Quote:
Originally Posted by DrMartinRussell  Steve, not a major impact on traffic? That really surprises me.
I would have thought there is immense value in a forum - the combination of repeat visitors, Alexa rankings increases, automatic/natural link generation, SEO keywords, etc, let alone brand name and position in the market (Hard to for competitors to set up an forum in a short space of time.)
Sure they might be hard to dissect out from amongst all the rest of the stats, but do you have a way of measuring forum v blog on factors that aren't Adwords clicks. |
__________________________________________________
When playing with big numbers, “major” is a relative term
__________________________________________________
I think Steve means
"not a major impact relative to the crazy amount of traffic I already get on the blog". I'm sure a site with a smaller audience would notice a difference, but a forum might not be as good on a website with fewer visitors.
But it depends on many factors (ie. your type of audience, what your website is about and how much it motivates people to contribute, etc).
__________________________________________________
Experimenting with forums and blog comments
__________________________________________________
Personally, I'd be curious to see whether (A) a forum can do well on a site with a smaller audience and gradually build up to success the Pavlina forum enjoys, and (B) whether you could make good use of both blog comments AND a forum on a blog.
I prefer blog comments myself, since they seem a lot more targeted then forum posts made in response to articles featured on Steve’s blog.
The general theme I see is that, in terms of replying to articles, users who post blog comments contribute more specific, useful info, where as forum members tend to argue points and go on random, yet interesting tangents.
I'm not saying one is better then the other, but I personally take a lot more away from the comments on Steve's blog then a lot of the forum posts I read. It’s also much easier to add/find blog comments as opposed to finding a thread that is tied to a blog article but not actually hyperlinked.
__________________________________________________
Forums favour discussion, not contribution
__________________________________________________
But then I think forums are more about community interaction and discussion, and I see that now. I used to think forums were an awesome vehicle for contribution, but after seeing the development of this forum, I’d say you're better off having either blog comments or a Wiki for contribution purposes. Unfortunately keeping both separate (ie. contribution-type comments in the blog comments and discussion-type posts in the forums) would be near impossible to enforce.
I think a good solution would be to have a forum for discussion of blog articles with a direct link to the thread for each article, along with a link to a Wiki page for the specific article.
__________________________________________________
The elusive usefulness of blog comments
__________________________________________________
But hmmm, I still think there’s a certain elegance to blog comments that you can’t replicate with another system.
A Wiki is too formal for people to simply share their own experiences and perspectives, and a forum creates a large (but necessary) barrier to entry in requiring a sign up (not everyone knows how to/wants to sign up to a forum; blog comments greatly simplify signups). Both systems are also notoriously difficult to search (I’m a master-ninja searcher, so take my word on that
...suffice to say too much information becomes very difficult to filter through when you don’t know exactly what you’re looking for but still want to find it).
Is there some sort of super system that blends all of the good elements of blog comments, a Wiki, and a forum together that I’m unaware of?