Earning Money

This is a question asked by Jeff over at PYSIH.com. If you have any questions that you wanted answered, feel free to drop me an e-mail at: jacob [at] dormearning [dot] com.

After discussing a particular idea with Jeff, he asked me if he should put up a blog or a forum. Now, I am not going to give away his secrets, so I am not going to so much base this on his idea as much as I intend on giving you my opinion on the two and which I think is better. Blogs are, as you know, this site for instance. It’s run by me and I update it regularly with new articles. If you want, you can comment and that’s how it works. A forum is run by me, such as my debate forum, but instead of me being the sole content provider (or sometimes with Rose), there are tons of content providers. But, which is really better?

• With a blog, you are the sole provider of content and it is much easier to get people to show interest. Since you are the sole provider, people aren’t ‘worried’ about joining. Starting a forum can be hard because of this fear of being ‘the first one in.’ In the same respect, though, having a forum allows for tons and tons of indexed pages which can bring a considerable amount of traffic to your forum. More indexed pages = better.
• In my personal opinion, it is easier to monetize a blog than it is a forum. There are limited places that can really get a forum reader to see the ads while on a blog, there are numerous places that it can go: a block in the text, after the text, in the sidebar, at the footer, etc etc. However, since most of your readers are return readers, it can be difficult to get them to click the ads while on forums, a lot of new people might cross by just because there are so many indexed pages.
• On a forum, you are getting so many different people posting content which takes the stress off of you. However, starting off can be extremely stressful. Trust me, I know. On a blog, since you are the only provider, you blog twice a day and you are doing a good job. On a forum, when you start, you need to throw tons of threads so people want to sign up and join.

As you can see, I prefer a blog over a forum. I have had so much more success with a blog than with a forum, but in the end, it depends entirely on your niche. The best way to go if you want a blog and a forum is to have BOTH. There’s nothing wrong with having both. It expands the possibility for the search engines to index you. And if you can get enough regular blog readers, you may just get more people to sign up for the forum. I can say from personal experience that getting people to sign up to a forum is tough. But, if people know you and know your blog, they may sign up to your forum. So, I say blog over forum, or just use both.

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