Why YOU Should Add a Blog to Your Forum!

Blogging is becoming more and more popular everyday. There are hundreds upon hundreds of blogs being created and we forum administrators should add to that statistic.


So why should we add a blog to our forums you might ask? I am going to outline the main reasons below.
Search Engines Love Blogs

Did you know search engines love blogs? no? well they do. They adore them and that is why we need to add one to our forum.


Search engines love blogs because they are pure content. Google knows that if news were to come out it would first start appearing on blogs because they are so simple to update.


Blogs are always updated frequently aswell and that's what the GoogleBot loves. Updated quality content. If we are pleasing Search Engines then they will return the favour and send us traffic which is what we want.
Blogs Build Creditability and Show Authority

If you can write quality posts that are unique and useful you will start to build Creditability. People are always lurking the web looking for answers to their questions therefore if you are able to answer their question or solve their problem in a blog post then you will build trust and creditability.


The more questions you can answer with blog posts the more trust you can build. People will start to see you as an authority figure within your niche and that is when they will come to your forum to hang out.
More Links From Search Engines = More Traffic

Every time you submit a post major blogging platforms such as WordPress ping search engines such as Google, Yahoo and Ask to say that your blog has been updated. They then send out their bots to crawl the page and before you know it that post has been added to the major Search Engines Database.


This means that you have another link inside Google therefore you will receive an increase in traffic to your forum. The more blog posts you have the more links inside Google therefore the more gateways to your forum.
Blogging Creates Activity

Activity is the key to a successful forum but is one of the hardest aspects to gain. Activity is the decider if that new visitor should join your forum or not. Why would a visitor want to join an inactive forum? Therefore, we forum administrators take any activity we can get and blogging can add to that activity.


After I created I blog post I used to create a discussion thread inside a forum where members could talk about the parts they like/dislike or agree/disagree with the blog post.


If a new visitor were to come along and see that there is active discussions going on then they are more likely to become members and active participators.
What's Your Say?

Overall blogs are great community builders and that's what we forum administrators strive for when we start a forum, a community.



Have you created a blog within your forum? Does this post change your views on blogging? Is there any more advantages to adding a blog to your forum? Post below I would love to hear your thoughts.

By Glen from Successful Forum - Glen runs a Forum Administration blog where he blogs about tips, tricks and advice to running a successful forum.

This post has been promoted to an article

 

I am not sure about this, Glen.

Blogs were popular several years ago, but this is not so any more.

The accent now in on social media.

Anyway, I publish a blog on my website (forum is also a part of it), and I also run a Facebook page, where I post all news from my website, forum and blog.

 

I can't agree or disagree with this. In general, any unique content to your website will help benefit it with the major search engines. But let's be honest here, when was the last time you read a quality blog entry on a forum? Its been awhile since I have found one.

Let's not also forget that people just don't post blog entries to one site (typically). For instance, this blog article was probably posted to multiple websites. Duplicate content on multiple websites doesn't always help your website and in some cases can actually penalize your rankings. Not to mention its duplicate content so its a good chance a search engine links to another site before yours!

Blogs don't hurt anything on your forum, but I've never seen them as magic feature that's a necessity.