Is it worth it to add a forum to my site?

[MrSpeed]

For converstion sake let's assume my current site is about home theatre.

Is it worth it from the adsense standpoint to add a forum? I have read that CTR on forums is lower.

A forum could add a lot more use generated content but is it worth the hassle of moderating/running a forum?

[hal12b]

I'd say no. My forum web sites have very low click through rates. I am not sure what the psychology is behind it, maybe visitors are just looking to read information. When you come to webmasterworld do you pay attention to other links on the page besides what you are reading? If so, how many times have you clicked on something?

[trillianjedi]

I have read that CTR on forums is lower

The reality is that your regular visitors will not click (generally speaking).

A well managed and setup forum is basically a CMS, with user-created content.

Get good SE traffic to it, and you'll get as good a CTR as any other regular site will get from SE traffic.

To fully understand how your Ads are performing to non-regulars, you can set a cookie so, for example, after 10 visits a user becomes a "regular" and you stop showing him ads. When you look at the statistic of SE driven traffic only, taking the regular visitors out of the equation, you'll see a much healthier CTR.

That just leaves you to concentrate on traffic.

Common or garden SEO on your forum pages (mod rewrite, good titles, inbound links etc) all add to a healthy AdSense revenue from forums.

A forum could add a lot more use generated content but is it worth the hassle of moderating/running a forum?

That's a very good question. Appointing moderators and administrators early on to help out is very important. It does take time however and a lot of input. Whether or not it's right for you depends on whether or not you'd be better off spending your time developing static content.

TJ

[sven1977]

Thanks trilianjedi,
this was a very motivating post. I set up my own forum not long ago (wrote my own software, put a lot of work into it). I'm still hesitant to perform the next step of actually attracting users to it, meaning, maybe post some posts myself under different user names to get it going.

But I'm a strong believer in the fact that every good content site should have a forum for its users to discuss the widgets on that site. Also forums add good regular content without you bending a finger and add stickyness to a site. Certain core users will return frequently.

[MrSpeed]

But I'm a strong believer in the fact that every good content site should have a forum for its users to discuss the widgets on that site. Also forums add good regular content without you bending a finger and add stickyness to a site. Certain core users will return frequently.

That is a good point I did not consider. A site that appears to have a strong community may attract inbound links as an authority site and get listed in directories easier.

Even when I link out to a site that I consider useful to my visitors the site tends to have a forum.

Are there any forums that lend themselves well to Adsense? I an thinking of SMF or PHPBB to start out with.

I still cringe at the thought of running a forum. I disabled guestbooks on sites years ago after trying to battle spam.

[dollarshort]

A good forum attracts lots of visitors, and gererates free content, you should use one that is search engine friendly, easy to post, (ie you don't have to give up your first born) I use matts perl script, its very very basic.

[JuniorOptimizer]

Popular forums generate a ton of work. You'll be spending all day today installing mod_security to get rid of a spammer infestation. Oh wait, that was me. I say skip forums :)

[Radejr]

I personally do have a forum on my site I kinda wish I didn't start it, but at the same time it generates half of my earnings. Althought the click through rate isn't high, but it seems better ads are showing.

Is it worth the time? Well I have a few moderators that pretty much look over it for me and I check it maybe once or twice a day if that somedays I don't even check it. I am not really worried about it to bad. Its move earnings for what little more I hafta do.