Ram8349 Posted June 10, 2012 Share Posted June 10, 2012 Which one can bring in more search engine traffic? I am not getting the level of traffic I want. It's only between 100~200, or rather between 100~150 most of the time...after 3 months since site launch. I have 9 articles, and about 400 forum threads. yes, it is a new site/forum. Will add more articles bring in a lot of traffic or I should focus on making more posts on the forum. Or both should be taken equally seroius? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ridwan sameer Posted June 10, 2012 Share Posted June 10, 2012 Forum posts and articles can be treated as the same thing... They can both provide the level of information Users may be searching for... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dexterlablab1 Posted June 10, 2012 Share Posted June 10, 2012 Ridwan is right, one isn't going to bring you more success over the other if you're thinking about sheer search engine placement. It's more about the quality each one has in it that will determine your placement. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marc Posted June 10, 2012 Share Posted June 10, 2012 Depends on the content of each. A good written post will rank higher than a badly written article and the same the other way around. It simply depends on the content. At the end of the day all google sees is text Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ComputerHelp808.com Posted June 10, 2012 Share Posted June 10, 2012 When I posted regular to forums for seo I'd post a Title Intro Continue by clicking here http://MyWebsiteWrittenOut.com I'd write it out for copy and paste purposes in case anyone else wanted to share. What are you doing with those visitors that visit? Are you providing good information and offering them a mailing list or rss feed? If not they probably won't buy the first visit. Rick Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ram8349 Posted June 11, 2012 Author Share Posted June 11, 2012 Well most of the forum posts aren't nearly as long and informative as a well organized article. And it makes me wonder if I post articles on the forum instead of the dedicated article section would have the same effect due to the fact that older threads get buried. When I posted regular to forums for seo I'd post a Title Intro Continue by clicking here http://MyWebsiteWrittenOut.com I'd write it out for copy and paste purposes in case anyone else wanted to share. What are you doing with those visitors that visit? Are you providing good information and offering them a mailing list or rss feed? If not they probably won't buy the first visit. Rick How do I create a mailing list? There is a RSS feed button on the forum. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Victor Leigh Posted June 11, 2012 Share Posted June 11, 2012 Forum posts should not be confused with articles. A forum is a place for having discussions, conversations, debates and arguments. So the tone is oral and conversational. Responses can range from a full-page rant to just a one-word LOL. If a forum is made up of evenly paced posts then it's going to fail because that will be very boring. An article is a presentation of an idea or an opinion. It's basically one-way. So the article writer will have to start and finish the entire monologue by himself. That's why articles have introductions, content and conclusions. A well-written article can stimulate discussion or debate but, in itself, it's not a discussion or a debate because it's written, mainly, from the author's viewpoint. I have seen some successful forums that have a steady supply of fresh articles to stimulate forum activity. Basically you need something new all the time for your members to talk about. Actually it's not that difficult. If you use Wordpress, you can subscribe to the Guardian News Service. You are given permission to re-publish their articles on condition that you don't change anything in it. Of course, their articles are professionally written and the best part is that they are free for you to use. Another resource is Zemanta which can provide you with links to articles and blogs related to the content of your article. When you combine these two services, you are able to publish articles everyday. Yes, you can do that even for your niche. There is news everyday around the world concerning pets. All you have to do is follow up on them everyday. Myself, I read CNN, BBC and the Daily Mail twice a day to find out what's going on. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ram8349 Posted June 11, 2012 Author Share Posted June 11, 2012 (edited) Republish articles... wouldn't it be duplicate content? I do sometimes post a short summary and a link to some news of pets. However, my main goal isn't just to share pet related news on the forum. In fact I wish to have the forum become a place for problem solving. Share news and share joy is also important, but I want to put share the news at the last of the three on the list. I am also at the crossroad that I found it's hard to generate tons of useful content on the forum without tons of active members. That's why I thought articles can be a way out to build up base traffic to the forum without many active members to begin with. Not sure if this strategy would work. Edited June 11, 2012 by Ram8349 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jessi Posted June 11, 2012 Share Posted June 11, 2012 As others said, it is way more about quality. You can certainly write articles and then post them as forum posts to encourage more conversation and possibly more quality posts written by other members. The key is simply to make sure what you're putting out is quality content regardless. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ComputerHelp808.com Posted June 11, 2012 Share Posted June 11, 2012 Forum posts should not be confused with articles. A forum is a place for having discussions, conversations, debates and arguments. So the tone is oral and conversational. Responses can range from a full-page rant to just a one-word LOL. If a forum is made up of evenly paced posts then it's going to fail because that will be very boring. First to your queary about duplicate content, I've kept this article in one of my forums Google Busts the Duplicate Content Myth http://www.webpronews.com/topnews/2009/09/16/google-busts-the-duplicate-content-myth#comment-94719 Second, I must disagree as to the purpose of a forum and this proving your point in the process lol. A forum purpose is whatever the forum owner states the purpose of the forum. I converted one of my websites to a forum because of the wide variety of topics and the ability to promote products and services with announcements and rss feeds. I have a section on top for paid classified ads with no additional automatic ads and a section at the bottom of the forum for free classified ads. Each one of my new products can be promoted on a separate board with automatic incoming articles building content with the footer of the article having a promo and link to the product or service. Rick Nathan 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ComputerHelp808.com Posted June 11, 2012 Share Posted June 11, 2012 (edited) How do I create a mailing list? There is a RSS feed button on the forum. The forum is your mailing list. There should be a way to send announcements to forum members. Rick PS be sure to promote the rss feed somewhere viewable. It will help create backlinks to the forum and increase your search engine ranking and ease of locating the forum through links. Rick Edited June 11, 2012 by ComputerHelp808.com Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ComputerHelp808.com Posted June 11, 2012 Share Posted June 11, 2012 I am also at the crossroad that I found it's hard to generate tons of useful content on the forum without tons of active members. That's why I thought articles can be a way out to build up base traffic to the forum without many active members to begin with. Not sure if this strategy would work. I use incoming rss feeds for automatic content. I got one client ranked pretty high for their family coffee company on the Big Island using rss feeds. Sorry to answer the same post twice. It s two different topics though. Rick Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bryce12 Posted June 11, 2012 Share Posted June 11, 2012 My guess is that your forum is in a super tough niche. The amount of content that you have would have been enough to bring steady traffic in a medium sized, less competitive niche but if your niche is hyper competitive then it would take more efforts to bring same amount of traffic. Do some research in your niche and write articles or start threads on topics that have less competition. This way you'd get traffic for several long tail keywords and if you continue doing it well, your site will soon experience a surge in traffic. ComputerHelp808.com 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ram8349 Posted June 12, 2012 Author Share Posted June 12, 2012 My guess is that your forum is in a super tough niche. The amount of content that you have would have been enough to bring steady traffic in a medium sized, less competitive niche but if your niche is hyper competitive then it would take more efforts to bring same amount of traffic. Do some research in your niche and write articles or start threads on topics that have less competition. This way you'd get traffic for several long tail keywords and if you continue doing it well, your site will soon experience a surge in traffic. The niche is about pets. All pets. It is a big one, but yes there are a lot of competition in it. I don't see a point to go for less competitive niche unless it is also popular and it should be something I am familar with. Usually less competitive niche also mean less popular. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Victor Leigh Posted June 12, 2012 Share Posted June 12, 2012 Republish articles... wouldn't it be duplicate content? I do sometimes post a short summary and a link to some news of pets. However, my main goal isn't just to share pet related news on the forum. In fact I wish to have the forum become a place for problem solving. Share news and share joy is also important, but I want to put share the news at the last of the three on the list. I am also at the crossroad that I found it's hard to generate tons of useful content on the forum without tons of active members. That's why I thought articles can be a way out to build up base traffic to the forum without many active members to begin with. Not sure if this strategy would work. Well, I have been using the Guardian News Service for quite some time now and I didn't notice Google blacklisting me. I understand that you want your forum to be the place where everybody who has a problem with a pet will go to, to find a solution. The first thing is to create a community of pet lovers. To do that you have to get the attention of pet lovers. That's what publishing news about pets is supposed to do. It's reasonable to expect people who love pets to be interested in news about pets. Then after they read the news item about the pets, you direct them to your forum for further discussion. When they find that your forum is a nice place to hang out and talk with other people about pets, they will come back again. That's how you build a community. When you have a lively community on your forum, questions about pets will arise by themselves. Then those members who have some advice to give would offer it. So get the ball rolling by putting news related to pets on your forum or on a blog that directs traffic to your forum. If you want faster results, then publish the news everyday. Or even three times a day. You can either do that yourself, which is the preferred method, or you can pay someone to do it for you. Whoever does it must be a person who's up-to-date with what's going on in the world of pets. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ram8349 Posted June 12, 2012 Author Share Posted June 12, 2012 I have had plenty of pet news type of threads. More often people just ignore them, and they turn into threads with no reply. The type of threads get most replies are option seeking kind of threads. Serious question type of threads aren't popular either when there is only a small member base. Not many people have the expertise to answer all those questions. Basically it is hard to get anything rolling on a brand new forum with posts. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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