Launching Blog. Forum Link?

[positivecarry]

Hi everyone,

I have spent a good deal of time making blog entries for a niche blog I am about to launch . I bought the nichenameblog.com and nichenameforum.com. What I am wondering is would it be wise as a newbie to link my blog to my forum? The reason I am hesitant to do this is because I don't think I have the skill set to effectively monetize my forum , and I feel that because of the niche people will end up gravitating to the forum more so than the blog.

A blog is pretty easy to start monetizing(at least I think so, so far, haha, I am quite new, could be in for a shock). The forum, however, I don't think I could effectively monetize. Here, the conversion rates on these links are probably pretty high, but my forum will have no where near this traffic. So , what do you guys think, stick with the blog until I become more versed in the forum world?

I am having conflicting thoughts here, because I feel a forum would really get people to hang around , but that it would drain traffic from my blog where I would have image based affiliate links. As usual , any correspondence is much appreciated. Thanks for reading.

[Linda Buquet]

A forum and blog can compliment each other. BUT for a newbie starting with a blog and getting that part down 1st makes sense. You can't even imagine everything that goes into setting up, learning and managing a forum. Setting up a blog and learning all of that is quite the learning curve too.

If you try to do both right away you'll be overwhelmed and have a little bit of each but a whole lotta nothing. FOCUS. Get one thing working, perfect it, drive traffic and monetize it. Then do the next thing.

I wonder if having them 2 domains is wise also. If it's the same niche then you'd be much better off having blog.niche.com and forum.niche.com on a single domain.

[positivecarry]

Hi Linda ,

Greatly appreciate your take on the situation, as you do have a blog and forum.
If you could elaborate on what you said about putting the forum under the same domain name. Would this just be what I see referred to a as a subdomain? ( I can see the seasoned vets rolling their eyes right now, haha).

[Linda Buquet]

Yep thats those are subdomains and most hosts allow unlimited subdomains.
That's how my blog and forum are set up. That way all your energy goes into driving traffic to one site too instead of splitting your efforts between 2 sites.

[positivecarry]

Thanks much for the follow up response. This place is great. Take care.