A few newbie questions

Wordpress is easier now. 10 years ago, perhaps, installing Wordpress could be a minor hassle. Nowadays, you simply get hosting, login to cPanel, and you can install Wordpress at the click of a few buttons.

As far as your vBulletin forum goes: this is an entirely separate installation and it'll work outside of Wordpress. You can use BBPress, instead, a forum plugin provided by Wordpress, but I wouldn't recommend it. It's fine initially, but further down the line you'll regret it. I'd recommend vBulletin (or something equally robust) because it's future-safe; in other words, the bigger your forum gets, the more robust a forum you need, so it's best to get it from the outset instead of transfering databases in the future.

All of which sounds rather easy, but it truly isn't. The kind of business you're talking about is an advanced development. It can be setup in a simple manner, but I really wouldn't give that a thumbs-up. You could whack up a basic blog, toss up BBPress, and hurl in your 6,000 words of content. But, if I'm any judge of a newbie (no offense), it'll fail. In my earlier post, I offered the type of setup I'd recommend. Nutshell: viral blog + vBulletin. I use the same setup myself. What you need to do, though, is learn the elements that will help you setup, operate, and grow that model. I didn't have time to do that in my post. If you're able to, then, consider that setup (or any others) and, at the same time, learn what goes into pulling them off; I'd explain here but it would take me months.

Last bit of advice (before I nip off for a wee). Almost every newcomer arrives in IM Land and thinks: if I build it, they will come. Take this next bit to heart, Ben: unless you learn the ropes, it won't happen. What will happen is this: you'll devote months of your life to a project that never takes off and then you'll walk away from IM Land, never to return. I can't explain how to prevent this from happening in a single post, but I can give you some good advice. Remember, just because you love your business, that doesn't mean other people will share that love. It's 2017. We have Youtube. We have Kim Kardashian showing off her buttocks on IG. We have streaming, gaming, VR. And to cap it all off: since the dawn of time, people have cared more about their own passions than any others. What you need to do, Ben, is figure out a reason to MAKE them come. If possible - many reasons. And understand, it needs to be something different. If you push out a white noise business, as the majority do, you have almost no chance of real success. You can make a white noise squeeze, hurl traffic, earn some money. But to try and avoid failure (and maximize income potential) you need to shoot for different. But not just different for the sake of it. Your business needs to solve core audience problems AND be different. It isn't easy.

- Tom

Wordpress.org .. yes. It's a CMS platform. You need to have your hosting & domain bought from any vendors. Once you've got them, you need to install Wordpress through the Cpanel from hosting company.
If you want to skip all that .. jst go to Wordpress.com to create something faster with less customization possibilities. But you would end up with something like .... yourdomain.wordpress.com which may not be as good as yourdomain.com

When it comes to choosing a host, you'll get a lot of conflicting opinions in this forum. People tend to recommend whatever they are using, which might not always be the best solution for you.

I suggest you take a look at this forum - Web Hosting Talk - The largest, most influential web hosting community on the Internet You'll get recommendations based on your budget and needs. As a minimum I'd recommend hosting that includes cPanel. It makes it easy to manage the technical stuff, and super easy to move your site if you ever need to switch hosts!

Grab your domain from a registrar. I prefer Godaddy, but if you want free WHOIS, I think Namecheap offer it. They used to; just check.

vBulletin (the forum WF is using) can either be purchased or rented. Based on your budget, go with the latter (their cloud package).

You can configure vBull' to operate in a few different ways. In your case, I'd recommend you setup free registrations. So you make all forums free access for registered members (like much of WF here).

Before you do any of this, though, plan out your venture. And, seriously, think of it like a business. With or without monetization, treating it like a business will give you necessary focus.

With your £250 budget in mind, I'd actually just consider a blog for now. Keep things simple; low cost. Collect your audience with a newsletter and your social pages and accounts.

Last tip: learn your way around viral marketing and SEO. They compliment each other. And, aside from SEO, just learn 1 traffic-generation method for now. Learn it, master it, then learn another.

A common newbie mistake is putting your heart and soul into delivering great content - that no one ever reads. If people can't find it? They can't enjoy it.

- Tom