I started a discussion forum, with recipes and news articles relating to my niche, if I was to creat a blog with the same recipes and news articles, linking back to my site, woudl that help, or would the dupe content be bad for my site in the long run?
I like the blog idea but I would keep it unique content. Maybe doing something like having the recipe on your main site and different ways to spice up that recipe that you have tried yourself on your blog, something like adding a touch of Tabasco to a dish.
My niche is a specific sort of recipe, you can't really change it or spice it up, so that wouldn't work. What if I just typed up the recipe differently? Like how it was laid out, re-order the ingredients, re-type the cooking instructions?
You can have both. Why not use the blog for the recipes and then the forum for a discussion on those recipes? Perhaps the forum can also be used for people who want to put up their own versions of the ones you blog about.
Then the poeple who visit my forum would have to go to ANOTHER site to see the recipe, I want to keep the recipe in the post.
You could. Or have the blog and the forum as separate parts of the main site, with some other content on the home page (which in turn would be linked to an about page as well as a page for people to contact you).
Well, if you go the home page route, you could use it to feature recent blog entries and forum discussions, as ewll as the latest hot topic in the forum...
I dont think having a blog and forum part of the same domain will help you. They will give you more internal links but you need external ones. I would spin the rss feed you use to pull content off of the forum and then post it on the blog
Which, depending on how you do it, can GET those external links. Remember, great releveant content drives natural quality links. You need to get them by having great content.
I would definitely add a blog but make sure you have the time and resources to go all the way through with it. Here's a checklist: keyword research blog post strategy based on keyword research blog posts--shoot fro AUTHORITY! internal linking external linking to relevant and on topic partner blogs social bookmarking blog directory submissions directory submissions LINK BUILDING, LINK BUILDING, LINK BUILDING
having a blog it a good move but you must also have an original content, having copied just ignored by Google, having the same content....
yep keep unique content on your blog as Google penalises duplication. Here's a basic article for beginners on blogging and link building http://www.friendsandmoney.co.uk/make-money-online-blogging.html
Definately. A blog is a great way of padding out sites that are pretty thin on good content. May sure that the articles you're adding are unique and try to keep your postings on topic. Make sure that the blog design has some strong call to actions to filter people through to the main site. As well as padding out your content and increasing the number of long-tail search engine visitors that you're getting you can also use it as an oppurtunity to develop your internal links - these can be just as importnat as your external links.
From my point of view a blog is a websites best marketing asset available today. It can be used to drive traffic, build links, and develop trust. Even if all it did was create fresh content it would be useful.