Do you have expertise in a particular area where it would be useful to encourage your target client base to discuss their own examples and experiences? In that case you might find it useful to set up a membership site based on a discussion forum. Here, your users can register themselves then take part in discussions in their own time.

Do you run a site for the benefit of a non-profit organisation, charity or interest group? A forum can be a valuable way of building a feeling of community and sharing knowledge.

A forum has many advantages from Search Engine Optimisation considerations as the content is being updated often (if you have an active community) and will be full of keywords relevant to your business.

Would you like to earn money whilst your customers add to the content of your site? This may sound too good to be true. However it can be very effective to create a paid-for product whereby customers gain access to premium content on the forum which is not available to ordinary visitors, and may also have other benefits such as your consultancy time, or tools and other products that you have available.

In its early days, you may well find that you have to write much of the content yourself. If you do this in a way that invites others to get involved and contribute to the conversation, it will develop its own momentum.

Would you find a forum, paid or not, a useful addition to your website? Why not Contact Us for more information.