# How to kick start a community?

**URL:** https://meta.discourse.org/t/how-to-kick-start-a-community/51295
**Category:** Community Building
**Created:** [09.Октябрь.2016 12:14:56 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/how-to-kick-start-a-community/51295 "2016-10-09T12:14:56Z")
**Posts on this page:** 6
**Page:** 1

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### Author: ![Salomon\_Ptasevich](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/salomon_ptasevich/32/62566_2.png) [@Salomon\_Ptasevich](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Salomon_Ptasevich)
#### Post date: [09.Октябрь.2016 12:14:56 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/how-to-kick-start-a-community/51295/1 "2016-10-09T12:14:56Z")

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Hi everybody, I am in thinking about starting a community for my magazine, It is a girls magazine with very good content and design and has already some heavy traffic. My question is what would be the best way to do it assuming i have a discourse already instated on it.

1. in a sub domain?
2. integrated within WordPress?
3. should i seed some content fist? i think nobody will sign up if the site seems empty.

hopefully somebody who has already done this can share some tougths about this.

thanks in advance!

S

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### Author: ![erlend\_sh](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/erlend_sh/32/119475_2.png) [@erlend\_sh](https://meta.discourse.org/u/erlend_sh)
#### Post date: [09.Октябрь.2016 14:36:51 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/how-to-kick-start-a-community/51295/2 "2016-10-09T14:36:51Z")

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Here’s the advice we give to customers when they sign up:

* * *

Here are some tips for launching a successful discussion community:

1. What is the “elevator pitch” for your community?

2. Build some interesting discussions to launch with

3. How do people find your community?

For additional advice, see our [blog post on how to build engaging Discourse communities](http://blog.discourse.org/2014/08/building-a-discourse-community/).

Good luck! Building a community takes patience and persistence. 😅

* * *

> [@Salomon\_Ptasevich](#):
>
> 1. in a sub domain?

yes

> [@Salomon\_Ptasevich](#):
>
> 1. integrated within WordPress?

probably a good idea, yes. Use [WP Discourse](https://wordpress.org/plugins/wp-discourse/). This is also a great way to start seeding your site with content.

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### Author: ![Salomon\_Ptasevich](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/salomon_ptasevich/32/62566_2.png) [@Salomon\_Ptasevich](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Salomon_Ptasevich)
#### Post date: [09.Октябрь.2016 14:51:00 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/how-to-kick-start-a-community/51295/3 "2016-10-09T14:51:00Z")

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Hi thanks for your answer, can you explain me how the whole setup works?.

My site already has authority so if we don’t use a subdomain it will probably have a better chance seo wize to rank the threads. How people are setting this up?

Thank again

Salo

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### Author: ![jmg](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/jmg/32/121440_2.png) [@jmg](https://meta.discourse.org/u/jmg)
#### Post date: [09.Октябрь.2016 19:01:01 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/how-to-kick-start-a-community/51295/4 "2016-10-09T19:01:01Z")

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> [@Salomon\_Ptasevich](#):
>
> if we don’t use a subdomain

This point has been discussed many times. You can do a [search](https://meta.discourse.org/search?q=WordPress%20subfolder) on this forum, for example about WordPress subfolder, to see the various aspects and views on this possibility, different from the easy default subdomain, and more complex especially in the frequent case that Discourse and the rest of the site are on different servers. Anyway the Discourse-WordPress integration already mentioned on this thread works equally well in all those cases.

For instance Matt Cutts, well-known former search and spam expert at Google, said some years ago that Google was pretty able to detect when a subdomain is or not part of a site, therefore sharing or not search ranking. On the other hand, some SEO experts such as Moz’s Rand Fishkin disagree with Cutts on the theory/practice correlation of this point, and say that at least currently they see Google frequently considering subdomains as different sites even in cases they are not. So it’s a controversial point.

Apart from this, as suggested by Erlend, for example using Discourse forum integration for comments on WordPress (with any kind of subdomain or subfolder installation) is indeed a great way to use content to kick start a community.

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### Author: ![erlend\_sh](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/erlend_sh/32/119475_2.png) [@erlend\_sh](https://meta.discourse.org/u/erlend_sh)
#### Post date: [09.Октябрь.2016 21:02:28 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/how-to-kick-start-a-community/51295/5 "2016-10-09T21:02:28Z")

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> [@Salomon\_Ptasevich](#):
>
> Hi thanks for your answer, can you explain me how the whole setup works?.

> [@Install and configure the WP Discourse Wordpress plugin for Discourse](https://meta.discourse.org/t/wp-discourse-plugin-installation-and-setup/50752):
>
> To get started with the [WP Discourse](https://github.com/discourse/wp-discourse) Plugin, go through each of these topics in order and watch the videos at the top of the topic. [Install the plugin](https://meta.discourse.org/t/install-the-wp-discourse-plugin/223489/1)[Connect to Discourse](https://meta.discourse.org/t/connect-wp-discourse-to-discourse/223490/1)[Set up Publishing](https://meta.discourse.org/t/wp-discourse-and-publishing-posts-to-discourse/223492/1)[Set up Commenting](https://meta.discourse.org/t/wp-discourse-and-commenting/223493/1)[Set up DiscourseConnect](https://meta.discourse.org/t/wp-discourse-and-discourseconnect/223494/1) The two main plugin features, Publishing and [DiscourseConnect](https://meta.discourse.org/t/13045?silent=true) don’t have to be used together. You can just set up Publishing (and Commenting), and not use [DiscourseConnect](https://meta.discourse.org/t/13045?silent=true), or just set up [DiscourseConnect](https://meta.discourse.org/t/13045?silent=true), or set up both. There’s a short description of each featu…

Thanks @simon 😍

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### Author: ![Salomon\_Ptasevich](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/salomon_ptasevich/32/62566_2.png) [@Salomon\_Ptasevich](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Salomon_Ptasevich)
#### Post date: [13.Октябрь.2016 12:30:28 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/how-to-kick-start-a-community/51295/6 "2016-10-13T12:30:28Z")

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Thanks for all the help. the comment integration is a great idea. I guess the only thing I am not decided upon Is if Should put it in a folder or a sub-domain. Anybody know what are the pros and cons of each? anybody has tried both and can comment on that?
