How to Add a Forum in WordPress (2 Easy Methods)

Adding a forum to your WordPress site can be a fantastic way to boost user engagement and build a community around your content.

Forums provide a platform for visitors to interact, share ideas, and ask questions. This interaction can lead to stronger relationships with your audience, encouraging them to return for more discussions.

However, with so many options out there, finding the right tools and plugins to get started can be challenging. You will want a solution that meets your needs and integrates seamlessly with your existing setup.

That’s why we’ve done the research to find the best tools and are excited to share our findings with you. In this article, we will show you how to add a forum to your WordPress site.

Why Add a Forum to Your WordPress Website?

A forum allows visitors to sign up, start threads, post replies, and connect with each other. When people engage with your content, they are going to spend more time on your site, so a forum can increase your pageviews and reduce the bounce rate.

An active forum can help build brand loyalty and get you more repeat visitors. If you make money online by blogging with WordPress and showing ads, then an active forum can also increase your income.

If you run an online store, then a forum is another way to support your customers. Many people prefer to post their questions in a forum instead of calling customer service staff. So, a forum can improve the quality of your customer support.

Forum members may even help each other out by sharing their own solutions, which will improve the customer experience without any extra work from you.

With that in mind, we will show you how you can add a forum in WordPress using free and paid methods. You can use the jump links below to skip ahead to the method you want to use:

Let’s get started!

Method 1: How to Add a Forum in WordPress With bbPress

The easiest way to add a forum to your WordPress website is by using the free bbPress plugin. It has everything you need to create, moderate, and maintain an online discussion board.

Create a New Forum with bbPress

First, you’ll need to install and activate the bbPress plugin. If you need help, then please see our guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.

Upon activation, let’s navigate to Forums » Add New.

To start, type in a name for the new WordPress forum.

This will be visible to visitors, so you should use a title that describes the forum’s purpose.

For example, the following image shows the forum index, which includes 1 parent forum called ‘General Chat’ and 3 child forums: ‘Entertainment,’ ‘Gardening,’ and ‘Music.’

The title will also be used in the forum’s URL, so it’s smart to think about SEO and include relevant keywords where possible.

You can also add an optional description by typing it into the main post editor. This description will appear on your site’s forum index page.

By default, bbPress forums are public, which means everyone can see the forum, including people who haven’t registered with your WordPress website. This can encourage people to sign up and join the conversation.

However, sometimes, you may want to restrict access to a forum. For example, you might create a private forum for students who’ve purchased your latest online course.

To create a forum that only registered users can access, open the ‘Visibility’ dropdown and choose ‘Private.’

Create Forum Moderators

Next, you may want to add moderators. This WordPress user role allows people to edit and delete posts by other users, edit your forum, and manage the forum tags.

To give someone the moderator role, simply start typing their username into the ‘Forum Moderators’ field. To add multiple moderators, simply separate each name with a comma.

If the person doesn’t already have an account, then check out our guide on how to add new users to WordPress.

Organize Your WordPress Forums

If you are creating multiple forums, then you may want to organize them into a parent-child structure. For example, you might create a ‘Customer Support’ forum and then have a separate child forum for each WooCommerce product.

By default, bbPress creates each forum as a parent forum.

To turn it into a child, simply open the ‘Parent’ dropdown and choose the forum that you want to use as the parent. This is similar to how you create categories and subcategories in WordPress.

When you are happy with how the forum is set up, click the ‘Publish’ button.

You can create more forums by repeating the process described above. When planning your forums, it may help to think about the keywords you want to rank for.

By encouraging members to talk about particular topics, you may be able to improve your WordPress SEO by including lots of relevant keywords in an organic way.

For example, if you want your website to show up when people search for ‘best home gym equipment’, then you might decide to create a ‘Home Workouts’ or similar forum.

Add the bbPress Forum Index to Your WordPress Website

bbPress automatically creates a forum index containing links to all your forums. To see this ready-made page, simply add ‘forums’ to the end of your site’s URL, like www.example.com/forums.

You can also add the forum index to any area of your site, which gives you more control over its appearance.

For example, you might want to design a custom page using a drag-and-drop WordPress page builder like SeedProd and then embed the forum index.

You can add the index to any page or post using the [bbp-forum-index] shortcode.

For more information on how to place the shortcode, see our guide on how to add a shortcode in WordPress.

Add Forums to the WordPress Menu

To help visitors find your forum, we recommend adding it to your site’s main navigation menu.

To update your site’s menu, simply go to Appearance » Menus. In the dropdown, you can select the menu you want to edit and then click ‘Select.’

You can add the link to your forum index so visitors can choose the forum they want to visit.

