Does having a forum generate traffic? - The UK Business Forum

mdoherty · #1 (**permalink**) 18-03-2009, 03:39 PM

We have a forum on our site but with very few visitors ever using it. Is investing time and effort into a forum worth the return? I hear it can take years to establish.

**Mark** · #2 (**permalink**) 18-03-2009, 04:12 PM

It certainly does take a long time and a great deal of effort. We're lucky (UKBL™) in that I personally have a global 'reach' of some 300+ networks I can use for promotion and backlinks. Yet, I still find it 'difficult' to promote! Ecademy is largely a lost cause as I think the vast majority of the users there have their heads in the sand. There's really only one place to promote forums.

Other forums.

In answer to your question about traffic; they certainly do generate it but getting a forum going is the hardest part.

paultgreen · #3 (**permalink**) 27-03-2009, 04:48 PM

A forum will generate traffic if it's good, useful, and relevant... and set up in the right way that it's search engine friendly. The trouble I've found on forums in the past is that it only takes one bitchy customer to turn it in to a slur campaign - we had one a couple of years ago when the company I worked for had an online support forum - before you know it, one user who had a gripe because we wouldn't support him until he apologised to a member of staff (he told the support call handler that she's a stupid c*nt and a woman couldn't know about IT) - after he refused to apologise, he then went on our forum slagging off everything about the company, and all of a sudden every customer complaint from "My hard drive only shows 7.5Gb and it should be 8Gb" to "The invoice arrived a day early this month, I think they're desperately trying to claw money in"... We weren't as prominent on the net as companies are today, and Google was nowhere near as aggressive as it is today, but nowadays i imagine a company could come to serious PR harm.

**Gorgeous Office** · #4 (**permalink**) 02-04-2009, 05:36 PM

Hi,

I'm just about to begin managing a mini-forum on our website.

There's a really great reference book I've been reading called Managing Online Forums by Patrick O'Keefe.

The website: www.managingonlineforums.com

I agree with paultgreen - it's got to be relevant but also interesting and up-to-date. People will never use it if the last post was written 3 months before.

I guess it depends if you have the time to commit to it.

Kim

Patrick · #5 (**permalink**) 03-04-2009, 12:08 AM

Hello,

Thanks so much for mentioning my book, Kim.

I really appreciate it, and the kind words mean a lot to me.

Forums are definitely a commitment of time. You can't launch a forum and then leave it, it's a regular thing you have to invest into. They aren't for everyone (depends on various factors), but they can be beneficial to businesses and others looking to generate traffic, create greater loyalty, etc. It really depends on what you want to do and what time you have available to commit. But, suffice to say, yes, it is hard work.

I would caution against using other forums to promote your own, as a general practice. Sure, signature links (if the site allows them) are OK, but mentioning your site in posts, PMs, etc. is generally a no no as it'll tarnish your reputation. As a community administrator, I try to treat people as I'd like to be treated - you probably don't want others coming to your forums and using it in that fashion, so that's a good way to look at how you yourself should act. (Of course, on the flip side, if you let people do it on your site, don't assume it's OK elsewhere).

I hope that this helps.

Thanks,

Patrick

**OldWelshGuy** · #6 (**permalink**) 03-04-2009, 08:39 AM

I have been managing/admin/moderating/using forums for a long time now, and they are VERY demanding.

Getting a forum going is a funny process, it can be extremely difficult in more ways than one. One thing I would say is make sure you have some friends you can call on to help you out if it explodes, because trying to run a forum that has ANY form of controvercial content (which is pretty much everythign) is time consuming and often heart breaking.

I have a busy rugby forum, Initially I set it up for around 10 of us to have some place we could go and chat about rugby. It was a completely closed forum with nothing other than the basic front page viewable, and people only got in by invite and approval of everyone else (it was like that after the rugby world cup when the BBC opened up our Welsh rugby message board to all the nations, it was HELL on earth). My forum became known as 'the island'

Anyhow after a year or so I figured that the RWC fever was now past and that we could open the foum up to new members should they wish to join. Word got around quickly, and people joined.

