That can’t be so hard, can it? Since online communication with Discord has reached its peak, you can open a server and invite your friends for free. We’ll go through all the basics with you and finally talk about "more complicated" settings, like setting up bots on your Discord server.
Create the server
Once you have installed Discord, you will see your server list on the left side of the window. This should be empty of course. To create a new server, click on the plus symbol.
Now you can choose if you want to start from scratch or use a template as your starting point. It’s best to take the first option so you can continue following our guide.
Now you can set the server name, the server image and the server region. That was it. Your server is up and running. Now you can start with the server settings.
Server settings
Once you connect to a server, your Discord is divided into four columns. On the far left is the server list. If you now click on your server, there is a sublist to the right of the server list with all channels on this server, i.e. the channel list.
To the right of it is the chat window and on the far right you can see all the people who have been on the currently selected server before. At the moment only you will be standing there.
Next to your name there is a small crown. This shows you and other people that you are the server admin. On your server there is a text channel and a voice channel by default.
Overview
Right click on the picture of your server and go to server settings. The overview shows you the general settings. You can also assign an AFK channel there. At the moment you have only one voice channel and it should not be an AFK channel. The timeout time is also customizable here.
Moderation
Under the point Moderation you set how much a member has to verify himself to be active on your server at all. This is a useful spam bot protection. Set the level to the highest option. As soon as you assign a role to a member, he doesn’t have to fulfill the criterion any more anyway. More about this in a moment.
Audit log
The audit log is only important for you as admin. Suppose you accidentally delete a channel and don’t want to do all the settings again, you can restore the channel here.
Roles
One of the most important aspects of your server are roles. They make the members of your server feel like they are part of your community.
Discord roles are very interesting. They give people permissions on your server and it’s just a cool community feature. As an admin you don’t have to give yourself a role, because you are allowed to do everything on your server anyway.
But only bores do that, so create a role that is allowed to do everything and assign yourself to it. Honor restored. Below we go into a bit more detail about roles.
Integration
"Integration" is a feature for content creators on Twitch or YouTube. With this feature your subscribers and sponsors can be linked directly to a role.
Server Emojis
Own Discord Emojis are also possible. In the standard version of Discord you have 50 free places for emojis. With Discord Nitro you get even more.
Security settings of the server
If you want to open your server to more people than just your personal circle of friends, it is advisable to make certain security settings. This will help you as well as the users of your server.
Verification settings
To have a certain level of basic security on your server, you should activate this setting. Members of the server can then only post and write private messages if they have a verified email address. This setting does not apply if the new member in question has already been assigned a role.
An explicit content filter
To keep your community a safe place, you should activate a content filter. This scans your server for explicit content.
You can also avoid this by marking the server as "NS", i.e. Not Safe For Work. So users know directly that it is an adult community.
Rules of your server
Quasi the commandments of your server, which are not carved in stone, but best on the welcome channel of your Discord community server. Especially new members should be advised to follow your personal set of rules, so they won’t be banned again after only one hour.
Discord itself does not prescribe a specific set of rules. So you can let your creativity run wild. Whether your Discord server follows a strict set of rules or is a wild west is up to you.
Update or mod channels
A channel specifically for server updates or special announcements ensures that every member is always up to date on the rules. To make this possible, you should enable a Create Discord announcement channel. There you also have the possibility to officially appoint new moderators, post reminders or explain reasons for bans.
An exclusive mod channel helps your team to coordinate and share better. There you can discuss about controversial members of the server. Also rule changes are sooner or later part of the discussion.
Also interesting for you: Improve your microphone quality in Discord with these simple tricks
channel management
Right-click on an empty space in the channel list and create a new category for yourself. How you build your server is completely up to you. The categories help you to keep track of the server. In addition, new visitors will find their way around better.
Create a language channel and drag-and-drop it into your category. With a right click on the channel you can edit it. Bitrate and user limit are two pretty simple options. But under "permissions" it gets interesting again. There you can assign channel-specific permissions to roles and even to individual members on your server.
Imagine a member on your server would like to manage their own channel. This authorization you can give him. But it can only handle this one channel. The last thing you can do is to send an invitation. Right clicking on a channel and selecting the instant invite option is the fastest and easiest way to do this.