Simply click to expand the ‘Custom Links’ section and then add the index’s link to the ‘URL’ field. Remember, this is simply your site’s domain name with’/forums‘on the end, such as www.example.com/forums.

You’ll also need to type in the ‘Link Text,’ which will appear in the menu. Visitors will see this label, so you’ll want to use something descriptive.

After that, go ahead and click on the ‘Add to Menu’ button.

This will add the page to the ‘Menu Structure’ panel, where you can also click the ‘Save Menu’ button to apply your changes.

Now, if you visit your site, you’ll see the updated menu in action.

Here’s what it looks like on our demo website:

If you are using a block theme, then you will need to go to Appearance » Editor instead. Then, you can follow our tutorial on how to add a custom navigation menu in WordPress.

Allow User Registration on Your WordPress Forum

Even if you’ve created a public forum, people will still need to register before they can post. This means you’ll need to allow user registration on your site if you haven’t already done so.

After that, you’ll need to create a registration page so visitors can sign up for your forum.

bbPress has a built-in user registration form to add to your site. Simply open the page or post where you want to place the form and create a new shortcode block.

You can then add the following shortcode: [bbp-register].

For step-by-step instructions, please see our guide on how to add a shortcode in WordPress.

You can now publish or update the page to make the form live. If you visit the registration page while logged into your account, then you’ll see a ‘You are already logged in’ message.

Try visiting the same page in your browser’s incognito tab or when logged out of your WordPress account.

Now, you’ll see the user registration form instead.

Next, you’ll need to create a password reset page to allow visitors to recover their accounts.

Simply open the page or post where you want to add the bbPress password reset form or create a new page. Then, create a shortcode block and add the following code: [bbp-lost-pass].

When you are happy with the page’s appearance, you can click on ‘Publish’ or ‘Update’ to make your changes live.

To see the form in action, simply log out of your account or visit the password recovery page in an incognito tab.

Finally, you’ll need to add a login form so that registered users can log in to their accounts and post on your forum.

Thankfully, bbPress comes with a ready-made login widget that you can add to any widget-ready area. This allows visitors to access their account from any page on your WordPress blog or website.

To add the widget, let’s head over to Appearance » Widgets. Then, find the area where you want to show the login widget and click on its arrow to expand.

After that, go ahead and click on the ‘+’ button and search for ‘bbPress Login Widget.’

When the right widget appears, drag it to where you want to show the login form.

This form can also redirect visitors to your site’s registration and lost password pages, so make sure you add these URLs to the widget’s fields.

After adding this information to the ‘Registration URL’ and ‘Lost Password URL’ fields, click on the ‘Update’ button.

Try visiting your site while logged in, and you’ll see a ‘Log out’ link plus your username and user avatar.

If you visit your website while logged out, then you’ll see the login form with links to the registration and password reset forms.

Manage bbPress Forum Settings

Unlike other popular forum software, bbPress has a very simple configuration page.

To manage the settings for your bbPress forums, simply go to Settings » Forums.

The default options on this page should work well for most forums. However, there are a few key settings you may want to change.

By default, a member can only post to your forum once every 10 seconds, which helps protect against spammers and bots. However, you can make the delay longer or shorter by typing a different number into the ‘Flooding’ field.

Out of the box, bbPress lets users edit their posts for 5 minutes after publication. This gives members a chance to fix any spelling mistakes or other obvious errors.

You can give forum visitors more or less time by typing a new number into the ‘Editing’ box.

However, you’ll typically want to avoid giving members too much time, as they might go back and change a post someone has already replied to. This can make the thread difficult for other forum members to read and understand.

It’s also a good idea to look through the ‘Forum Features’ section, which has all the features you can add and remove from your forums.

For example, bbPress allows visitors to embed videos from popular platforms like YouTube and Facebook. However, if this affects your forum’s page loading speed, then you may want to try disabling the video embed feature.

You can also change the number of topics and replies bbPress shows on each page by typing new numbers into the ‘Topics and Replies Per Page’ section.

Pages with a lot of content may take longer to load, but clicking through a lot of different pages can be frustrating. That said, you may want to try different settings to see what works best for your forum.

If you do try different forum settings, then we recommend tracking visitors to your WordPress site to see how they respond to these changes.

If long threads with lots of comments do slow down your site, then you may also want to see our top tips on how to speed up WordPress performance.

Similarly, you can change how many topics and replies bbPress shows in your RSS feed.

There are some more settings you may want to look at, but this should be a good start for most WordPress forums. After working your way through the settings page, don’t forget to click on ‘Save Changes’ to store your settings.

If you want to make your forms members-only, you can jump straight to Method 3.

