Please help!

[11karen11]

I currently have an MSN Group that's very popular and I'm considering setting up my own site prefferably with vbulletin for the chat board as they're so easy to use.

If anyone has any advice they can offer I'd be very grateful...I don't know where to start! also, what is it likley to cost?

Thanks in advance

[TygerTyger]

You won't regret it....MSN Groups is muy bad compared to vB.

The main question is, how popular is your group? Rough idea of member numbers?

[11karen11]

The one I started recently gets 2 or 3 new members a day. I think it's just goning to get out of hand, the layout is so confusing and the ads are evrywhere! can't complain too much as it's free but I think I might be better off biting the bullet so to speak and doing it properly.

I don't have any experince in website building/hosting etc. so I would appreciate any advice...
Also would it be fair to charge members a small fee/ ask for donations rather than have ads?

Please excuse my newbieness!

Thanks in advance

[TygerTyger]

There are donation mods for vBulletin, I think that most of them require a Business or Premium Paypal account though. I'm sure asking for donations or charging would be fine, really depends how much you need and how much it's costing you. And how nice your users are :)

Best advice is don't go for the cheapest of the cheap and be sure to go with a host you know will be good. Ask around.

[11karen11]

Thanks for the help...

Another question! Would it be possible for me to create a website with something easy to use like Frontpage and add the chat board to it? Is this possible or would I have to get a professional to do it?

thanks

[TygerTyger]

Well vBulletin runs entirely separately to a webpage (it's not really possible or practical to embed the forum into another page) although you can for instance show what your latest posts are in an webpage ordinary page, which is of course very handy. So you would have your website at http://www.website.com and your forum at http://www.website.com/forum for instance, and then just link to it from your webpage.

I'd consider Dreamweaver as well as Frontpage, most consider it to be the better software. How easy it is I guess is up to how technical you are and how well you pick things up. It's not difficult to set up a website with one of those programs, though if you want something professional looking you'd have to pay someone.