A full-fledged website has many features that make it stand out in this digital cobweb. One of the most decisive features is the connectivity functionality of a website so that site visitors can interact with each other on a regular basis. This community of users interacts on a daily basis and discusses things that matter to them. This, in turn, drives a huge user base toward the site hence increasing user engagement. Websites use forum plugins to create and manage discussion forums. This blog discusses the best forum plugins for WordPress.
What are some specific roles that forums can fulfill?
Forums can serve several specific roles that are valuable for various purposes:
1. Product Enquiries and Reviews: Forums provide a platform where potential customers can ask questions about products or services before making a purchase. This open discussion allows for unbiased feedback, enabling users to make informed decisions.
2. Customer Support Hub: Forums offer an effective way to provide support to customers. By addressing individual queries, forum administrators create a public record of answers that can be easily accessed by others. This not only helps the person asking the question but also benefits other users who might have similar concerns.
3. Social Networking Platform: Forums can also contribute to the social aspect of a website by offering features such as user profiles and activity streams. This fosters a sense of community among users, encouraging interaction, and facilitating networking opportunities.
4. Course or Content Discussions: Forums serve as an excellent avenue for users to discuss and delve deeper into course materials or content. These discussion spaces allow users to share insights, clarify doubts, and learn from one another’s perspectives, enhancing the overall learning experience.
What are the benefits of adding a forum to a WordPress site?
Adding a forum to your WordPress site comes with a plethora of benefits. Forums serve as a valuable platform for user-generated content, facilitating engaging two-way dialogues between readers and allowing for increased interaction among site visitors. By incorporating a WordPress forum plugin, you can easily and effectively incorporate forums into your website.
One of the major advantages of forums is their ability to generate unique and dynamic content. They encourage users to actively participate, sparking discussions, and creating a vibrant community. This not only keeps visitors engaged but also entices them to return to your site regularly to stay up-to-date with the latest forum posts.
Additionally, forums provide an opportunity to improve your website’s visibility on search engines. Through user-generated discussions, forums can inadvertently drive traffic to your site and enhance your search engine rankings. Keywords and topics discussed within forums may present new opportunities for organic search traffic that you may not have considered otherwise.
Apart from promoting general discussion, forums can also fulfill specific roles that benefit both you and your audience. For instance, they can serve as a platform for potential customers to ask questions about your products or services before making a purchase. This creates a transparent and accessible environment that builds trust and facilitates informed decision-making.
Furthermore, forums can act as a support channel, allowing you to assist your customers. By addressing specific inquiries within the forum, you not only solve individual problems but also establish a public knowledge base that benefits future visitors. This not only saves time in repetitive customer support but also aids in creating a sense of community and self-help.
Forums can also add valuable social networking elements to your website. By incorporating profiles and activity streams, users can build connections with one another, fostering a sense of belonging. This social aspect of forums promotes user engagement and helps cultivate an active and loyal community around your site.
Finally, if you offer any type of online courses or operate a membership site, forums provide an excellent platform for users to discuss the material amongst themselves. This enables peer-to-peer learning, facilitates collaboration, and enhances the overall learning experience for your audience.
Forum Plugins for WordPress
bbPress Forum Plugin
bbPress Forum plugin is a fast and lightweight one with over 300,000 active installs. The core plugin is fully extensible as it has been built for WordPress and utilizes the same WordPress core. bbPress also follows the same coding standards as WordPress and seamlessly integrates with any WordPress theme.
DW Question & Answer Forum Plugin
The DW Question and Answer forum plugin for WordPress currently sports 10,000 active installs and a 4.3-star rating. This forum plugin lets users submit, filter, order, edit, or delete a question. They can answer questions or comment on other answers. Also, users can pick up the best answer by voting. The plugin also offers privacy options for questions and answers. Members need to follow a question to take action on it. The plugin supports more than 11 languages, shortcodes, keyword search, reCAPTCHA, sticky questions, and an email notification system.
Also Read: How to Add Forum to WordPress Website with bbPress
CM Answers Forum Plugin
CM answers forum plugin for WordPress enables users to add questions and answers, leave comments, vote, and upload files in a stack overflow style. The plugin allows the admin to moderate questions and answers, filter content, add answers, customize the display of the forum, and easily keep track of actions performed on the questions and answers forum. User functionalities include voting for questions and answers, multiple file uploads, social media log-in, user profiles, private messages, etc.
The plugin integrates seamlessly with MicroPayments to let users pay for asking questions or answering by adding a virtual currency. It can also be integrated with Easy Digital Downloads or WooCommerce. And supports 11 languages. Admin can employ CM answers to display the view count for each question, user notifications, and social media registration using Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Google+.
Simple: Press
Simple: Press is a free WordPress plugin that offers forum capabilities to your WordPress site. This plugin comes in both a free and premium version to choose from. With this plugin, you can create unlimited forums, forum groups, sub-forums, and private and public forums with full ease. This plugin also allows you to lock and pin any forum and do a lot more with this plugin.
wpForo Forum
wpForo is an easy and light forum plugin for a WordPress website. This plugin is free and comes with a modern and responsive forum layout and styles. This plugin can be well integrated with many profile builders and membership plugins such as BuddyPress and Ultimate Member. It is also a multi-layout WordPress forum plugin that comes with many forum layouts.
Also Read: Six Ways An Online Community Forum Benefits Your Business
Asgaros Forum
Asgaros Forum is a simple forum plugin for WordPress which offers powerful features to let you create a lightweight and feature-rich discussion board. This plugin is easy to set up, super fast, and integrates perfectly with WordPress. Other features of this plugin include a Profile and member list, notifications and feeds, SEO-friendly, Reactions, and more.
The Takeaway
These were some of the best WordPress bbPress forum plugins in 2021. All these plugins help in integrating a forum on your WordPress website or creating a forum website. We hope you found this article informative. If you have any suggestions for us, let us know in the comments below.
Interesting Reads:
Top 5 Forum Plugins for WordPress
How to Add Forums in WordPress
15 Best Free Forum Plugins to Create WordPress Community Website