Method 2: How to Add a Forum in WordPress With BuddyBoss

In this second method, we will share how to add a forum in WordPress with BuddyBoss. It’s one of the best forum plugins for WordPress and works with almost all WordPress themes.

To get started, you’ll first need to sign up for an account on the BuddyBoss website.

Now, it’s time to install and activate BuddyBoss on your WordPress site.

To do this, you’ll want to download the BuddyBoss Platform and BuddyBoss Platform Pro zip files from your account and then upload them to your WordPress site. If you need help, you can read our beginner’s guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.

After activating the tools, you’ll need to enter your license key and email.

Activate the Forums Component

The first step is to configure the plugin to suit your community’s needs, especially if you want to set up forums for structured conversations.

BuddyBoss includes various features known as ‘Components.’ To create a forum, you’ll need to activate the ‘Forums’ component.

So, let’s navigate to BuddyBoss » Components in your WordPress dashboard.

The ‘Forum Discussions’ component should be listed among others, such as ‘User Profiles,’ ‘Social Groups,’ and ‘Activity Feeds.’ You can scroll down the ‘Component’ list to find it.

Once you’ve found it, you’ll want to check the box to the left of ‘Forum Discussions’ and click the ‘Activate’ link.

This will add a ‘Forum’ menu item in the BuddyBoss section in your WordPress admin area.

Here’s what it looks like:

Creating Forums with BuddyBoss

Now, you can create your first BuddyBoss forum.

From your WordPress dashboard, you’ll want to navigate to BuddyBoss » Forums » New Forum.

This will open the BuddyBoss forum builder.

You might notice that this builder is very similar to bbPress’ – it is!

So, go ahead and fill out the necessary details, such as the forum name and description. Then, you can set up the forum rules, such as making it public or private and choosing the parent or child forum.

Once you’ve done this, go ahead and hit the ‘Publish’ button. You can repeat this process to create more forums.

Setting Up the Forum Page

After creating forums, you need to prepare the necessary pages for them.

To do this, navigate to BuddyBoss » Pages. From here, you can open the dropdown menu and choose an existing page for your forums.

If you don’t have the page yet, then you can create a new one.

Just click on Pages » Add New in the WordPress admin area and title the page with something representative like ‘Community Forum.’

Once done, you can click ‘Publish‘ to make it live on your WordPress website. If you need help, then you can refer to our guide on how to create a custom page in WordPress.

From here, you can select this page in the BuddyBoss page settings to direct users to your forum. Don’t forget to scroll down the page and click ‘Save Settings’ so you don’t lose your progress.

Now, you can click the ‘View’ button next to the dropdown to see your ‘Forum’ page in action.

That’s it! Your forums are basically up and running now.

And if you click on the ‘General Chat’ link, WordPress will list all your child forums like this:

Now, since we set the ‘Visibility’ to ‘Private,’ we recommend adding a login form to this page.

Adding a Login Form to the Forums Page

To allow user login, let’s first head over to BuddyBoss Settings.

From here, scroll to the ‘Registration’ section and check the box that says ‘Allow non-members to register new accounts.’

In the ‘Registration Form’ dropdown you can choose ‘Custom URL’ if you already have a user signup or login page.

Then, simply enter the page’s URL in the available field.

Once you’re done, you can scroll down the page and click ‘Save Settings.’

Now, if you visit the ‘Forums’ page, you will see the ‘Log In’ and ‘Register’ tabs.

If you click on ‘Register,’ then your ‘User Sign Up’ page will show up.

Here’s what it looks like on our demo site:

Customizing Your Forum Experience

To ensure your forum is engaging and user-friendly, you should consider customizing its appearance and functionality.

You can choose a theme that supports user interactions. Luckily, the BuddyBoss theme is optimized for this purpose and provides full compatibility with BuddyBoss features.

You can find the main BuddyBoss theme and a child theme in your BuddyBoss account.

Or, you can also use page builder plugins like SeedProd or Thrive Architect to design custom layouts for your forum pages.

To maintain a healthy discussion environment, it’s also important to set up moderation tools. BuddyBoss allows members to report inappropriate content and block other users if necessary. You can enable these moderation features to create a respectful community atmosphere.

For more detailed instructions, you can check out our guide on how to create your own private community with WordPress.

How to Make Your Forum Members-Only

If you run a membership site, then you can also create a members-only forum for your paying customers.

In this section, we will show you how to set up member-only forums using MemberPress and either bbPress or BuddyBoss.

You can configure the forums you just created using bbPress or BuddyBoss to restrict access to specific membership levels. This ensures that only paying members can join the discussion.

