.....quick question from a boob...errrr...noob: how much content should I have created when I first launch a site? Let's say content for my site contains both text and images......subject is food/cooking. I would like to have both information pages, as well as a forum. Should I work on filling up the forum with posts before making it public so I don't have a "ghost board"? And yes, I realize that everything is relative and there is no concrete answer, but if an educated somebody could throw out an educated guess, i'd much appreciate it. Muchos gracias.
Have you thought about giving your readers an option to post a comment underneath your articles, or whatever??? Like a blog, but not one. The reason I say this is because since most users out there do not like boards, it can be really tough to start one. In addition, if you don't have a lot, I mean A LOT of visitors coming to a board, like DigitalPoint, you will not make that much money. But, if you have a cool content site, combined with users being able to post their thoughts.... Your readers will read your content AND other readers' comments. Anyway, whatever you choose to go with, good luck.
Thanks PR for for advice. I guess I assumed that since I love forums, EVERYBODY loves forums. Caught trying to make people live in my world yet again. : ) I have seen blog comments and that's a great idea. At some point I really hope to get enough traffic to make a forum worthwhile, but in the meantime your idea is a great compromise. Respect, mon!!
How much content? I'd say 20-30 articles is a good start. But you can start with 20 if you work it well. interspire is article content software that allows comments and indexes pretty well. I would not start a forum until you have an audience. They are very hard to get started. And they can indeed make money. How depends on the subject and the business model. They can also serve as promotion for a sales portion of a website. I started a forum http://coloreddiamond.info for a client. However, we did not start it until we had a good stream of traffic. When we announced the opening of the forum we had 100 members within the hour and had thousands of page loads the first day. So an active membership community is important. I'd suggest taking a look at the target market document on my website. It's free and can help you get started defining your market. Then you get an idea of how you create a website that will cater to a market which is the key to a successful site. http://webpreppro.com/freestuff.shtml
I don't think there is an optimum number of content pages before going live. As long as you have 5-6 good pages/articles posted, I would go live to get the traffic flow started. Keep adding new articles/content to grow the site and keep people coming back for more. I would hold off on the forum at first just because the amount of work a forum takes. Might be better to go with Perry's advice and add a forum if the participation level seems to warrant it. Seems like you have enough work to do with adding content right now without adding moderating a forum.