creating your own forum

Do you think that by creating your own forum, that this would drive visitors to your site?

 

It might. If your forum has interesting topics and if search engines index your pages and bring you search traffic.

 

Yes, adding a forum might help in getting traffic to your site but the key to it is the content of the forum and the no. of pages of the forum indexed by the SEs.

 

If you do decide to get a forum on your site, id get a few paid posters to help get the ball rolling. No one likes an empty forum. It scares users away. So I would make a few topics here and there to make it not look so empty (also this is what your paid posters will do). New users don’t like to start threads on new forum because the feel intimidated. Don't be. I’ve had several successful forums in the past and from exp. I know that users don't like posting on forums with small amounts of existing topics, for some reason they don’t like making new ones. Enjoy.

You can pay them like 10cents per post or something.

Just and idea though.

 

A forum seems like a good way to generate free or low-cost content, but in reality building a successful forum is most often an intense amount of work.

 

It all depends on why you want to add the forum. If you just want to drive traffic, there are probably much easier ways.

If you want to add value and get feedback from your visitors, a forum is a great tool. But it requires a lot of work and initial investment before you will get anything out of it.

 

yes building forums is actually extremely difficult. I have one now thats been up since Feb and has around a total of 18118 articles and 381 registered users, and approx. 97.8 posts per day. Another forum I helped build up and develop had around 1300 users and it was around for around 6+ years. It does take time and lots of effort to make a good forum. Both of these forums were local sites to my state and had very good local backing and support.

 

Forums are a way to keep your visitors loyal to your website...and yes, building one big forum is a huge task..i used to have one educational forum going sometime back...not very successful though, as it was a only-forums website.

 

Forums are a good way to bring your visitors back. If you don't have time/inspiration to add fresh content to your main site, a forum may solve the problem. The visitors will find something new at each visit so they will keep visiting the site... but the quality of the posts is also very important (as the quality of anything...)

 

i want to get my own, but i need some help

 

first decide what script you want to use, then read the Help Manual from their homepage

 

yes it does,
i am seeing some traffic at my board just launched , it surely gets lot of traffic, since the discussions answer questions for information seekers

 

One way I see in getting traffic is if you are the owner of a related Y!groups community..you can easily convert those members to your forum visitors...

 

Manage a forum is too much difficult than drive webtraffic to anywebsite. So, maybe is not the best alternative.

 

having a forum on a website that does not naturally facilitate discussion is probably not the best idea

 

Definitely!
Don't expect it to be easy though, but if you have a legit forum with great activity and a lot of comments it will definitely drive great, quality traffic.
The hard work would definitely pay off, but you have to remain dedicated to your forum.

 

Getting a forum to work takes a lot of work and dedication. Initially, you have to be the main poster offering useful advice and responding to new threads/posts. Obviously, if you don't have a thorough understanding and passion for the main topic of your forum, it's not going to work. Having friends and new members who are equally passionate assist you during the growing stages is also crucial. It may seem odd if you're the only one posting most of the time.

 

Not a good idea of driving traffic through forums. It's difficult to manage the forum, try some other way to drive traffic like facebook, Instagram, Twitter, etc.