For those who don’t have a membership site yet but want to create these kinds of forums, don’t worry. We will help you set one up.

Creating a Membership Website

To create your WordPress membership website, the first thing to do is to install and activate the MemberPress plugin. If you need help, then you can see our guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.

After activating the plugin, you’ll need to enter your license key.

You can do this by heading over to MemberPress » Settings. In the ‘License’ tab, you should see a ‘License Key’ field where you can enter your key.

From here, the general steps are to set up your payment methods and create different membership levels.

Also, don’t forget to make a pricing page where users can check out their options and ensure that anyone who tries to access restricted content is redirected there.

With that done, you can add forms for signing up and logging in, tweak your email templates for members, and monitor your website’s performance with reports.

For detailed instructions, you can see our ultimate guide on creating a WordPress membership site.

Assign a Membership Sign-In Page to Your Forums using bbPress

Now that you have set up memberships, you can assign your MemberPress members to forums created using bbPress.

The first step is to head over to MemberPress » Rules.

Once inside the ‘Rules’ area, you’ll want to create a new rule to control who can access your bbPress forum. So, go ahead and click the ‘Add New’ button.

This will take you to MemberPress’ rules editor.

In the ‘Protected Content‘ dropdown menu, you’ll see MemberPress lets you choose to restrict access to a lot of things, including:

• A single forum
• All forums
• Child forums of other specific forums

For this tutorial, we’ll choose to make all of our child forums members-only.

Then, next to the dropdown menu, you can type in the forum’s title. In this case, we’re filling it out with ‘General Chat.’

MemberPress will then show you the respective forum ID and slug, which you should click on to add to the configuration.

Next up, let’s set up ‘Access Conditions.’ You can select ‘Membership’ in the first dropdown and choose a plan in the second.

Don’t forget to click ‘Save Rule’ and then ‘Publish’ once you’ve created your rule.

And that’s it! You’ve made your bbPress forums members-only.

Now, if you go to Forums » All Forums in your WordPress dashboard, you’ll see that all the bbPress child forums are set to ‘Silver’ access.

If you’re using BuddyBoss, then you can use the steps below instead.

Assign a Membership Sign-In Page to Your Forums using BoddyBoss

Assigning a membership sign-in page to BuddyBoss forums is easy.

First, let’s navigate to MemberPress » Memberships and copy the membership’s sign-in page URL. In the ‘URL’ column, go ahead and copy the URL to the clipboard.

Now, let’s head to BuddyBoss » Settings and scroll down to the ‘Registration’ section.

From here, you’ll want to allow user registration by checking the box next to ‘Allow non-members to register new accounts.’

Next, open the ‘Registration Form’ dropdown and choose ‘Custom URL.’ In the field that appears, paste the MemberPress sign-in page URL.

With that done, you can click the ‘Save Settings’ button at the bottom of the screen.

And that’s all there is to it – you’ve made your BuddyBoss forums member-only.

Bonus Tip: Extend and Promote Your WordPress Forums

Now you’ve created a WordPress forum, it’s time to promote it and get lots of new members.

Let’s look at some plugins that can quickly help grow your online forum.

1. RafflePress

There are many ways to build your audience, but a viral giveaway can give you instant results.

RafflePress is the best WordPress giveaway plugin on the market, and it allows you to easily run contests on your forum.

It also comes with social media integrations for all the most popular platforms so you can introduce your forum to a wider audience.

To learn more, see our step-by-step guide on how to create a viral giveaway contest.

2. MonsterInsights

By monitoring your forums, you can learn more about your visitors. For example, you might create support forums for the different products in your online marketplace.

If lots of people are visiting a particular support thread, then this suggests all your customers are experiencing the same problem.

MonsterInsights is the best analytics solution for WordPress, and it lets you set up analytics in just a few clicks. With MonsterInsights, you can see all the actions people take on your forum, including which threads they visit.

To learn more about monitoring your forum, please see our step-by-step guide on how to install Google Analytics in WordPress.

3. WPForms

Every forum needs a contact form so members can get in touch if they have any questions or want to learn more about your products.

WPForms is the best contact form plugin for WordPress. It comes with a ready-made contact form template that you can add to your website with just a few clicks.

WPForms also has a drag-and-drop editor, so you can completely customize the template without having to write a single line of code.

For more details, see our guide on how to create a contact form in WordPress.

You can even use WPForms to create surveys and polls for your members so you can get feedback and find out how to improve the user experience.

We hope that this article helped you learn how to add a forum in WordPress with bbPress. You may also want to see our guide on how to track visitors to your WordPress website or check out our expert pick of the best quiz plugins for WordPress.

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