Do you want to add a forum in WordPress with bbPress?
Forums are a great way to boost user engagement and build a community around your site. This can keep visitors coming back to your WordPress blog and grow your audience.
In this article, we will show you how to add a forum to your site with bbPress.
Why Add a Forum to Your WordPress Website?
A forum allows visitors to sign up, start threads, post replies, and connect with each other. When people engage with your content, they are going to spend more time on your site, so a forum can increase your pageviews and reduce the bounce rate.
An active forum can help build brand loyalty and get you more repeat visitors. If you make money online blogging with WordPress by showing ads, then an active forum can also increase your income.
If you run an online store, then a forum is another way to support your customers. Many people prefer to post their questions in a forum instead of calling customer service staff, so a forum can improve the quality of your customer support.
Forum members may even help each other out by sharing their own solutions, which will improve the customer experience without any extra work from you.
With that being said, let’s see how you can add a forum in WordPress with bbPress.
How to Add a Forum in WordPress With bbPress
The easiest way to add a forum to your WordPress website is using bbPress. It is the best WordPress forum plugin and has everything you need to create, moderate, and maintain an online discussion board.
bbPress also works with any WordPress theme. In fact, many of the best WordPress themes come with custom bbPress styles. For more information, see our expert pick of the best WordPress themes for bbPress.
How to Create a New Forum
First, you’ll need to install and activate the bbPress plugin. If you need help, then please see our guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.
Upon activation, go to Forums » Add New.
To start, type in a name for the new WordPress forum.
This will be visible to visitors, so you’ll want to use a title that describes what the forum is about.
For example, the following image shows three forums called Entertainment, General Chat, and Music, on a page known as the forum index.
The title will also be used in the forum’s URL, so it’s smart to think about SEO and include relevant keywords where possible.
You can also add an optional description by typing into the main post editor. This description will appear on your site’s forum index page.
By default, bbPress forums are public, which means everyone can see the forum, including people who haven’t registered with your WordPress website. This can encourage people to sign up and join the conversation.
However, sometimes, you may want to restrict access to a forum. For example, you might create a private forum for students who’ve purchased your latest online course.
To create a forum that only registered users can access, open the ‘Visibility’ dropdown and choose ‘Private.’
Note: The ‘Visibility’ dropdown also has a ‘Hidden’ option that only gives moderators and bbPress keymasters access. This setting allows you to remove a forum from your site without deleting its contents, similar to setting a live post back to ‘Draft.’
Create Forum Moderators
Next, you may want to add moderators. This WordPress user role allows people to edit and delete posts by other users, edit your forum, and manage the forum tags.
To give someone the moderator role, simply start typing their username into the ‘Forum Moderators’ field. To add multiple moderators, simply separate each name with a comma.
If the person doesn’t already have an account, then check out our guide on how to add new users to WordPress.
Organize Your WordPress Forums
If you are creating multiple forums, then you may want to organize them into a parent-child structure. For example, you might create a ‘Customer Support’ forum and then have a separate child forum for each WooCommerce product.
By default, bbPress creates each forum as a parent forum. To turn it into a child, simply open the ‘Parent’ dropdown and choose the forum that you want to use as the parent. This is similar to how you create categories and subcategories in WordPress.
When you are happy with how the forum is set up, click on the ‘Publish’ button.
You can create more forums by repeating the process described above. When planning your forms, it may help to think about the keywords you want to rank for.
By encouraging members to talk about particular topics, you may be able to improve your WordPress SEO by including lots of relevant keywords in an organic way.
For example, if you want your website to show up when people search for ‘best home gym equipment’, then you might decide to create a ‘Home workouts’ or similar forum.
How to Add the bbPress Forum Index to Your WordPress Website
bbPress creates a forum index automatically, which contains links to all your forums. To see this ready-made page, simply add ‘forums’ to the end of your site’s URL, such as www.example.com/forums.
You can also add the forum index to any area of your site, which gives you more control over how it looks. For example, you might want to design a custom page using a drag and drop WordPress page builder like SeedProd, and then embed the forum index.
You can add the index to any page or post using the [bbp-forum-index] shortcode.
For more information on how to place the shortcode, see our guide on how to add a shortcode in WordPress.
How to Add Forums to the WordPress Menu
To help visitors find your forum, we recommend adding it to your site’s main navigation menu.
To update your site’s menu, simply go to Appearance » Menus. In the dropdown, select the menu that you want to edit and then click ‘Select.’
If you want to add a link to a specific forum, then click to expand the ‘Forums’ section.
You can then check any forum in this section and click on the ‘Add to Menu’ button.
