Running Your Own Forum with ePages

Many companies dread forums as they might turn into platforms for complainers and disappointed customers. Quite to the contrary, a forum offers so much more: Companies are recognised much more by having an open and communicative stance and thus invest in customer retention at the same time. Since the content of a forum is constantly being updated, this will also affect Google in a positive way. With the shop software from ePages, you can now create your own forum for your online shop or your business website in just a few minutes*.

Planning a forum

Before you set up your forum, consider the following questions:

• What am I trying to achieve?
• What should be discussed?
• What do I like and dislike about other forums?
• Who is going to moderate? Who is competent in what area?
• How often is my forum viewed?
• How can I ensure short reaction times?
• What happens when experts are not available to answer right then and there?
• How do I deal with "complainers"?
• What do I do with praise and criticism?
• What do I allow and not allow in the forum?

Starting a forum with ePages

There is a separate module for setting up a forum in the ePages website and shop software. No external system needs to be connected to.

To create a forum in your ePages administration, click on Content/ Categories -> Preview -> New,  enter "Forum" in the free text field below the name and select Forum as page type in the dropdown menu. Then click in the page element and determine the following:

• Should all visitors be allowed to read the forum or only registered ones?
• Should all visitors be allowed to publish contributions or only registered ones?
• Should contributions be checked before publishing or should they be immediately visible?

Write a description for your forum in which you note what the aim of the forum is and what rules are to be observed.
Then create the first topics. You can decide yourself whether contributions to the topics can be added or not.
 
Here is what a forum can look like in just a few clicks:

 
 
* This feature is only available with ePages 6. Your provider or project partner will gladly assist you should you have any questions.

Kira Schmidt

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