We now have a little under 700,000 posts and during this years 6nations in February, we got over 2.5 million page views.

is it tough to run? Well put it this way, Weekends everyone goes out, gets bladdered, comes home and goes online Half of the members will have watched their teams win, half lose

But I love it, I make no money from it, have no advertising on it, and it eats bandwidth. Worth every penny though!

So to answer your question, decide what you want OUT of a forum before going in, or else it can suck the life out of you.

**Gorgeous Office** · #7 (**permalink**) 03-04-2009, 12:30 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Patrick

Thanks so much for mentioning my book, Kim.

I really appreciate it, and the kind words mean a lot to me.

It's my pleasure Patrick. It's been a great resource so far and will probably become my bible.

Wish me luck
Kim

Patrick · #8 (**permalink**) 03-04-2009, 02:21 PM

Thanks.

Good luck!

Patrick

Pimlico · #9 (**permalink**) 06-04-2009, 11:14 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Patrick

I would caution against using other forums to promote your own, as a general practice. Sure, signature links (if the site allows them) are OK, but mentioning your site in posts, PMs, etc. is generally a no no as it'll tarnish your reputation.

You didn't mention that it won't work either. Most readers recognise brainless self promotion when they see it, & further - they resent having it thrust down their throat as much as the Forum owner.

OTOH intelligent contributions with links (not even subtle ones) works well - I've clicked on 2 links whilst reading this thread!

Patrick · #10 (**permalink**) 06-04-2009, 02:55 PM

That's true, as well. I agree. If people enjoy a community and you promote a similar one to it, they may resent it as a matter of loyalty, as well.

Patrick

paultgreen · #11 (**permalink**) 06-04-2009, 02:59 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Patrick

That's true, as well. I agree. If people enjoy a community and you promote a similar one to it, they may resent it as a matter of loyalty, as well.

Patrick

Can't agree more - I participate in Working the Doors - Home of Front Line Security quite a lot, and also Close Protection Forum, but people (me included) don't half get defensive when one mentions the other

**OldWelshGuy** · #12 (**permalink**) 06-04-2009, 03:05 PM

If anyone comes onto my rugby forum and promotes another forum, they get thrown out immediately (unless it is a genuine link that is relevant to the thread they are posting in (even if the link is to their own forum). eg. we could be discussing a match between the Scarlets and Glasgow for example, and the owner of scarletfever could come onto the forum and post 'if you think you lot are unhappy look at this bunch' link to his forum where they are discussing the same thing. No issue with that at all.

HOWEVER: If they started a thread along the lines of 'look at this lot' link to his forum, then he would get a warning and the link removed.

I have absolutely no problem with competing links as signatures (as long as they are not inflamatory) as one 'member' had in his signature, 'leave this dump and come and discuss rugby with people who know what theya re talking about' I banned his IP

So I guess that promoting on other forums is fine, as long as you ae not there purely to promote, as experienced mods will pick up on it .

Pimlico · #13 (**permalink**) 06-04-2009, 03:19 PM

So .... as we seem to have a pile of Forum experts here .... what should I pick as my Forum software?

phpBB or SMF?

I had picked SMF because I thought it would be easier to use & get the same result. I installed it with Fantastico & appear to have acquired a well known bug whereby I lost admin account, & I need to get admin status back on the account following one of two methods - phpMyAdmin and a simple php script.

Or I could uninstall it & re-install.

Or I could uninstall it & install phpBB!

So - as I seem to have a pile of experts here, which do you think I should do? The reason I am thinking of going back to phpBB is that I am familiar with using it, & have some friends who have experience of adminning phpBB and might do the adminning for me.

paultgreen · #14 (**permalink**) 06-04-2009, 03:22 PM

N like phpBB Nick - the majority of forums that I use are on phpbb and it's a nice little interface. Never used the seo options on it though, so don't know what they're like.

Patrick · #15 (**permalink**) 06-04-2009, 04:59 PM

Either is fine, Pimlico. I think you should install them both, play around with them and see what you prefer. There are a multiple of good forum software solutions out there - at the end of the day, it comes down to you and the people behind the site, not so much the software.

