Blog Tipz

Blogs can be summarized into providing one thing: content. With this in mind, blogs are limited in some ways that older websites weren’t. They are unable to properly organize your users’ thoughts into a well-defined area. You could say that threaded comments helps achieve some of the problem, but this feature is only available for people using a theme with it built in or a blog system that supports the feature/a plugin is available.

What I see wrong in the way blogs are managed is that people think blogs can solve all the problems with managing comments, thoughts, and ideas, when in face, they can’t. You need to go beyond the blog and add forums to your site. Forums are still a great way to add value to your blog, even though more of the “input” can be found on the main page, inside the posts.

Main Benefits of Forums

With forums, you are able to control nearly every aspect of how your visitors find content and who gets permission to it. Essentially, you are able to create “membership” zones and interact more closely to long-term members who are more likely to continue visiting your site. This more direct communication is beneficial if your blog doesn’t really have a community yet and you want to reward the people who have left more comments, etc.

The next key benefit of forums is their structure. A blog (at least typically) consists of posts that might all be semi-related, but not organized by any means. You don’t post something on Topic A, then the next day move onto Topic A-1, where the 1 represents the first sub-topic that anyone could think of involving the main topic. It just doesn’t work that way.

Forums have main topics, then sub-topics, which is a format that more people are familiar with. It’s easier to follow and more logical when you think about this, at least compared to blogs. All the organization methods have to be used in moderation, or you’ll be left with thousands of topics that aren’t visited frequently.

A next important aspect of forums that needs to be addressed is the fact that they are just as easy, if not easier to monetize than a regular blog. The layout and structure of forums is even better, as there is a well-defined heading, footer, and content/middle area to each page.

Steps to Integrate a Forum into Your Blog

It can be quite a challenge to integrate forums into your blog, one of the main reasons many blogs do not have forums. It can be costly to hire someone to design a new forum theme to “match” your blog’s theme, and often, the results won’t work according to your specifications.

There is certainly a fair share of plugins and off-site services that you can use to so-called integrate forums into your site, but few will deliver the results you want without advanced recoding and thought put into the structure and layout. The first place to look if you are using WordPress are the plguins in the official Plugins Database.

After using your preferred method of integrating the forums, make sure that your readers know about them. Link to the forums page in a post, in the header, or sidebar (create an advertisement) and make sure that you inform your readers to continue the discussion there.

Now, forums tend to draw some traffic away from your main site, but it is small compared to the benefits of forums, especially if you have the level of traffic to support your goals. Balance the time you spend between the forums and your main site, in order to maintain the level that you want.

The key areas to approach when integrating or setting up the forums for the first time include:

• Color scheme and layout that is the same or as similar to your previous theme as possible.
• Topics that are quite similar to what you normally post on your main site.
• Areas for users to share “general” or “introduction” information, which ultimately helps create and define the community.
• Good use of tags or some other form of navigation that doesn’t involve searching.

The Content and Updating the Forums

I can see another reason why many do not even consider adding a forum to their sites: it takes a long time to manage and add content on a continual basis. Leaving a forum unattended for just a week will allow the spammers to target it and infiltrate hundreds of posts that really shouldn’t be there.

While there are plugins and scripts available that allow you to create a better integration with your blog through “reposting” the content from your main page, this may become even more difficult to manage, as your readers are left wondering where they should be posting their input.

For a majority of blogs (not all), I would suggest that you stick with the traditional format:

• Main Topic
  • Sub-topic
  • Sub-topic
    • Another topic
    • Another topic

And the process continues. If you get the picture, you are helping your readers and visitors shape a pattern. You are trying to get them to stick with distinct topics, ones that they shouldn’t really be going against. As readers begin to head into your forums more often, expand the offerings, encouraging users to input feedback as to what should be included in your forums.

On adding content, it might be best to create post titles similar to those of your main site, then tell readers to view the article, and come back to the forums to share any additional thoughts they may have. This might only add a few minutes to each post.

In terms of updating content, make sure that all questions posted by your readers are answered. Posts that haven’t been updated in quite some time should also be updated, changing any of the larger, incorrect details.

Finally, actually contribute something to the blog. Whether that means creating an area for your feedback or posting daily to readers’ ideas. The more you include your readers, the better.

Main Benefits of Forums

Adding a forum can have several dramatic effects, depending on your whole process of updating and managing them. This is by far not a complete list.

1. Increases traffic, as there are more results/pages being displayed in search engines.
2. People want an additional area to view users’ feedback and aspects of their lives.
3. Forums can be viewed as an asset, especially if yours are popular.
4. Forums make it easier to mange all your content.
5. Forums are easier to generate a profit from.

Conclusion

Even though there are only a few negative points to adding a forum to your site, be aware that they do exist. If you notice sudden decreases in your traffic to your regular blog, be aware that the Google Analytics page might be down or some type of visitation is occurring.

The next time you see a forum, think about ideas as to how you will be integrating this into your own site and how members plan on interacting with it.

What do you think of forums and a better headingmany current forums  ?