Do you suppose that you should have a forum on your blog?

[GordonJ]

I have noticed that there are lots of bloggers who have forum on their blog. I think that forum is not so important for a blog. It may decrease the activity of the main blog. may be my thought is wrong !! However, let me know your opinion. What do you think? Should you have a forum beside your main blog? if yes or no than why you think so?

 

[kathyclark_sams]

I don't think so its a better idea as it ruin the meaning of perfect blogging. Forums needs different platform and if you include forums on blog, there will be problem like space, need more users & contents daily, you need extra integrated tools for forum on blogs etc. Let it be both apart.

 

[Rob Whisonant]

If a niche is discussion oriented or the people in the niche share a lot of information.... Then adding a forum to a medium to high traffic blog is a great idea. Creates more user engagement and more reasons for readers to return to the blog and forum more often.

 

[contentranked]

I think adding a forum to a site would be a great idea. Providing you have something unique to offer than other forums and the information is helpful to users.

But, I know that Neil Patel had a forum and got rid of it because it wasn't practical and he didn't see much difference in the traffic from that and his regular posts.

I still think it's a great idea to build more engagement.

 

[SEOPub]

SEOPub

Neil's problem wasn't traffic so much as quality. If you ever visited the forum, the problem was low quality posters. Most of the people that follow him are not the type that are going to do much to build a forum. Basically, they are 99% newbs. And that is what the forum was. It was like Warrior Forum is today, but 100 times worse.

There was no value in it, so the traffic never grew.

 

[vishwa]

Forum is indeed a great option for every blogger and webmasters. It will give some extra advantage to your blog and site. Forum is a place where we can discuss on different topics and many people and contribute to it. So, Viewing the blog and forum from the same eye is not factual. A forum is completely different from blog.

 

[TheRealRazzy]

I guess it really depends on how much traffic your blog is getting.

If you have 10 people who regularly comment on your blog posts, then you probably don't need a foru.

If you have 1,000+ members flooding your blog posts with comments, then you probably should look into integrating a forum so they can take their conversations there instead of adding a couple hundred comments to each of you blog posts.

 

[Claire_Anderson]

I think it is a great idea to add a forum in a website. You can use it to drive huge amount of traffic to the website. But you also need time to mange and moderate a forum because forum requires regular moderating. Following are some of the benefits of using a forum on your website:

1. You can convert traffic into leads
2. You can build relationships with the potential customers
3. You can also share the contents with the social media channels to promote your website
4. You can use it to produce long term results
5. You can ask ideas from the customers to improve your website and products

 

[Dewlance]

I have a forum, 1 forum with my blog and have a one dedicated forum.

Benefit from forum I am getting:
- Google traffic.
- Many of post thread listed on #10 in google.
- Many of user convert into customer.
- Its a really attractive for visitors because of everyone want to join a good community forum.
- I can post thread which is less than 500 word without spending to much time, I can express my thoughts but on blog I have to write at lest 1000 - 1500 word article.

 

[KleponPink]

Hi,
I actually prefer not to have forum on my blog. I'll focus on the blog and the discussions on the comment section.
But I think it depends on what kind of blog you have.

 

[QueenMaa]

Having a forum on your blog will be good if you want to have more ways for people to communicate. It's great for asking questions getting people together. However, I am seeing more people use Facebook groups. That seems to be getting more popular. It's always good to have a place for discussion.

 

[HostXNow]

I launched a blog and forum for our site many years ago, but I closed it due to inactivity, yet if I search "web hosting forum", web hosting forums" or "web hosting blog" we rank on 4th page or so for those terms yet there is not even much content for them.

I think it's good to have them but only if they're both going to be used, otherwise in our case, potential customers may see a dead forum and think the same about the company itself which isn't good as first impressions count and all that.

But yes, if they're going to be used properly then yes, definitely have them.

 

[Ron Killian]

I would think REAL hard before adding a forum. Only because they can be so time consuming and sadly the biggest targets for spammers. Just ask the mod here how many posts they delete every day. How much spam comes in on a daily basis. Not only the spam, but the real crappy replies that can make the forum look low quality and and keep good users from joining or hanging around.

Not trying to be negative, but saying they can take so much time to keep up.

With blog comments, you can pretty much stop spam, not so easy with a forum.

 

[ulterios]

I don't think that having a forum on a blog is such a good idea for most blogs. Many people think that they need one and don't fully realize what it takes to make a forum successful or exactly how much work most forums require.

Now, I think that having a blog on your forum is a much better idea. Not that I think it's a great idea but a better one than having a forum on a blog.

 

[Sam]

If you are a single moderator on your site and forum, it would be taking more time to handle all of your site. Just make sure is your blog need a forum session. I think you should focus on your SEO and content first to have you monetization effective. After earning good revenue you may emply some persons to help you in forum moderation.

 

[Jen]

I'm no expert at this but from checking out many blogs lately and seeing some forums on some of them it doesn't seem that they are very active so it might not be the best idea to have one. If the forum part looks very inactive then it might keep people from wanting to post anything in them.

 

[kim16]

If you're technically not into forums and engagement/traffic stuffs, then I suggest that you stick to blogging. I for myself is a travel blogger, so I dedicate most of my time into it. Although yes, from time to time, I try to post with permission on Facebook groups with the same niche as mine.