If you’ve created lots of forums, then there might not be enough space in the menu, even if you are using a custom navigation menu or a dropdown menu.
In this case, you can add a link to the forum index so visitors can choose the forum they want to visit.
Simply click to expand the ‘Custom Links’ section and then add the index’s link to the ‘URL’ field. Remember, this is simply your site’s domain name with ‘/forums’ on the end, such as www.example.com/forums.
You’ll also need to type in the ‘Link Text,’ which will appear in the menu. Visitors will see this label, so you’ll want to use something descriptive.
After that, click on the ‘Add to Menu’ button.
When you are happy with how the menu is set up, click on ‘Save Menu.’ Now, if you visit your site, you’ll see the updated menu in action.
How to Allow User Registration on Your WordPress Forum
Even if you’ve created a public forum, people will still need to register before they can post. This means you’ll need to allow user registration on your site if you haven’t already.
After that, you’ll need to create a registration page so visitors can sign up for your forum.
bbPress comes with a built-in user registration form that you can add to your site. Simply open the page or post where you want to place the form and create a new shortcode block.
You can then add the following shortcode: [bbp-register].
For step-by-step instructions on how to place the shortcode, please see our guide on how to add a shortcode in WordPress.
You can now publish or update the page to make the form live. If you visit the registration page while logged into your account, then you’ll see a ‘You are already logged in’ message.
Try visiting the same page in your browser’s incognito tab or when logged out of your WordPress account.
Now, you’ll see the user registration form instead.
Next, you’ll need to give visitors a way to recover their accounts by creating a password reset page. Simply open the page or post where you want to add the bbPress password reset form or create a new page.
Then, create a shortcode block and add the following code: [bbp-lost-pass].
When you are happy with how the page looks, click on ‘Publish’ or ‘Update’ to make your changes live.
To see the form in action, simply log out of your account or visit the password recovery page in an incognito tab.
Finally, you’ll need to add a login form so that registered users can log in to their accounts and post on your forum.
Thankfully, bbPress comes with a ready-made login widget that you can add to any widget-ready area. This allows visitors to access their account from any page on your WordPress blog or website.
To add the widget, go to Appearance » Widgets. Then, find the area where you want to show the login widget and click on its arrow to expand.
After that, go ahead and click on the blue + and search for ‘bbPress Login Widget.’
When the right widget appears, drag it to the area where you want to show the login form.
This form can also redirect visitors to your site’s registration and lost password pages, so make sure you add these URLs to the widget’s fields.
After adding this information to the ‘Registration URL’ and ‘Lost Password URL’ fields, click on the ‘Update’ button.
Try visiting your site while logged in, and you’ll see a ‘Log out’ link plus your username and user avatar.
If you visit your website while logged out, then you’ll see the login form with links to the registration and password reset forms.
Managing bbPress Forum Settings
Unlike other popular forum software, bbPress has a very simple configuration page. To manage the settings for your bbPress forums, simply go to Settings » Forums.
The default options on this page should work well for most forums. However, there are a few key settings you may want to change.
By default, a member can only post to your forum once every 10 seconds, which helps protect against spammers and bots. However, you can make the delay longer or shorter by typing a different number in the ‘Flooding’ field.
Out-of-the-box, bbPress lets users edit their posts for 5 minutes after publication. This gives members a chance to fix any spelling mistakes or other obvious errors.
You can give forum visitors more or less time by typing a new number into the ‘Editing’ box.
However, you’ll typically want to avoid giving members too much time, as they might go back and change a post someone has already replied to. This can make the thread difficult for other forum members to read and understand.
It’s also a good idea to look through the ‘Forum Features’ section, which has all the features you can add and remove from your forums.
For example, bbPress allows visitors to embed videos from popular platforms like YouTube and Facebook. However, if this affects your forum’s page loading speed, then you may want to try disabling the video embed feature.
You can also change how many topics and replies bbPress shows on each page by typing new numbers into the ‘Topics and Replies Per Page’ section.
Pages that have lots of content may take longer to load, but clicking through lots of different pages can be frustrating. With that being said, you may want to try different settings to see what works best for your forum.
If you do try different forum settings, then we recommend tracking visitors to your WordPress site to see how they respond to these changes.
If long threads with lots of comments do slow down your site, then you may also want to see our top tips on how to speed up WordPress performance.
Similarly, you can change how many topics and replies bbPress shows on your RSS feed.
There are some more settings you may want to look at, but this should be a good start for most WordPress forums. After working your way through the settings page, don’t forget to click on ‘Save Changes’ to store your settings.
