Forum Moderators: rogerd

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Forums : The Ultimate Long-Tail Tool

Or just a PIA to manage?

         

trillianjedi

3:15 pm on May 18, 2007 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



Forums take a lot of maintenance.

The upside, from a pure search or marketing perspective (let's leave "community" to one side for now) is lots of differing content. Differing in terms of words used, writing style and subject matter. Long tail fodder.

What have you done to lessen the management time that you spend on your forum, while at the same time maximise the long tail benefit?

Exclusivity of membership [webmasterworld.com] could be one option. Any others?

TJ

rogerd

3:48 pm on May 18, 2007 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Administrator 10+ Year Member



It really helps to enjoy the community and its topic - otherwise the PITA factors are likely to outweigh the search benefits.

I'm not sure if exclusivity will serve that purpose. While it may keep moderation needs lower, it will also reduce your content generation. A million monkeys may not come up with a Shakespeare play even in a million years, but a few thousand members will generate more content, and different content, than a few hundred carefully selected ones. I hasten to repeat that if one starts a community to generate content, it's not likely to become a community at all.

trillianjedi

3:56 pm on May 18, 2007 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



I hasten to repeat that if one starts a community to generate content, it's not likely to become a community at all.

I completely agree Roger, but I wanted to put that to one side for the moment and look at the long tail benefits, which do exist. Let's take, as the example, an existing forum that already has its community well and truly established and the website owner is looking at potential marketing strategies.