How to launch a blog + forum combination

[cerebrum]

Hi,

I am planning to launch a blog around a topic with domain "example.com". I am using wordpress for the blog. I want to launch an attached forum. Should I go for "www.example.com/forum" or "forum.example.com" in adsense point of view. I know that forums have low CPM and will it affect my blog CPM if I use www.example.com/forum structure? Or should I go for "forum.example.com" so that it will have low CPM and I can maintain my blog at high CPM. Which is the best option?

[trebuchet]

I've run Adsense on both sub-domains and sub-directories before, and to be honest I never noticed much/any difference between them in terms of RPM. There are some SEO benefits for running sub-domains but only in specific situations. They are not relevant to Adsense, other than they may impact on your traffic.

More on that here: [webconfs.com...]

CTR on forums is pitiful. I had a busy forum once but gave it up, simply because the time of moderating it grossly outweighed the pathetic revenue it brought in.

[cerebrum]

Thanks for the reply.

I am worried that if I use www.example.com for high quality blog content and www.example.com/forum for forum, then my high quality content will also get low RPM because of forum effect. Is it true?

[IanCP]

I wouldn't count on generating much from forums. To me, forums in your genre should be to create your own loyal community which in turn?

Forums assist in creating return visitors to your site - assuming it's a valuable site to your community..

Personally I most certainly wouldn't put AdSense on a forum,

[trebuchet]

If your forum is in a sub-directory rather than the top of your domain then it won't have any impact on Adsense.

What you should be more concerned about is having users coming to your site for the forum rather than the content. Because as IanCP says, forums really do make a pittance with Adsense. My advice would be to work on your content first. Make it the best content available on your topic/niche and work hard on SEO. Let the forum come later, if you still see the need for it.

[matbennett]

Forums can actually do pretty well with AdSense. People think otherwise because AdSense encourages publishers to think in terms of earnings per pageview. If you think in terms of earnings per customer a forum with a loyal user-base can stack up pretty well. Considering that many sites can model their cost per customer acquisition that isn't a bad way to look at revenue.

I wouldn't worry too much about a forum 'dragging RPM down'. That is mostly an issue with reporting rather than impacting earnings (100k pages at $3 RPM + 1 million at $1 RPM still make more money than just the 100k at $3 despite brining your RPM down). It could erode placement targeted revenue, ut you can set channels up to avoid that.