|
|
| Webmaster Articles |
|
|
|
|
Forums – Should you have them on your websiteAnne Moss Forums have become a common feature in many websites. With good free scripts available, and paid scripts being relatively cheap, it seems that every new website has its own forums. But is it wise to add forums to your website In this article Id like to take a look at the pros and cons of adding forums to your website. The largest of my websites, www.TheCatSite.com boasts one of the largest online forums on pet related subjects. In fact I have yet to see a larger forum dealing with pets. As of the writing of this article Summer 2004, we have over 7,000 members and nearly half a million posts. In the past four years I have struggled with the hardships of community management and learned what works and what doesnt. Let me share a few insights that may help you decide if you want to take the forums path yourself. The Pro Side of the Equation… Forums Generate Content Large, active forums generate content for your website. Google now has literally tens of thousands of pages indexed for TheCatSite.coms forums, and people looking for some of the more esoteric subjects related to cat health and cat behavior are very likely to meet one of our forum pages in their search results. Forums Make People Return to Your Website Forums are truly a "sticky" element. Most people come back, at least to check on developments on their threads. With a good community, you get some real addicts who have to get their daily fix. TheCatSite.coms forums run on Vbulletin Forums , which means members can opt to receive an email whenever someone replies to their thread. Most people use it and that little email sends them right back to the forums… Forums Create a Sense of Community Reaching from behind their computer screens, people from all over the world join together, get to know each other and create a community. This is actually happening! Members connect with each other, offering support in time of needs and some of them even meeting each other in real life. For you as the webmaster, this means loyal visitors that keep coming back to a place they consider to be home. And Now To The Cons Forums Can Take a Lot of Time to Take Off the Ground I remember how I could feel my posts echoing in the empty board four years ago… It can take a long time before your forums pick up. An empty forum can actually drive new visitors away. Its a vicious circle – when they see that no one else is posting, they dont post themselves, and move on to the next website. It can take weeks and even months of hard work to get your forums off the ground. Forums Need A Lot Of Ongoing Management You need to constantly monitor your forums to make sure that they are clean of spam, troll posts, and just keep everything where it belongs. Once your forums are large enough, you have to have a team of quality moderators to help you run the place - the task being too time-consuming for one person. This is the place in this article to say "hi!" to any TCS team members reading this – thank you guys – youre the ones that make it all happen! For the webmasters reading this article, I will say that managing a team is a task in its own right. Finding the good mods can mean the difference between success and failure. And it doesnt end there. You have to put your heart and mind to it – all the time. Forums Take Up a Lot of Resources Forums are database-type applications that generate web pages on the fly. Every time a user views a page, its being created from scratch. As the forums become more active, this can take a heavy load on the web servers resources. When our forums reached 2,000 members, we had to switch over to a dedicated server. When they reached 7,000 members, we had to upgrade to a new dedicated server… With several other websites stored on our server, the forums are the big resources hoggers, taking up bandwidth, disk space and, most importantly, CPU resources. This brings us to the next point… Forums Do Not Make Lucrative Advertising Stock You think that with successful forums, generating millions of targeted pageviews each month, you would do well financially Think again. Forums not only cost you a lot to run, they also dont bring in a whole lot of revenue, compared to regular web pages. Advertisers dont like to run ads on forum pages. So much so, that most CPM based ad networks wont even let you place their ads there. Our experience with CPC ads shows that they may have a good point. Click-through rates on forum pages are significantly lower then on other types of web pages. There are ways to make your forums generate revenues, but trust me, its not that easy. I will be writing a separate article on how we got our forums to pay for their keeping. The Bottom Line Forums are not for every website. Dont just put it up there and hope for the best. If you cant or dont want to put a lot of time and effort into creating a viable community, just leave it. Having no forums is better than having dead forums. Having dead forums on your website may actually drive people away. Research your field. How easy will it be to create a community geared towards the subject of your website Is it something that people want to talk about with each other Are there other forums on this subject How are they doing Get your feet wet. Join several forums and become an active participant. If possible, become a team member or a moderator in a large forum. Big forums often have secret team forums, where you can learn a lot about community management. Think ahead. Where do you see your website in a year or two Is this your main project and passion Will you have the time and energy it takes to maintain a forum Above all: Will you enjoy it Copyright © Anne Moss
