Budgeted money, what to do?

Hi,

I have budgeted money and my currency is 3.2 lower than USD. So, to buy Vbulletin and VBSeo, it's very expensive for me. What's your suggestion for me?

I haven't have a forum site yet but I already got the domain name. What do you think? Should I start posting in forum first or start installing VBSeo first if i purchase?

Thanks in advance! Nice forum!

Followed up for you here:
Hi All & Questions For You! :)

Hi Joe,

Thanks for reply so quickly. Does it matter to put the forum on main domain or domain.com/forum ? What's your suggestion?

When you start a new forum, where do you get people to post for you?

How long can we see the results?

It depends on what else you have on your site and how you want to organize it.

I prefer having the forum right at the root of your domain, not in a /forum/ sub-folder, etc. Others sometimes place the forum in a sub-domain like forum.yourdomain.com.

There are many methods of getting initial activity. You should search the Web for strategies on admin communities like forums.digitalpoint.com or earnersforum.com, etc.

Just in basic, you should start creating your own posts with valuable "seeding" information, and posing question threads that will engage users.

Some admins post under multiple accounts and actually create conversations with themselves to make the forum look active.

Others purchase paid posting services.

Others already have a network of people, perhaps those that know them from another forum (or their facebook friends) who they invite to the new forum. Your friends will typically be quite motivated to help you out in the beginning.

You probably participate in other forums. When you do, you can usually update your signature to point to your new forum, or (even better) specific threads likely to capture user interest.

The marketing aspects are many. Google will be your best ally in tracking down more detailed information on this expansive topic.

Results vary. But if you start with vBSEO, you can rest assured that you have taken a big step forward in SEO right from the beginning.

Actual traffic will depend on factors including which theme/niche you choose, how competitive that theme is, how much content you or your users create, how valuable the content created is overall (quality), whether or not you actively build links to your forum from other sites, etc.

Well said Joe,

Anything I should learn first before starting forum? Is it easy to install vbulletin and vbseo?

I prefer having the forum right at the root of your domain, not in a /forum/ sub-folder, etc. Others sometimes place the forum in a sub-domain like forum.yourdomain.com.

But I see vbseo.com are using vbseo.com/forum as forum. Actually is there any impact on the results?

The only reason we have it in /forum is because we have a frontpage (vba). But they are all in the same directory, we are just using our Custom Rewrite Rules (CRRs) to make it look like a folder.