Extending and Promoting Your bbPress Forum
Now you’ve created a bbPress forum, it’s time to promote it and get lots of new members.
Let’s look at some plugins that can help grow your online forum more quickly.
There are many ways to build your audience, but a viral giveaway can give you instant results.
RafflePress is the best WordPress giveaway plugin on the market, and it allows you to easily run contests on your forum. It also comes with social media integrations for all the most popular platforms so you can introduce your forum to a wider audience.
To learn more, see our step-by-step guide on how to create a viral giveaway contest.
At some point, you may want to make money from your forum by selling subscriptions. For example, users might buy a membership to unlock extra features.
That’s where MemberPress comes in.
MemberPress is the best WordPress membership plugin, and it has everything you need to monetize your WordPress forum. With MemberPress, you can create as many subscription levels as you want and accept payments using major gateways, including Stripe and PayPal.
For more details, please see our complete guide on how to make a membership website.
By monitoring your forums, you can learn more about your visitors. For example, you might create support forums for the different products on your online marketplace.
If lots of people are visiting a particular support thread, then this suggests all your customers are experiencing the same problem.
MonsterInsights is the best analytics solution for WordPress that lets you set up analytics in just a few clicks. With MonsterInsights, you can see all the actions people take on your forum, including which threads they visit.
To learn more about monitoring your forum, please see our step-by-step guide on how to install Google Analytics in WordPress.
Every forum needs a contact form so members can get in touch if they have any questions or want to learn more about your products.
WPForms is the best contact form plugin for WordPress. It comes with a ready-made contact form template that you can add to your website with just a few clicks.
WPForms also has a drag-and-drop editor, so you can completely customize the template without having to write a single line of code.
For more details, see our guide on how to create a contact form in WordPress.
You can even use WPForms to create surveys and polls for your members so you can get feedback and find out how to improve the user experience.
We hope that this article helped you learn how to add a forum in WordPress with bbPress. You may also want to see our guide on how to track visitors to your WordPress website or check out our expert pick of the best quiz plugins for WordPress.
If you liked this article, then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook.
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Isaac says
1. Please i have a wordpress blog before now and i want to create forum as a category on the site.. Will that be a good idea?
2. When i choose the option ANYBODY CAN REGISTER, will it not affect my blog too because i am the only one that wants be posting on the blog, while forum anybody can post or register.
Renu Bakshi says
For my site I am using woedpress 4.5.1 version and Modern Blogger Pro child theme of Genesis. I have installed and activated bbPress. But bbPress has not added Forums, Topics and Replies menu items in my WordPress admin. So, I can’t make forums.
Please help…..
Glen says
Is it possible to setup multiple forum pages? E.g one forum page for each admin member?
Swagatam says
Thanks for this detailed info! I had a question which is perhaps not yet answered anywhere so far.
I have a website hosted by Hostgator but it’s operated as a custom domain from my earlier blogger interface.
I am interested to use my wordpress.org software which is lying idle in hostagtor to create a forum by using the method explained in the above article.
Kindly advise, would this be possible without having a prior wordpress.org site.
Thanks
Projjal says
Thank you very much for this tutorial. Now i have built my forum. However i am not sure that should i noindex-follow my forum or index and follow my forum?
Do let me know.
vicky says
how to add theme in bbpress
Carolyn says
Thank you for this clear, concise manual for setting up bbPress. Your instructions were far superior to the guide provided on bbPress website. I’ll be reading your blog regularly now.
WPBeginner Support says
Glad you found it helpful.
Admin
mohanad says
Hi, I installed the forum and it is ok when I use it with my log in, but when I want to register as a new user it shows only an empty page!.
what can I do to solve this issue??
WPBeginner Support says
Try updating your permalinks. Go to Settings > Permalinks and click on save changes button without making any changes.
Admin
seth says
Your post on How To Add a Forum…BBpress was very helpful and quickly got my forum all set up. A couple extra questions:
– As shown, I added both a registration page and a lost password page, and inserted the proper shortcodes, and I added the login widget to my right sidebar. My understanding is that a new visitor to my site who wants to subscribe to & post on the forums, will see a username & login box in the right sidebar. plus the links Register and Lost Password. If they click Register and fill in their choice of User/Pass, will it then automatically be sent to my email for approval & verification?
– AS Keymaster, when I want to start a new topic in one of my forums, I click on that forum title and it takes me to a page with an empty title & text editing box. Is that what subscribed users will see too, so that they may also easily get to start new topics?
