online, it is offering content that is genuinely useful to visitors. Just look at the number of major brands that use blogs, white papers, and downloadable reports to engage with their prospects.
The most successful businesses do not take a hard approach to selling. Their reputations are not built on how much they sell, but on being an authority in their specific industry. If you want to increase the number of visitors and return visits your website receives, while improving the perception of your organization, you must offer something valuable and worthwhile.
A phpBB hosting service is a type of web hosting that comes with phpBB installed and ready to use. phpBB is a message board platform, sometimes known as a forum, which visitors can use to discuss specific subjects they find interesting.
The best thing about a message board like phpBB is that its content can be almost entirely user-generated. However, maximizing the amount of great content on your message board means visitors to discuss a wide range of subjects.
If you create a niche message board for your potential and existing customers to discuss your products and services only, thousands of prospects will never get involved with your community. If you create a more general message board that covers your entire industry, you can invite people to talk about the latest news, issues, debates, and updates, no matter how indirectly topics are linked with your company.
A more diverse community results in more content. In turn, that means better search engine optimization (SEO) and traffic that grows naturally over time.
Why choose a phpBB hosting plan as the foundation of your community?
Online discussion is the future of the Internet, and starting a message board for your industry has the possibility to capture the attention of thousands of potential customers. But what is it about phpBB that makes it a great choice for your community? With so many alternatives available, why should you choose phpBB web hosting as the home for your forum?
Some major features of phpBB include:
A comprehensive user registration system, allowing you to create moderators, administrators, and tiered access levels
An easy-to-use posting interface with Quick Reply and Saved Drafts functionality
Private messaging, allowing users to start private, one-on-one conversations
Email notifications you can use to contact registered users via email
Many similar features are available in alternative forum platforms, but phpBB is one of the leading open source solutions. Being open source, phpBB is free to install and use with no license fee. In addition, the components phpBB requires in order to work, PHP and MySQL, are both open-source products that are included with a Linux hosting plan.
Since phpBB works on open source platforms, a phpBB hosting plan is incredibly affordable and fits well within the budgets of even startup businesses. With prices that make phpBB hosting accessible, you could launch an entirely new website for your community independent from your business website.
Position yourself at the top of your industry with phpBB
If you are using phpBB hosting to configure a community with its own domain name, it would be easy to keep the involvement of your business secret. However, there is no need for this type of deception in order to create a valuable independent message board. After all, why would you do something as generous as create a community for your industry and not take credit for your work?
Honesty is always the best policy, and you should clearly identify your involvement with some links back to your main business website. Providing you do not continually spam your users with links to your website, this is an effective way to build brand equity and encourage people to explore your website. It is there that you will do the hard work of converting them into customers.
In addition, use your new message board to draw attention to your company at regular intervals. For example, you may choose to publish your latest press releases in a “News” forum. Even if you allow other competing organizations to do the same, you have the advantage of an advertising platform that you own and control.
Giving the people who are interested in your industry a place to talk is a generous strategy for any business, but not an expensive or time-consuming one. Once your community is up and running, you can be confident that members will turn to you first as a leader in your sector.
Affordable phpBB hosting services from JaguarPC
As an experienced provider of phpBB hosting, JaguarPC is able to optimize web hosting services for stable and responsive communities.
Every JaguarPC phpBB hosting plan runs on state-of-the-art SuperMicro hardware in a robust and reliable data center that guarantees 100% uptime. JaguarPC unlimited phpBB hosting plans include unlimited disk space, bandwidth, and domains, helping you to confidently expand your business and even create multiple individual communities on different websites.
JaguarPC also supports customers with 24/7/365 technical assistance and an extensive database of video tutorials, including guides to phpBB hosting.
To learn more about phpBB web hosting from JaguarPC, call 1-888-338-5261 or visit jaguarpc.com today.