Under the invitation link is written very small in blue "Edit invitation link". By clicking on it, you can set the expiration time and the maximum number of uses that the invite link has available to it. You can also allow the invitation link to be a temporary member.
People who log in to your server through such a link will be automatically kicked after disconnection.
Create a community server
If you want to manage a whole community, you need to create a real community server Create Discord Community Server. First of all go to the server settings. Then click on your server name in the upper left corner of Discord.
Under the option Server Settings you will find the button "Activate Community". There, you’ll be taken through a series of steps once again to help you prepare your server as best you can. As long as you stick to this guide, you won’t have to do too much more.
Want to know which program is the best to chat online with your friends? Then check out our article Discord vs. Teamspeak on!
Tools and possibilities of your Discord server
Discord has added some cool features to the program over the years and has given you many ways to customize your server.
Welcome screen
The first impression is always the most important. Create an extra text channel, just for people who come to your server for the first time. In most cases there are a few lines written there to greet you. Do yourself a favor and do NOT write your server rules in the welcome channel, but refer to the rules channel.
The last thing you want is for new visitors to be directly hit by a wall of text. Briefly describe your server and point out important channels that a brand new user should visit before using the server to its full potential.
Roles
On a private server, roles are a fun thing to do, and you can use them to prank your friends. However, on large community servers it is important that not every member can create wild servers and channels.
An assigned role can be changed at any time and exempts a member from maintaining the security level you selected in the server-wide settings.
Any Role at Discord visually differs from other roles only in its color. Discord gives you some colors to choose from. But you can also enter a custom color code.
You can also assign multiple roles to members. You will then use the color of the role with the most permissions.
It’s really surprisingly easy to set up a bot on your Discord server. We have written about the topic "Discord Music Bot"I’ve written a step-by-step guide on how to set up a music bot on Discord.
Discord has an extra website just for bots. You can find them here: https://discordbots.org/
What is the use of a bot?
A Discord bot is z.B. for the administration of a large server of your Twitch Community quite helpful. You can interact with your community through it beautifully.
Besides simple music bots, some also have administrative abilities. So you can just type in the chat if you want to ban someone, assign them a role or just play them a song. This is much faster than scrolling through an everlasting list of users.
How to install a bot
You go to the page linked by us and choose a bot that you like. On "View" you can have a look at the functions of the bot before you install it. With the "Invite"-Button you get it on your server. It’s best to give it all the rights that are requested during the installation process. Otherwise it can come to problems with the commands.
The commands are different for each bot and there is no universal guide for them. But the programmers write the bot as simple and direct as possible. Commands like "!ban" or "!mute" you will probably find on many bots.
The bot will show up in the member list as a normal server visitor after installation. We have our Top 10 Discord Bots summarized for you in a clearly arranged list.
Nitro
Discord Nitro is the premium version of Discord. You can use it to support the developers, get various benefits for your personal prestige urge, and do pretty much anything in better quality.
Old Message:
You get access to games worth over 1.000$. Under this link you will find the complete library. As long as your subscription is active, you can start these games at any time via Discord. By the way, you can also use Discord without Nitro as a launcher. But you need the other launchers anyway.
Update to the Nitro game library:
The Nitro game library is unfortunately no longer available to Nitro users. Games purchased through the service remain yours forever, of course.
Either Nitro costs $9.99 a month or $99.99 a year if you buy it as an annual subscription. Among other things, you can personalize your Discord tag, upload larger images and use your personalized emojis on any server.
There is also a slimmed down purchase version with Nitro Classic. This variant has everything that the normal Nitro has, only the games are not included. But the subscription is also 50% cheaper in both versions, i.e. $4.99 per month and $49.99 per year.
Sort channels correctly
Overview is half the battle on a big server. With a proper category sorting you facilitate the navigation on your server immensely. Sort your server categories best by importance from top to bottom. At the top should be your welcome channel.
Then the rule channel and the role distribution. Below you could list your admin and moderator channels. At last there are channels for the new members of the server. Here a text channel for the team search only would look good.
Discovery
With Discord Discovery you can place your community server directly in Discord’s in-house server community and you don’t need to actively promote it anymore. Currently only servers that are featured by Discord itself are shown in Discovery.
So communities with more than 10.000 members meant. For the beginning it is anyway better to build up your server only by recommendations and the invitation link on your Twitch or YouTube channel.
This creates a community that is much closer and has more in common.