— On the Forums index page, how do we get the forum titles in that nice teal-blue color instead of black. It is taking the titles from Forums I created, and the WP text editor allows you to select text color for the content body text, but not for the title box?
Kelly Drury says
I have installed bbPress on my website. I want to allow automatic registration. I clicked on “anyone can register” and set this for “participant” level. However, my website still requires users to enter their name and email address and then wait for an email with a link to a long password, etc. This is too cumbersome. I assume this is the manual sign up. If so, how do I get rid of this? In the automatic registration, can users simply establish their own user name and password and automatically be registered?
Julie Maxwell says
Hi, I have it set up but the people that are requesting membership are not getting the emails. plus when I approve them on the backside, they are not showing up under members.
Also, do I need both bbpress and buddy press or just one? and which is the best one.
Julie
WPBeginner Support says
For emails please see our guide on how to fix WordPress not sending emails issue. bbPress and BuddyPress are both different software. They can work together too. You need to set them up based on your requirements.
Admin
Julie Maxwell says
Thank you. Which is the better software? also why am i not seeing approved members in the list?
Kimberly says
They are two different things that can run separately/independently. bbPress is a forum and BuddyPress is more like social network and discussion. You can have both or just one. I started off with both, but now I am not so sure I need BuddyPress. Can’t answer the other question….since I am just now installing it.
Brian says
Hi, is it possible to create a forum where user access is only allowed by a certain subscription level defined in the membership rules of a WordPress site. For example a visitor purchases a level 3 subscription and by doing so they now have access to what is effectively a private forum.
Hope that makes sense and thanks in advance.
Doug says
Hi,
I have followed your instructions and all went well until I published my forum (index) page. The formatting is all wrong. I don’t know if it’s due to my theme or some other reason. For your info., I am using a 3rd party child theme on a Genesis Framework. Also, I have installed the “bbPress Genesis Extend” plugin, but that hasn’t helped.
Thanks,
Doug
WPBeginner Support says
You can switch to a default WordPress theme to see if it resolves the issue. If it does, then you may want to contact your theme’s support.
Admin
Banks says
hello admin,i created the forum page succesfully,but when i post a new topic,its doesnt appear in the forum page. Any help?
WPBeginner Support says
You also need to create a forum first and then add a topic. The forum index page, displays forums not the topics.
Admin
BANKS says
okay thanks,so how can i locate the topic that i have published?
Pete Chapman says
Great forum plugin. Very easy to use, but is there anyway to lock a forum post ?
Rahul says
Why dont you have installed any GOOD comment system…………something SOCIAL
Fred says
Are there any GOOD/RELIABLE ways to allow forum users the ability to add/embed/play multimedia files…specifically images and audio? I have looked at reviews of rtMedia, but it seems very flaky.
Thanks
Fred
Katie says
Hi there! I’ve found your site to be very helpful in my discovery of which forum plugin to use. I’ve gone with BBpress…but seeing that it has issues with my template. The only issue is that you are not able to type anything to the topic text area…everywhere else you can. I know it’s my theme because when I change it to the default it works. Any ideas if this is an easy fix or not or do I need to scrap this forum plugin and move on to the next? I appreciate your time. Thank you!
WPBeginner Support says
Please contact your theme’s developers and they can help you with that.
Admin
sheriff sarafa says
i own a website, which is not with wordpress, how do integrate the forum to this website?
WPBeginner Support says
You can install WordPress on a subdomain and then use bbPress to create a forum. You can also look at other forum software like phpbb, invision board, etc.
Admin
Jackie says
Thank you so much for not presuming I would know anything about forums.
This was such an easy walkthrough and I have managed to create a forum on the site.
Thanks again
Jackie
Sallianne says
Hi there,
This was a great run down but I am looking for a way to export all my users and tidy it up. I (stupidly) loaded a whole lot of users with their first name as a username and all other users that were previously loaded use their email. I want them all to be emails and I want to email everyone (through my mail chimp) to tell them about the forum changes. Your advice or direction to your knowledge base would be appreciated.
Sallianne
WPBeginner Support says
See how to allow user login with email address.
Admin
Mohit Chauhan says
I have a question for you all-
Should i implement forum on my website or not,basically what is the need of forum? Does it increase my ranking or serps?
Waqar Ul Hassan says
Hi
I have installed the bbPress as your instructions but when I try to access the forum page it redirect me to site home page, my site already have an member area via Wishlist Members plugin. Any help will be appreciated. thanks
Friday Alex says
Nice information going on here.
What if I choose to turn the whole theme to a forum site
Tommo says
Brilliant intro to bbpress, thanks, so many tutes assume people know it all already, this was great.
