How Much Do Forums Help SEO?

[jsmith2482]

Thinking about adding a forum to my wordpress site. Here's my point of view

1:Forums help with more user generated content. I'll rank for random but real search terms that I wouldn't think of on my own.
2:Helps internal linking
3: Helps new users reach my site without reading an article and gives them an entry for interaction.

What;s the easiest forum to integrate to a wordpress blog?

[patrich]

Originally Posted by jsmith2482

Thinking about adding a forum to my wordpress site. Here's my point of view

1:Forums help with more user generated content. I'll rank for random but real search terms that I wouldn't think of on my own.
2:Helps internal linking
3: Helps new users reach my site without reading an article and gives them an entry for interaction.

What;s the easiest forum to integrate to a wordpress blog?

Sometimes, Google is your friend:

http://wphacks.com/integrating-forums-into-a-wordpress-blog/

I would point out though, that you seem to be overlooking a few of the problems with forums. Things like:

They require a lot of work and constant moderation.

They are very prone to spam, more so than a lot of other platforms.

And until the forum begins to gain some popularity and members, they just look dead.

All of these things I would take into consideration before setting up a forum on your blog.

[lovboa]

Yes, I agree with patrich.
I believe a forum will require a lot of work and policing to run off successfully.
And it could be just me...but if I visited a website, saw that they had a forum...and didn't see much activity on there....I would immediately (subconsciously) devalue that site in my mind.

Meaning...in a way...it's kind of a risk to devalue your site if it ends up being not so popular with few members regularly posting. Not to mention spamming.

[blogworker]

as time goes by, the reputation of your forum will higher and higher, and then more and more people will glad to join, and you will earn more links, then ranking, and then more and more money.

[SamDenial]

Well Forums are really a great help to generate traffic and as your forum gets older, you will get more popularity and more people will join.

[vtotheyouknow]

Here's what helps your SEO:

Extremely high-quality content and backlinks from relevant, high quality sites. Period. Stop hunting for backlinks and generate amazing content that people want to link to and syndicate and facilitate that process by reaching out to webmasters in your niche. THAT is the wave of SEO in the future.

[MikeFriedman]

There is no doubt that a forum can be great for internal linking.

However, without other mods to help you out, they will get overrun by spam. You'll wake up every morning to porn links throughout the site. Links to every enhancement pill you can think of. There will be gibberish in other languages.

They are really a nightmare to manage by yourself. I think the sheer aggravation that comes with a forum outweighs the SEO benefit it can provide.

[iAmNameLess]

Originally Posted by vtotheyouknow

Here's what helps your SEO:

Extremely high-quality content and backlinks from relevant, high quality sites. Period. Stop hunting for backlinks and generate amazing content that people want to link to and syndicate and facilitate that process by reaching out to webmasters in your niche. THAT is the wave of SEO in the future.

Most people on here will agree with you, but I don't. I still, honestly do not see any difference between backlinks on random sites and "relevant" sites. Even the greatest article in the world, isn't going to rank #1, just because of the information it has, or how it was written. It will rank because of backlinking.

I would focus on keyword research first of all... then write up some content, even if it is average content... then get a nice variety of backlinks and we're done.

I don't believe google will ever, dismiss backlinks in the algorithm. I also don't believe google will ever send humans to a page to see if the content is amazing or just average.

SEO of the future is going to be in social media. Which the OP is right in wanting a forum, even though it isn't a social network, it is social and the user generated content can help. Just don't look to profit too much off of a forum because with adsense its pretty lousy CTR