Blog, Forum, and Comment Systems

May 31, 2011 by Bert Verbeeke

If you are in the process of making (or remaking) your website then you’re probably wondering what the best way is to share information in an interactive and ongoing and way. Blogs, forums and comment systems are common ways to achieve this.

Blogs

A blog is a kind of indirect advertisement tool. In a blog you normally don’t write about your own website, but rather about issues related to the industry your business is in. For example, a tour operator in China might have a blog titled “Common travel problems in China”. The primary goal of a blog is to provide helpful information. If visitors to your website do indeed find your blogs helpful they will likely come back to your site and see you as an expert in your industry. Blogs also help direct traffic to your website as search engines like Google give preference to websites where new content is frequently added. In addition to being posted on your website, blogs should give readers an option to subscribe via email or other ways. It is important to note that a blog needs to be kept active! Depending on your type of business this may mean writing a blogging a few times a week or once every two to three weeks. If you are not committed to keeping the blog up than it is probably better not to start one and just incorporate more content into your regular webpage. Another obvious example of a blog is the one you are reading right now. We wrote this blog because we had some customers ask for clarification on blogs, forums and comment systems. This is knowledge that our company has and is happy to share with others; especially on our own website where people can also take a peek about our company services if they are interested.

 A Forum

On online forum is a place where registered members of your website can post questions and get feedback on certain topics. This might be specifically related to your products and services or it could also be more general and related to your industry. Using the example again of a tour operator in China, a possible forum might relate to discussions of recommended itineraries and tourist areas for a given province in China. The tour company can decide if it wants to be the only person responding to questions or if it also wants to open up the forums to other users who can post their recommendations and travel tips. The main focus of a forum is getting people specific information whether it is through a group discussion or by you answering their question. Of course you could just email with a person back and forth to share information, but a forum is better than that for three reasons:

1. It puts your conversations on your websites and allows other people with the same questions to simply read that “thread”, or topic. This saves you from answering the same questions over and over again.

2. It allows multiple people to answer questions and share information. Of course you will want to moderate the content to see that it is appropriate, but overall forums are a very common and effective way of sharing information.

3. Forums drive traffic to your website. As with a blog, forums offer new and relevant content and thus help your website show up more often in search engines.

 Comment Systems

A comment system allows visitors to give feedback or ask questions about an article or blog on your website. It is a great way of generating interaction on your website and allowing visitors to engage with the content they area reading. Comment systems are easy to manage and we usually advise our customers to set up the system so that they can first approve each comment before it is posted.