Best Place to Implement Forum Into a Established Website?

Hello fellow DP'ers,

I think I need to install a forum in addition to my blog because I get too many comments at some of my posts, and I feel they would be better discussed at a forum. Well the thing is I'm not really sure where to put my forum exactly. Should I install it at: www.website.com/forum, forum.website.com or I even have a better idea to buy a similar domain as my website www.websiteforum.com and install it there and have them separately. That way I could unite my discussion from my main blog as well as my other blogs with similar niche. What do you think is best for SEO and management? 

EDIT: Actually I just thought of a few sub-questions. How should I link my blog post with the corresponding forum thread for it's discussion?

Should I just say at the end of the blog post: for serious discussions please visit *thread at forum* ?

And what should I include in the thread at the forum? If I copy paste the blog post content, that would be duplicating content, on the other hand if I don't post anything, visitors that landed directly at the forum thread will be confused, and won't know what are these discussions about? Any ideas for setup this one, again having SEO in mind too of course? 

 

Okay, before I give my input I just want to say... this was totally unrelated to Spiritfly's question, and you're simply trying to increase your post count. Don't spam to build rep.

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As for Spiritfly, my personal choice would be to have www.yoursite.com (your blog) and have forums.yoursite.com as well. If you put yoursite.com/forums, the urls can be too messy, leading to lengthy urls and links in your code.

Also, there's another benefit to having forums.yoursite.com rather than yoursite.com/forums. You can treat forums.yoursite.com as a separate website/subdomain while still being under your main domain, meaning you can have a different layout and new scripts that won't conflict with what you have already in your main site. If you decide to go with yoursite.com/forums, you can still have a custom section for your site with a new design for the forums and all subsequent urls, but it becomes messier to install and maintain.

You can, if you wish, decide to buy a whole other domain for your forums, but there isn't that much gain to this.

As for your blog posts, you can just place the link at the bottom of your post using simple html (or WP's insert hyperlink option, which is essentially the same exact thing but user friendly).

 <a href="forums.yoursite.com/showthread.php?t=000000">Give your input about this post on our forums! Chat now!</a> 

Code (markup):

 

Yeah, I too think using a subdomain is better than having it in a subdirectory, but I'm still thinking about buying a separate domain for the forums. I'm considering this because I have a few blogs with a similar niche, and I think a the forum may include post discussions from those too.

I guess I will link like you suggested in every blog post to the forum discussion, that's easy enough, but I'm still wondering about what should I include in the starter forum thread? If I include a copy of the blog post, it would be considered a duplicate and they won't get good search results, on the other hand if I only post a link to the blog post which we are discussing, visitors that landed directly on the forum thread may be confused about the exact topic. What would be the most appropriate?

Thanks for the suggestions so far xDemevenx !

 

Well I ended up buying a completely different domain because it was easily brandable and in cope with the blog. Thanks everyone for participating (XDemevenx, and the rest of you, you know who you are

 

The hardest thing I found when I implemented a forum in my german blog was to get active users .... even though the blog had them

 

I don't think the key is really which domain to place it at, but more so how will you easily show people that you HAVE a forum and they should go there so you can answer their questions. Solve that one and you are ahead of the game. Consider using a heatmap to see where people's eyeballs roam and you may have the answer to this

Best of Luck!

 

Ehh I know you went with a new domain, but I don't like that idea.

Good luck.

 

I think you may be right, but in my case I think I will get some users, because I will be offering kind of free tech support, so I think I may have some audience

I agree completely with you Justin, and I think I might be able to solve people problems, that's why I want to try administrating a forum. But since I have the privilege of choosing where it will be placed at, I would like to choose the best option even if that means only 1% gain

I know it might be a bad idea for SEO, but the forum domain name is easily brandable with my blog domain name so that is the primary reason I chose it. Can you elaborate on why you don't like it that way?

Regards!