Incorporate What You Know Into Your Business

Yes, development of useful sites is the way to go and no doubt a forum will drive additional traffic. However, forum moderation is likely very time consuming. What is the payback on that investment?

@Leonard

In the forum rules, I specify that there will be limited moderation. I suppose if it gets popular and busy enough to be problematic, I can always hire someone inexpensively to do it.

Elliot (or Kevin):

Any forum software/product that allows for the auto-blocking of posts containing words and/or phrases that the site owner doesn’t want to see on their site/s?

Only way I’d even consider using forums.

write about what you know

i have been involved in marketing for a while and let me warn you about this waaaaaaaaaaay long before you get hit by russian hackers, delete simple machine forums and install http://www.vbulletin.com/.

Trust me, you will thank me later.

Simple machine forums is nice for some hoity toity site to test how to build forums but you will be 10 times better installing vb bulletin.
S.e.o (excuse my language is a bitch) with simple machines but with vb bulletin .. i could go on and on but trust me on that. Its only 100 bucks for a full license and i am sure you have 100 bucks lying around.
Cheers Elliot.

@Steve

Yes, SMF has a built-in word censoring feature.

The most popular forum apps are vBulletin, phpBB, and SMF.

Personally, I really love SMF the most now and phpBB, as my next favorite. vB is considered the top dog for boards but there is a license fee, and it’s got a more robust admin panel, so if you’re doing lots of forums then you have to factor that in on your site costs plus the deeper learning curve on the admin stuff. phpBB and SMF are Free and easier control panels.

Kevin

I hate to be the bearer of bad news but you have it backwards like most domainers do. You don’t establish a forum to get traffic. You establish a forum AFTER traffic. Meaning, you need a method of establishing targeted visitors before they will commit to the site.

@ Tia

I am getting over 500 visitors per day to the site, so it’s not really about bringing traffic. I am doing my best to increase stickiness so they continue to return, and the forum will drive added traffic.

You are right though. Just because you have a forum, doesn’t mean people will come all of a sudden because of it.

People aren’t going to “stick” if the forums are dead. Think about it. How many domain forums or general forums for that matter that made the site appear boring and slow? You might portray that on your site if you’re not careful.

( I’m not calling your site boring nor slow btw )

@ Tia

That’s true, but that’s why I need to help it start out and I have a couple others who will be helping with this, too.

I see you don’t have any way of collecting data on Burbank. There are plenty of people who are willing to come by and sign up for a newsletter or free site membership before they would be willing to participate in a forum. Collect the data first, then launch the forum and it should turn out just fine for you.

[edit]
In your email, you mentioned their was a newsletter but I didn’t notice it offhand (which means your site visitors probably don’t either). Maybe a form for that at the top?
[/edit]

I think we can all relate to this. I have noticed that I am not using what I know when I am doing business in general but that’s starting to change now. This can be applied to any situations.

The forum was a good idea, as you said long term it will work out well. Just make sure it does not consume too much of your time.

I really went through the same decision process when I established a forum on a site for the city of Manchester, England.

After running it for a while I have decided to drop it. The reason is a simple one. I just think a forum damages my brand. Reputation management is everything!

I want to demonstrate Manchester and my site in a positive way. From looking at other “geo/ city forums” I realised that people prefer talking about local issues – crime, politics, relationships and are frequently critical of the conduct of the municipal / state government. Frequently discussion is negative, or controversial. Forum members frequently fall out with one another, form cliques and indulge in a range of activities that you would not wish to associate yourself.

As has been said before, the role of forum moderator is time consuming. The success or failure of your forum will depend on the skills and enthusiasm of the person who is moderating. I believe only a fraction of forum members post with any frequency and even fewer would venture beyond the forum itself.

Of course, the worst thing is a forum that looks inactive – thats a reputation killer because it gives the totally wrong impression to visitors and potential advertisers.

I suggest a Burbank blog instead – you are in control and you can build a community of sorts, just like you have here.

Good luck

Elliot, have you thought about radio sponsorship in burbank. E.g “the weather was brought to you by burbank.com” Is a cheap entry into radio advertising. Could give it a trial for a month?