| | | | RELATED ARTICLES 50 Surefire Web Design Tips Tips to brand your websiteInclude your logo in all pages. Position it at the top left or each page.Complement your logo with a tagline or catchy sentence that summarizes your business purpose. For example "Always low prices" is the tagline for Wal-Mart.Create a favicon. A favicon is that small graphic that appears next to the URL in the address bar.Have a consistent look and feel in all your pages. Use a color scheme and layout that are clearly recognized across your site.Have an About Us section, that includes all relevant information about you and your business.Include a copyright statement at the bottom of each page. Bound To Your Old Expensive Web Host by Fear Bound To Your Old Web Host’s Sky High Rates By Fear Traditional businesses on the Internet Have you ever thought of putting your business on the Internet, but simply not known where to start or youre not sure whether the Internet is really meant for your business 10 Things All Webmasters Should Know Geared Up with a website and lots of energy to make a mark online Spare some time and go through this. Youll be glad you did. If you dont already, this is something you MUST know! Forums – Should you have them on your website Forums have become a common feature in many websites. With good free scripts available, and paid scripts being relatively cheap, it seems that every new website has its own forums. But is it wise to add forums to your website Get FREE copy of Fully-Working TierDeveloper Windows Edition AlachiSoft TierDeveloper is an O/R mapping and code generation tool that simplifies the complexities of N-Tier Applications and lets you develop real-life applications in matter of days instead of months. TierDeveloper Windows Edition let you map middle-tier data objects against database tables and generate fully functional MTS COM/COM+ components using VB or C++ language. It helps you accelerate N-tier enterprise application development against MS SQL Server, Oracle and IBM DB2 database servers. It also generates an ASP Test Web Application to let you verify the functionality of the generated MTS components. Managed Hosting Managed hosting is a dedicated server that is accompanied by a full suite of technical support, maintenance and monitoring services. This differs from dedicated Web hosting, where customers are provided with their own servers but are still responsible for virtually all administrative and maintenance duties. How to Select a Web Site Host So, you know how to create HTML files web pages and want to start a website. You have a domain name but dont know where to store the files web host. You find countless web hosting companies offering a wide range of products but you cant make heads or tails of all the features to decide which plan is right for you. Opinion – Search Engine Success This article is actually the summary to a book soon to be released by the author, titled “Guaranteed Website Success”. Opinions are quite often controversial. Such is the nature of this one. How to Create a Professional Website In Less Than a Week Heres a really simple way... any novice can create a fully functional website in less than a week. Up the Sandbox! Go to any internet marketing forum you want these days and one of the topics is sure to be whether or not there is a "sandbox" at Google where new sites are forced to come and play for 3-6 months before joining the ranks of ranked and searched results. On the surface it would appear that this is so. New sites are typically taking a long time to get indexed and even longer to show up in the search results. So hence, the sandbox theory. Lets examine some possible reasons and more importantly, our reaction to it. Design vs Content: Who is KING Well it is not Elvis, thats for sure. Seven Things to do NOW to Look Good ALWAYS! Fashion magazines target people every day with lists and charts telling them the latest trends and techniques to look better, skinnier, smarter, where to buy the hippest clothes or the latest shoes!If you’re a woman, you are probably bombarded more often than you like, and if you’re a man, you may not get the information that you really want to know!Due to the glut of information available, most people know the obvious things to do to look elegant or well groomed, such as getting a good haircut or wearing certain brand name clothes.However, this may lead people to overlook some simple, basic things that can be done RIGHT NOW to add that subtle flair and polish to your everyday look! Why Have An Article Website Know the fact Building a Church Website Have you been asked to build a website for your churchBuildingThere are thousands of people building websites everyday.It is becoming increasingly important for many small organizations and groups to build their online presence.This helps in getting their ideals, goals, and mission out to the general public.Therefore at an increasing rate many of us with computer skills are asked by organizations to put together a website.This happened to me about two years ago when the school I worked at asked me to build a website for them to help advertise their special arts programs. Keep Your Website Up-To-Date In almost every business publication there are articles telling us how, as a small business, we need to have a website. This is very true! The Internet is where most people go to find a product or service that they are interested in or may have heard about. And, if your business is capable of serving customers throughout the globe, what better way to keep your information available to that huge target audience than an Internet presence Track Your Visitors, Using PHP There are many different traffic analysis tools, ranging from simple counters to complete traffic analyzers. Although there are some free ones, most of them come with a price tag. Why not do it yourself With PHP, you can easily create a log file within minutes. In this article I will show you how! Open Source Free Software De-Mystified Did you know that the most powerful software and web applications are all freeYes thats right, just about every commercial software or web application you know of is most likely available as a free Open Source project/clone. Are your SEO efforts going to waste Search engine optimization SEO is a long and complicated process that can be highly rewarding if done correctly. SEO is not a waste of time, but can be if your site doesn’t appeal to visitors or function properly. Your potential customer will be turned off if your site lacks trustworthiness, an eye pleasing color scheme and easy to use navigation. Why lose visitors and possible sales because of a small design flaw or unappealing color scheme Those visitors could have resulted in sales if those small imperfections were fixed. Weave Your Own Web Many elementary school children know the miracle of Charlottes Web.Weaving the words "Some Pig" into the center of her web, Charlotte keeps Wilbur from the frying pan.E.B. Whites story provides some fascinating guidelines for web spinning. |
| home | site map |
|
|