Blog VS Forum

[bwackhatter]

very hard to get a forum going. prob need a bunch of seeds.

 

[Alexx11]

Lots of useful information in this thread!! If you decide to go for forums over blogs, what would be the easiest way of promoting a forum from the beginning?

 

[Mises]

Forums are great but as has been said above the hardest part by far is getting them off the ground. Once you manage to get a decent user base though, it is awesome. CPC for Adsense is lower than normal sites, sure, but the earning potential is still there. I don't even show ads to my registered members, instead offering no ads as an incentive for signing up as I find it more worth it to increase my registration conversions that way at the cost of losing some ad-blind potential ad clickers. Worth it in my opinion.

 

[Gollie]

Forums are great but as has been said above the hardest part by far is getting them off the ground. Once you manage to get a decent user base though, it is awesome. CPC for Adsense is lower than normal sites, sure, but the earning potential is still there. I don't even show ads to my registered members, instead offering no ads as an incentive for signing up as I find it more worth it to increase my registration conversions that way at the cost of losing some ad-blind potential ad clickers. Worth it in my opinion.

What methods do you use to monetize the forum if the member (those that hopefully frequent the site) don't see ads? Weekly newsletter perhaps?

 

[junter]

Would this work? These aren't unique content...

Forums are the #1 easiest thing to grow.

[...]
-Make their tweets auto-post to your forum via RSS.

 

[mafuz62]

A forum was once called a bulletin board due to the manner in which users say what they say. Each user?s comment can be placed in the thread that he wants it in and the thread appears to be a conversation.

[FONT=&quot]Forums are usually niche specific so that likeminded people gather around the forums that they are most drawn to. There are forums that talk about computer technology, about motorcycles, even pets. There is probably a forum for every niche that there is. A forum needs to have a moderator who would be responsible for keeping the peace and ensuring that everyone follows the rules; especially because forums can often spark verbal fights called flame wars due to the very heated arguments.[/FONT]

 

[markhenry121]

Both are best according to me, my view Forum is best of increase traffic with Signature link is best.
Main purpose using forum is Creates a discussion on a particular topic by allowing commenting of posts.
More unfocused - many contributors contributing user-generated topics (a wider variety of content) with differing viewpoints. Forums tend to create much more content, and will pull in traffic on topics or phrases that never occurred to you.

 

[Mises]

What methods do you use to monetize the forum if the member (those that hopefully frequent the site) don't see ads? Weekly newsletter perhaps?

I use Adsense and Amazon. I still get a lot of traffic who aren't members as any forum will, so it works.

 

[VinBed]

If you are new to this as you said, you should start with a blog. Once you have a good amount of traffic, start a forum and invite your visitors to join and post in it. You will need a few good moderators to constantly monitor your forum to start. Nothing is worse than posting in a forum and never getting an answer.

Answer questions in a timely manner and you can for sure get your forum off the ground...expect to be dedicated though.

As this guy said, you could definitely do both. I'd start with the blog, that'll generate more traffic right off the bat. The forum will be a little weak until you get a steady stream of visitors.

 

[jhonson5]

Forum is best for increasing traffic after you have healthy visitors in your forum. People like to discuss about their problems and get solutions. From that point of view Forum is comparatively better than blog.

 

[freshjiive]

I have done what you guys suggested i added a blog to the forum today, gonna be adding content to it soon. Still trying to figure out how to optimize the phpBB part the best for SEO.

 

[chochoney]

i like wordpress!

 

[bmoredcg]

You control the content in the blog vs you don't know what people will post in the forum. So you do have to monitor them closely to make sure to take down illegal content.

 

[thecat172]

Blog has a bigger upside in my opinion, forum gets too bogged down in drama, more of a headache

 

[uniquecontent]

Blog is for posting lots of content regarding any niche or may be different niches, on the other hand forum is for users. They find information about variety of things, they post new things and they interact with other members regarding different subjects.