How to add a forum in Blogger

Google owned Blogger has become an important tool for web publishing. Blogger is easy to learn, customize and is being  preferred as a  free alternative to professional blogger platforms like WordPress.  Blogger users don’t need to care about the hosting configuration, subscription charges and other associated problems. However, any blogger  user has only the option to customize the front end, they are not allowed to install server side web scripts and application to their blogspot or custom domain. This would  limit the Blogger users from installing forums, and other useful applications.

The user generated content in forums is free and is an asset. We can create an active community of returning visitors with a little effort and promotion of the forum. There is no option to install forum scripts like phpBB, VBulletin, etc. in Blogger. However, we can use JavaScript to embed and call external forum services in Blogger pages. Here we have two methods add a forum in Blogger blogspot blogs.

Add a simple forum in Blogger with Nabble:

Nabble forum for Blogger

Creating a Blogger forum with Nabble is very easy. Nabble is free and it provides a wide variety of options including custom domain name. Go to this link, enter the required forum name, description and click on create a forum. Now it will take you to the forum page, which is something like as shown above. Before everything, verify the ownership of the forum using the link shown at the top right side. After that click on embedding options, and copy the JavaScript code to a newly created Blogger page to complete the process. Now users can register and participate in your forum.

Features of Nabble forum of Blogger blogspot blogs.

Custom domain: If you are a blogger custom domain user, you can create a a sub domain to include your Nabble forum. Just point the name servers of the domain to Nabble server and include it in the settings.
Sub-forums.
Option for new user registration.
Custom CSS, fonts and other design options.

Embed a social forum in Blogger using Talki:

Talki forum for Blogger

Talki is much more professional forum script, when compared with Nabble. Users from social websites like Twitter, Facebook, and email services like Google, Yahoo can easily sign-in the forum without out creating a new account . However, the free version of Talki has some limitations on the number of posts displayed and sub-forums. The embedding process is similar to that, we used in the case of Nabble.