I have seen a lot of threads on DP where people ask what would be better to start, a blog or a forum. Most of the members reply saying that a blog is better, and I don't understand why. Here is my theory (and I may be totally wrong with this one) about why a forum would be a much better idea: 1. Your users create the content for you. There is no need for you to update blog posts over and over, you just get a good amount of users who post frequently, and they basically create your content for you. 2. More and more pages are created constantly, again without you really needing to do anything if you get enough members, therefore allowing more pages to get indexed and your site to raise higher on Google and such. 3. It is a much more user-interactive style of a site than a blog. The web is more about users interacting with websites these days, and some users would rather do something than read something. Therefore, posting on forums would draw more users interests, helping you out with points 1 and 2. Is my theory incorrect in some way, and am I missing something big here?
yes everything you said is right, but how to find community for your forum, that is a hard part. And usual frequent forum visitors won't click your ads (if you are using PPC)
Yes it is a bad idea. If you are looking to make money online forums would be the last way to go, unless you have people to assist, money to promote and time to wait (this could be years).
For forums it is kinda hard to organize(e.g. rules) as you can see here, people just cant read the rules and moderation is needed all the time.A forum may take months to see a little constant traffic.
Well if you marketed it right and chose a strong niche, I think it's easily possible to start off with 2-3 registrations / day. If you used CPM advertising, the amount of page refreshes and ad views would be pretty large. After a while you would be getting not only more members (referred from regular forum users), but also members who can find you through search engines. If a forum really is a bad way to go, what makes blogging so much better? Not trying to knock either one, just that having to keep up with posts and such seems so much more tedious.
I created a forum about 6 months back with the same thoughts as you had and mine is in a reasonably strong niche. It is a lot of work to get members to join, post and contribute, let alone refer others to it. You need to generate a lot of content yourself, even more so than a blog, if there is no content to start with, members are not going to stay, or contribute to an empty forum. For the first 2-3 months I used paid posters and a number of dummy accounts and promoted my forum heavily, as well as had 2-3 people helping me out. The forum is slowly growing, with about 100 members, 30 or so which are active.. I make maybe $1-2 a week from it due to PPC advertising, but my idea wasnt to make money from the forum, so that is not my focus. I am still very active in promoting it with monthly newsletters, incentives for posting and participating as well as competitions; My goal is to have 500 members within the next 6 months. I think if you focus on getting members first, generating good quality content second, then making money 3rd.. you will be better seated. Also, make sure you chose a niche you enjoy and know enough about or want to learn about.. if you choose something that you think you should chose just because you think it will make you rich.. you will fail.
On a blog you are in complete control over what is happening. Also you don't have to worry much about the technical things. On a forum - you always need to keep an eye on it. You need moderators. You need to ensure discipline. Also, for a forum, I recommend developing a specific and unique engine. Usually forums lack a lot from a SEO point of view.
Problems with forums: - Resource intensive (e.g: hosting demands) - Time consuming (e.g: management / rules) - Can easily piss users off, so that they'll not return - Users are often too engaged in content to notice advertisements - More limited where you can place advertisements - Lower CPM, as you have a lot of page views just because people have to login and get to categories, but doesn't mean you'll make more money.
Well I see what you guys are saying. I'll take it from you guys, since you seem to know a lot. Your ideas make sense anyways, I was just wondering why forums were such a bad idea.
Do you mind me asking what sort of incentives for posting you offer? Also, are you sending your newsletter out to those people who have signed up for the forum? Or have you obtained a mailing list from another website that you run? Thanks alot,
totally great.for those who want to start a forum. find a good niche. and try not to mix other topics with each other.
You're right, but forums: a. Take much more bandwidth b. Take much more disk space once it grows c. Take too much time and effort to maintain and manage once it grows a bit d. Due to the amount of returning visitors, the issue of ad blindness becomes big. For example, here in DP, how many times you notice there is an ad in between the posts? Told ya... c. Blogs make more money because everyone is looking for your opinion, so affiliate programs and advertisements work a tad better.
I think forum will give more profits than a blog, but you need time for promotion. So it's like - Blog - more money at the begin, forum - more and more money after it's started so you will reach the blog profits and after it can work for you without any update. It's like long time term investing.
If you have lot of time you can put on the forum, go for it. Otherwise blog would be the best choice. I have just started a forum, I can see what others said here are very very true
I started with a forum about 10 months ago. Now I have 2200 members and 40000 posts . I can't say that it was too difficult. You need to work hard at the start but after 2 months you won't need to work that hard. The only problem would be PPC. On about 5 months i did ONLY 300$. Wich is a little sum. I have around 650 visitors a day.
Thanks for this post, I was wondering the same stuff. I was actually considering just buying an established forum, but I guess I didn't really realize that people just don't click on ads very often. I still think in certain profitable niches it could be pretty solid, but its still probably more difficult than niche blogs.
Well yeah, you say the truth, I don't understand either... But, blogs are easier to read in google than forums (for me I think) like blogs is mostly one big thing and not a discussion.. forums are discussions But I think forum is better too mate