Patrick

paultgreen · #16 (**permalink**) 06-04-2009, 06:10 PM

I use Fireboard (I think) for our staff forum area on Joomla, and it works well for us... other than cramming everything up in to a small area due to the site being backwards compatible.

Pimlico · #17 (**permalink**) 06-04-2009, 06:16 PM

Thanks Paul, why did you choose Fireboard?

paultgreen · #18 (**permalink**) 06-04-2009, 06:42 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Pimlico

Thanks Paul, why did you choose Fireboard?

Mainly because the site was already on Joomla, so a forum that's custom built for that CMS seemed better than trying to shoe-horn phpbb or vBulletin to fit, although there's a dozen or so forums out there for Joomla, Fireboard is the only one that I've ever seen get a hands down thumbs up from the industry.

**OldWelshGuy** · #19 (**permalink**) 06-04-2009, 08:27 PM

I use phpbb i find it does everything I want and more besides (plenty of modifications available and it is open source)

Pimlico · #20 (**permalink**) 06-04-2009, 09:36 PM

I guess the problem with getting an answer to "Do I use phpBB or SMF?" is that people become an expert in one or the other, but not both.

**Dot Design** · #21 (**permalink**) 07-04-2009, 08:21 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mdoherty

We have a forum on our site but with very few visitors ever using it. Is investing time and effort into a forum worth the return? I hear it can take years to establish.

I'd imagine it would take alot of effort and time to put a working busy forum together, I think it also depends on your work area if its a general business forum I'd say there is probably too much competition and you need to do something different with it to stand a chance!

**Kay** · #22 (**permalink**) 07-04-2009, 10:01 AM

I would think very carefully before starting a forum these days. I had my first one in 2000, using a horrible freebie Bravenet thing. Yuk! We moved to phpBB (open source), hosted by us rather than on a third party site, in 2003 and the improved functionality helped it to grow. It takes an awful lot of time, though, and dedication from your loyal members. Sure, it increases traffic - if it's a good and useful forum. But money? Nah, the return on investment in time to keep the place properly moderated is not good in my experience.

You also open yourself to all sorts of abuse from people who complain that you don't run it all to suit them. And then when you ban them they go on other sites to complain about you, etc, etc. I'd never start a new forum these days. I persevere with what I've already got because it's a useful way to make new friends and also get some marketing messages out to a lot of people. And I guess I'm a bit of a forum junkie. If you're talking about business I'd say it's probably more bother than it's worth - just my opinion.

**OldWelshGuy** · #23 (**permalink**) 07-04-2009, 10:12 AM

M<y rugby forum is free to use, there are no adverts on there, we do not sell email addresses, we do not mail out offers etc, in short it costs me to run it as it is a pure for fun forum.

i get LOADS of crap from it, people complaining about the forum guidelines, complaining that I warn them for being aggressive towards other members, complain that the forum is biased against their team etc...

In short, it is a LOT of work, as said though a forum has to be special to make money.

**Mark** · #24 (**permalink**) 07-04-2009, 10:23 AM

I've run another special interest forum since 2005. It's very niche and has taken years to grow.

As I've mentioned elsewhere, I'm currently a member of over 300 online communities (mostly forums) so I have some considerable experience and tend to know what works and what doesn't.

The trick with this one is convincing people, what with with so many whizz-bang, widget-laden, fly-by-night, bandwagon "business networking communities" to choose from!

Forums will out-live them all.

**Kay** · #25 (**permalink**) 07-04-2009, 10:26 AM

I agree OWG, it does take a lot of work. Some of ours make a bit on AdSense and we also have 'premium content' for some members who pay or are particularly useful. Yeah, the money dribbles in, but when you consider the number of hours spent on there I doubt if we make even 1p per hour. A forum is fine for whatever purpose - meeting people, increasing website traffic, raising your Internet profile, getting a message across, etc. It's just not a very good way of making money. I think I'm a bit like you - I enjoy the social interaction on a forum. I don't think it's a good business proposition unless you've already got something popular.