Advice Required.... Shall I add a forum to my website?

[Rick F]

Hi Guys,

I'm after advice and comments (good or bad) on the idea of adding a VBulletin forum to my website www.bedroomsforsale.com (http://www.bedroomsforsale.com) (BFS.com) . The whole idea of BFS.com is to provide a one stop shop for anyone looking for bedroom related products (for the general public) and a introduction to the web for small bed shops who do not have a website or website that want to increase their presence on the web.

At the moment this is a bit of a test (an expensive test) and should the business model prove successful I would like to branch out into other markets.

When the SEO campaign kicks in I should hopefully be attracting enough visitors to the site to satisfy my paying advertisers but I admit, there is nothing there to keep those visitors coming back so I thought a forum might help do this?

Within the forum I was thinking of the following:

1) To have a buy & sell 2nd hand furniture section where people can advertise their stuff for free.

2) A Monthly competition section where we offer a monthly quiz for a special prize/discount with a major retailer who has signed up to my website like DFS or let customers no of special promotions within the industry.

3) An articles section where we would write or relay approved articles on ways to improve the bedroom, space, guide to buying beds, pillows, etc. I could also link these articles to my advertisers' web pages within BFS.com to improve rankings of my inner pages.

4) Finally, a Private Section for my Bed Shop Customers to discuss marketing techniques for their areas and ask for help on internet marketing or business ideas (like a mini business forum for bedroom shop owners)

For all this and more to happen I imagine it would be quite a bit of effort and maintenance required on my part but is it worth it or am I barking up the wrong tree in creating additional awareness for my website?

Also, If I do go with this idea, does anyone have the skills to install VBulletin and lay it out in the BFS.com colours/style?

Hope someone can help/comment

Cheers

Rick

[musicbusiness]

From my expereience, no. More hassle than it's worth; there's also a bit of legal compliance needed and a good bit of admin.

Unless you have the time and it can get you a fair amount of margin (and/or attract a large amount of customers), I'd say better concentrate on other matters.

[apexweb]

I agree with musicbusiness, I run a forum on a comminity site and its a nightmare keeping on top of the posts and removing abusive posts. I have a couple of friends who also moderate it but i would never setup another one if i was the only mod on it!

[Rick F]

OK, thanks for comments guys :)

To keep the moderating down to a minimum I could possibly keep the articles and competition threads closed/non-editable and only let the buy & sell exchange open to debate on the forum?

I initially thought writing articles on a forum would be easily than doing them on my website like i do here: http://www.bedroomsforsale.com/articles.asp

I just feel I need to do something to create more interest.

[musicbusiness]

How about a 3D virtual tour of the bedrooms using Flash?

That would create interest. You could even get a programmer to make a Flash applet that let's users build their bedroom and then take an interactive tour through it?

You really got to ask yourself basic business questions in these matters. Most of all, what do your customers want. The internet is an interactive place, so give them something interactive to do. Something which your competitors are not doing.

Even on the internet, people still buy from people. It's just a different communication system. Good luck for whatever you do.

[luckyg]

How about a 3D virtual tour of the bedrooms using Flash?



Have you done the 3d thing yourself before?

Can you recommend anyone to use for this service?

[musicbusiness]

No, sorry, but there are loads out there. Might be worth contacting local universities as IT students might be willing to take on such projects for a much smaller fee.

[Web Retailer]

I initially thought writing articles on a forum would be easily than doing them on my website like i do here: http://www.bedroomsforsale.com/articles.asp

I just feel I need to do something to create more interest.

I don't think a forum makes sense on a retail website - best to leave it to the community sites who don't have the direct conflict of interest and can spend time moderating etc. Anyway, building a community around bedroom furniture seems a stretch to me - can you really see that taking off? :|

How about publishing a blog - that gives you easy content management and blogs are supposed to be your personal opinion - bias isn't a bad thing. I wouldn't expect lots of avid bedroom furniture enthusiasts to follow your blog, but it will provide content for the search engines.

[stender]

Definate no. The work involved is a lot and the reward is minimal if any. imho.

[Logan]

instead of forum

implement a blog to your website

you can get good rankings if you look after carefully

[boho]

Blog yes, forum no...at least thats my personal opinion, and even with a blog I would tend to have it seperate from the retail site with links back instead.

Forums take a lot of moderating and any spammy post or inappropriate posts are directly linked to your retail site, and this can have a negative effect on customer opinion. As a customer I wouldn't expect to see a forum on a retail site, unless it was for a product such as a computer game or similar.

[Rick F]

Thanks for the advice. Looks like the forum for this particular project is a no no.

Will probably just concentrate on SEO and improve my google rankings and once I am getting a decent return I might implement a flash virtual bedroom planner instead of my very bog standard planner that I have in place at the minute.

I might consider a blog but again I'm sure it will not have any real effect on the rankings for the keywords I want.

Back to the drawing board.............

[andrevandenburg]

Publish a blog or may be an article about the furniture rather than forum.
Forum is much appropriate in a community site issues and topics.

[Rick F]

Yes, I am warming to the idea of a blog now as I can picture it in my head and what I can do with it.

Next question then is........... which blog application do i use? Are there ones that are more user/SEO friendly than others?

[NetConneXions]

hi Rick,

Use wordpress. Its perfect of search engines to pick up on. There is a 'all in one' seo mod you can get and install. Also you can use permalinks to help those little google bots.

In my opinion its the best blogging software out there. If you need any help (free) with it just let me know.

[Rick F]

Hi Philip,

Thanks for the suggestion of using Word Press. What is this 'all in one' SEO mod you mention?

Also does the name of your blog/wordpress address have an effect SEO wise? I could just call it BedroomsForSale.com or use a keyword i've trying to promote or be a little more imaginative? What do you suggest?

All comments welcome

Cheers

Rick

[NetConneXions]

Hi Philip,

Thanks for the suggestion of using Word Press. What is this 'all in one' SEO mod you mention?

Also does the name of your blog/wordpress address have an effect SEO wise? I could just call it BedroomsForSale.com or use a keyword i've trying to promote or be a little more imaginative? What do you suggest?

All comments welcome

Cheers

Rick

hi Rick,

Do a google search for bedrooms for sale, notice that in the domain names Google have made them bold? That suggests keywords in domain names and urls are important.

The only reason i would register a domain name without using keywords is if im trying to create a 'new brand'. I would stay away from that, unless you have loads of money.

The seo mod you can get for google, allows you to give more specific meta keywords/descriptions for your homepage and everytime you create a new post you can once again specific specific keywords/description.

In my opinion, a must have for a blog. if you want i can help you set one up (free). Its easily done.

[edit]
Also, another 'must have' mod for blogging is XML-Sitemap. great mod is that!