Forum Plugins: 5 Awesome WordPress Plugins for Forums

Having a forum for your website where your users can ask you questions about your website, products and their difficulties is such a privilege. It gives your website more authority and will build more respect of your website or blog in your users’ eyes but making such a forum isn’t that easy.

Many beginners  consider “forum building” a very tough job because they believe that they will have to interact with a new software system from the ground up.

But wait! What if I tell you that on “WordPress” building new forums isn’t that hard? You can install new forums on your blog by just installing some plugins. So here are some new WordPress plugins which you will love to install to create forums on your blog:

bbPress

Many WordPress gurus recommend bbPress to newbies to start a new forum for their websites or to help internet users in solving their problems. bbPress will be my first choice to build forums, many others think like me that is the reason why bbPress has more than 1,895,962 downloads and 4 star rating out of 5.

In-fact it is one of the recommended plugins by WordPress authorities. Just navigate to Add new Plugin area and watch the fourth spot.

Why bbPress?

This is a question which we will discuss for every single plugin. Well for bbPress let me show you some cool features which it has:

• The first thing which makes bbPress an ideal choice for WordPress users is that bbPress is made just for WordPress blogs, bbPress is developed under same coding structure as WordPress and will be easy to install than phpBB, Vanilla Forums and vbulletin.

• Can be installed on any wordpress theme without any further adjustments and modifications.

• More than 100 plugins to solve things automatically.

• bbPress will be great for SEO because it does not consist of heavy codings therefore it will be easy for browsers to load the forum which means you will get more traffic from Search Engines.

How To Install bbPress? Video Tutorial:

BuddyPress

If you want more Social engagement on your forum then BuddyPress will be the most suitable choice for you. BuddyPress gives you the opportunity to build your social network within your WordPress installation. BuddyPress is another official Plugin by WordPress like bbPress and has same coding structure and standards as WordPress.

Why BuddyPress?

• Will work perfectly with any WordPress Theme.
• Plenty of other features which will make your experience more better and will help you to extend the functionality of your forum.
• On BuddyPress forum you will be able to create groups, social connections, user profiles and there will be activity streams which will give your forum a much better and dynamic look.
• Active users will be able to earn points for activity which will give them more privilege on new users.

How to Install BuddyPress? Video Tutorial:

WP Symposium

WP Symposium can be an ideal alternative for BuddyPress, if there is any difficulty for you to install BuddyPress on your WordPress installation then WP Symposium should be your next choice.

It includes many similar features as BuddyPress like social networking features integrated into groups and forums.

Why WP Symposium?

• As I said WP Symposium can be use as an alternative for BuddyPress but if you have some extra money in your pocket then buying their Premium version will be a great idea after which you will get premium support from them.
• WP Symposium has many other features which includes features such as event management, gallery, alerts, integration with Facebook, etc.
• You will have a vast variety of templates to choose for your forums with multiple styles which come with the built-in version of the plugin.

How to Install Wp Symposium? Video Tutorial:

CM Answers

If you want to make a Q & A forum then CM Answers will be the right choice for you. You will get many features to quickly set-up a forum which will be similar to Stack Exchange.

Why CM Answers?

• Works fine with any WordPress Template.
• Your users will be able to vote for the answers of the question.
• You can also buy CM Anwers Premium version which has a lot more features including the ability to pick best answers, your users will have separate profiles, they will be able to post comments on different discussions and last but not the least they will be able to login with their Social Media profiles.

How to Install CM Answers? Video Tutorial:

DW Question Answers

DW Question Answers is very similar to CM Answers. It can be use as a good alternative for CM Answers but it has some other features too which will be really handy, For Example : Questions can be filled under different categories and tags.

Why DW Question Answers?

• DW Question Answers will be best in terms of SEO with user driven content.
• Forum users can vote for an answer or can dislike it.
• Users should have to enter some Captcha images to enter into the forum which will be great for fighting against spam.
• DW Question Answers is an ideal choice to make a support forum where your customers can ask you question about your product or service.

DW Question Answers Features? Video Tutorial: