Difference in Forum and Blog for SEO
-
I was pushing my employer to agree to switch to add a blog onto our site and he asked me, what is the difference between the blog and a forum for SEO purposes. Besides the general look and feel and a forum being more community oriented, is a blog better than a forum for seo, and if so, why? It can be vice-versa I just need to fully understand this myself so I can begin to work on one and explain it to my employer. If anyone can provide any insight, it will be much appreciated.
-
I personally like the inbound link aspect of blogs as well as google authorship. You can also use guest bloggers to expand your audience.
-
Forum helps you to collect mails, can be very valuable.
If you want people to register easily, try a Facebook login system + allow a dofollow link on profile. Maybe that the forum just launched by Quicksprout can inspire you.
http://www.quicksprout.com/forum/
Would you have enough time to run a blog + a forum ? If you are usually busy, step away from forum and focus on blog.
-
I would point out these key differences.
1. A blog gives you more control. With a blog, you can target the keywords you want to target. You can edit the content after you've published it. You can time when posts go out. Of course, it takes a lot of effort to come up with good content, but you're in the driver's seat.
2. A forum gives you less control, but you don't have to write all the content. The attractive thing about a forum - for SEO purposes anyway - is user-generated content. This is great because you don't have to do all the heavy lifting that real writing requires. The bad thing about a forum is also user-generated content. All those things you have control over with a blog ... you kinda lose them with a forum. You could exert a lot of control over your forum if you want, but then folks will stop contributing and you won't have a forum. Also, all that heavy lifting you save by not having to create the content may get replaced by the necessity of moderating the content.
3. You can build a blog steadily over time. With a blog, you can go from "Hello World!" to a good following just by disciplined, regular, quality publishing over time. You can start small and build.
4. Nobody likes an empty forum. Unlike a blog, a forum needs to go live with content already in it and conversations already happening. If you're going to launch a forum, I suggest getting some dedicated customers involved in a pre-launch. Seed the forum with a number of conversations before launching it to your full customer base. Otherwise, most people will get stage fright and you will have wasted your launch.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Content Writing - it should be for the main corporate site, blog or for social media?
Hi There, I have my main site : example.com and a related blog https://blog.example.com/ My management does not believe frequent content posting on the example.com My Queries 1- Will it help boost ranking of **example.com **if we share frequent content on our blog https://blog.example.com/? How much impact it has? 2- Every body says content is the king, Ok fine, but when you are not allowed to share it on the main corporate site, then where to share it? Blog and social media sites? please help. 3- We are in a business where clients do not bother to go on sites and read, so in this scenario is it correct to say that you hav to create the content for search engine consumption even when your clients dont need it/or have not in the habit of reading it? Hope somebody will enligten me caught in catch 22. Regards Tanveer
Content Development | | Sequelmed1 -
What are the effects of posting on a blog site using copied content from your site if you source the site on the blog site?
I have noticed that some of my pages from my site are posted to different blog sites and directory submissions they are word for word what is on my site but at the bottom of the page it does list my site as the source and there are links in the text back to my site. Is this going to negatively effect my rankings or is it ok since my site is sourced in the article?
Content Development | | steve2150 -
Authorship showing in SERPs for non-blog pages
Hi, A few months ago we set up authorship for on our blog articles for multiple authors, which has helped driving extra traffic to our blog posts. Today, I did a search for one of most important search terms and one of our non-blog pages is showing in the first page of the results with one of our authors headshot next to it. Technically we have not not set it up to do this, the page is on a different CMS to our blog (which is wordpress). I'm not complaining because I think this is a positive outcome, but does anyone have an idea why it has done this? I was under the impression that only blog article pages could have authorship set up. Thanks, Stu
Content Development | | Stuart260 -
Guest blogging resources
Mornin' Anyone have any guests blogging resources to find guest bloggers and blogs to guest post on? I've been using My Guest Blog but it runs dry after a while. Thanks
Content Development | | Martin_S0 -
Help on blog topics for my niche
I'm looking for a couple of blogging ideas to get the ball rolling (mainly in my head) for one of the company websites I am working on. The site is https://perco.co.uk The company is based around offering trenchless technology across the UK. The first couple of posts are more like 'Latest news' items and I have only really come up with an idea of 'microtunnelling vs directional drilling'. I didn't seem to get much out of ubersuggest, soovle and google instant. Has anyone got any ideas? Thanks
Content Development | | Hughescov
Shaun0 -
Is it OK to delete a blog from a blog site and post it somewhere else ?
I posted a blog on blogger 4/5 days back, though blog is good quality but site is useless and i want to remove it and put it some other site. Is it ok for Google ? I believe it might be indexed already
Content Development | | Personnel_Concept0 -
Second Blog on the Same Site? Best SEO Practice
I would like to start up another blog which has more of a "technical" topic coverage vs my regular blog, which appeals more to non-techie business folks. If the goal is to drive traffic ultimately to the main site, should I do this second blog on a different domain, a subdomain, or try to incorporate it as a separate-but-equal blog on the same domain as the currrent one? What would you do?
Content Development | | JMagary0 -
What's the best blogging platform?
I've always used Wordpress without really giving it much thought, but I'm open to trying out a different platform for a new blog. Can anyone give me some advantages or reasons to move to a different platform? Thanks!
Content Development | | PeterAlexLeigh0