If you want to add a quality forum to your existing affiliate site to build an active community and support your business then starting a forum with vBulletin is likely the best available solution.
Even though the platform itself is premium, with prices starting at $249, so it’s not what most people would call cheap, many webmasters have chosen it as their main system. And that’s despite the fact that there’s a lot of free forum platforms out there.
However, like with every good software, you can make it even more functional and powerful with the use of various plugins.
Here’s a list of the top 6 vBulletin plugins and add-ons that every affiliate should consider getting.
1. vBSEO
(http://www.vbsocial.com/vbseo)
You surely don’t need any convincing why SEO is an important part of every affiliate business…
Just like with your main WordPress site, having some SEO functionality on your forum as well will improve your search engine visibility and enable you to have some competitive terms ranked.
Google is now aware of the searcher’s intent when querying a specific term. Therefore, if the query is an information query (one someone uses when in search for information), Google can rank forum sites over other sites that appear to be traditional and commercial publications.