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Making of a new webmaster
Preface:
It did not occur to me out of the blue. I was thinking about it for a long time. Made a couple of unsuccessful attempts which were marred mainly by lack of right contacts and inexperience. Finally I made it and here is how I started my forum. Niche:
Being a discreet reader of webmaster forums like digitalpoint and webmaster world for the past 2 years, I was thrilled to see the webmasters bragging about how much they made out of their websites. So I decided to start a website to call my own. Having had the experience of running a couple of yahoogroups in the past which had something like 8000 members, I did not have to think much on what was my niche. "Jobs for Indians" was the chosen area where I wanted to start. It would garner a large traffic among the Indian mass though a much competed field. Forum:
Now that the niche is selected the next step was the type of site. I typically liked the yahoogroup functionality of recruiters posting and jobseekers reading and replying. Not much of a work for an admin or moderator. More so because of my next to nothing knowledge of HTML and programming. So I decided to have a forum which will require only very basic understanding of both programming and HTML. Domain:
With whatever half-baked knowledge I had, I went through the steps required to get my site online. Had brainstorming with my friends on the domain name. What I found was that all the catchy domain names which I could think of were taken already. Finally it was decided in favour of IndiaJobTalks.com as it was best descriptive of the theme of my site. Webindia.com charged charged Indian rupees 500 for registration of my domain for a year. It was a little high but I thought I can recover the cost Hosting:
Hosting charges of webindia was way too high for my budget (Indian rupees 8500 for 50 MB). So I went for 0catch.com which charged about 7 USD per month. I chose the six month subscription. There are quite a few php boards out there - invision power board and vbulletin included. But both these boards charged over 150 USD for licencing whereas I was looking for a freeboard. Mybb, SMF and PhpBB were my picks among hoards of options. Finally settled with PhpBB3 as it was a new release. Installation, 0catch and siteground:
All my attempts to install phpbb with 0catch was futile just as with other boards. I reported the problem to support guys at 0catch. They told me that the version of php they were using was 4.2 and PHPBB3 required a minimum of 4.3. Now i was in a fix. Though 0catch refunded my money, it turned out to be a bad experience. I again went hunting for a decent webhost - with only difference that I am little more wiser now. Stumbled upon siteground from a search. Members in their support forum had given some great review on this webhost. Decided to try their services after a thorough check on the softwares their servers were running on. Went for a 1 year subscription with them as it waived the one-time installation cost. I did not even have a control panel with 0catch and webmail was not allowed. It is like a breeze to work with the facilities siteground offers. Even there is a "fantastico" facility and the PHPBB3 was installed within minutes. I am happy and at ease with what I had seen so far. Online:
Finally my forum is online. It is not as easy as I thought it would be. Google adsense was installed and the forum has been submitted to webdirectories and searchengines. However, most of the time I am sitting inside my forum all alone. Now the hardest part awaits - waiting for the traffic to trickle in. I know it takes time to develop any committed community - may be a few years. But I am determined to make it. Tailpiece is that the feeling that I am a webmaster now gives a kind of satisfaction, with a place to call my own and a mail address to call my own.
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Contributor's Note
My experience as a new webmaster of my forum. I am from India.
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Jobs in India
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This intel was contributed by munnakv
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May, 2012
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