Candy says
I need a members only forum for a dog group. We have installed bbpress. Can I make it so only club members can access the forum?
WPBeginner Staff says
Yes you can.
Lisa says
People have to login to the site where my forum will live. Can I make it so there does not need to be a second log in to use the forum? So basically once they are logged into the site, they can access the forum.
WPBeginner Staff says
If you are using bbPress then they will not need to login again.
Matt T says
Great Post, Thank you!. Forums are a great way to create original, unique content. I think many of us overlook the power that forums can create for a quality website.
shel says
hi i have installed this on my wordpress site which is using a sitemile auction theme. My web developer has installed Vanilla forum for another part of my website. How can i use bbpress around the vanilla forum so that they are 2 seperate forums.
Brian Kessler says
This was an awesome walk through. I had my forum up and running on my site in less than fifteen minutes. Thanks so much!
Riyadh says
Hi.. I have installed bbpress plugins.But when i am logging to admin panel it’s redirect me to my home page(logged admin bar displaying) instead of dashboard.Deactivate the plugin all is ok.
what i have to do for fixing this problem?
WPBeginner Staff says
Please see the section “Displaying bbPress Forum in the Front End of WordPress”
Siddardha Thammana says
ok, how can i add forum categories as child pages on the menu.
Siddardha Thammana says
Hi, nice tutorial and an easy beginning for me. Can you tell me how i can add a forum as a page to easily access it?
Het Creatief says
I installed this plugin and I like it. But there is another question. I want de forum only visible for logged in users. But I can’t set it in the menu. If a user is logged out, you stil can see the forum in the menu. I set all of the forum and category to private, but it is still showing in de menu. Iff you click on it, you’ll get an 404 page. I just want it visible when a user is logged in.
Is it possible?
Mark Shannon says
I use Nav Menu Roles plugin which allows you to set who can see what and you can choose to show menus to logged in users only.
melanie bund says
Hi – i already have a login form on my site, how can intergrate bbpress log in with that?
Ugoxuqu says
Straight to the point. Thanks!
Measy says
Thank you this was great! I have created a forum. What if I want to create a new Forum Category? instead of “[bbp-forum-index]’ is there another code I can enter to start a new sub-forum on my website but on the same main page?
Roy van Wensen says
http://codex.bbpress.org/shortcodes/
Vasant Sakpal says
Hi, I have created forum as per your instruction and its goes well, I am very much thankful to your work.
dario says
I created the forum that you say it in the forum prencipale with the shortcode nothing is written only this: Your Account Has the ability to post unrestricted HTML content. I think this plugin is not good for me, what can I do? thank you ..
WPBeginner Staff says
The plugin works fine and we think you have installed it successfully. Try creating a few forum posts and you will learn how to use it to meet your needs.
UNspoiled! Podcast says
Thank you so much for the detailed walk-through. Such a massive help.
Lavanya Rahul says
What an explanation. Hats off. Wish you were my Maths teacher
I’d have passed atleast 
Lavanya Rahul says
Thanks a million times
I created a forum now after wondering how to create one.
Raqs says
wow this is a great help!
installation just took a few minutes!
thank you
Jason B says
A reverse blog is so similar to a forum that I thought someone with bbPress might be able to help me make a reverse blog. I think the only difference is the number of comments is limited in a reverse blog. I would like to make it so that visitors wouldn’t have to click on a topic title to see more material, so that the page has the feel of a blog. Can anyone show me examples of this – and how to make one?
Christopher Martin says
Perfect and easy instructions. Thanks! Just added it to one of my sites.
Michael says
Man this made adding a forum to my website really painless and simple! Thanks for the advice! my website is if ya wanna check it out. Can’t wait to grow my forum!
SeeSee says
Thank you for this very simple instructions. I have been struggling with trying to create a forum for weeks now but with this I did it in less than 20 mins…on a phone no less!!!
kevin vancolen says
Hello
Thank you for this usefull information, my only concern is that users can access the WP dashboard, is there a way to let users create an account, without them having access to the WP dashboard ? maybe a seperate permissions plug in ?
I’m looking forward to your answer ,
Kind regards ,Kevin
Julie Hassett says
Wow, this article was incredible. I had no idea how simple it was to create a discussion board in WP. I was dreading it. Now it’s done and I have a simple but functional discussion board on my website!
Julie Hassett
Phil Selwood says
So pleased I found this blog. The directions, and images, above were excellent and helped a lot!
The standard registration for bppress seems to require only a username and email address.
Is it possible to add First Name – Last Name as an extra requirement?
Thanks
Phil