Social versus Search

A giant topic of the day
When it comes to the world of Internet starting points it generally begins with a search on Google or now the Bing / Yahoo engines, we all know this and then there is the newest arrivals Social Networks not just Facebook and MySpace but micro social networking sites that are focused on topics like fishing, dating, sex and cars and on and on, search for a topic that interests you and you likely will find a site devoted to it.

The war for advertising dollars is heating up
Apple wants money from advertisers now to, as we all do, in fact even Logic has a few sites that have advertising placed on them like our Palm Springs Tram website to mention one.

What is the future for Internet websites like say, forums which Logic operates two of, one focused on the deserts of the world including Palm Springs, California and one focused on what we do Email Marketing.

Are forums really a social network that generally offer focused topics to for persons that share these same interests? We think the forum world is very much alive and well going forward.

Do you operate a business?
If your answer is yes, do you have a link to your social network profile on your website?
If your answer is yes, does providing an exit link from your website to somewhere else, say a place that will have your website visitor wondering away make sense to you?

If said no then realize this known fact:
If your business has something to share or offer a visitor that arrives at your website then why on earth and after with not a single doubt on Logic’s behalf all of those countless hours to working so hard on your (SERP) Search Engine Results Page (how your site gets visitors in the first place) would you want them to leave your site through a cute little and what seemed like a harmless button or more that you had added to your website in the first place. The link to others on those social networks are hardly going to sell anything for you, if you have something to say, say it on your own website and remove those outbound links.

If your business wants to interact with your customers, that is ok, and that is real simple, provide a place where they can do that, allow the customers to interact with the company and with other product or service customers that your business has today.

It is called a forum
Forums allow you to share, allow people to become members and offer pictures, add to the calendar of events, stories outbound links whatever.

Select your best business path
There is a choice you need to make however, and that is do you add a forum to your current website or do you create a forum on a separate domain name like say Home Design Forum HomeDesignForum.com or whatever topic your business is into.

Logic is from the separation camp
This means that we produce related websites that while linked together with each related website or forum they stand alone drive their own traffic and create their own communities of visitors, however either one of these is fine so long as you are the owner moderator and controller of each website, blog or forum.

How to present your new social network
Have a creative artist build you a button that is a link to your new forum, and an attractive banner for the forum header.
If you are going to add the forum to your existing website and domain name then skip to number 4 below
Buy a great domain name that will provide these four important traffic drivers
1 buy a .com domain name only
2 buy a domain name that is about your business topic
3 be sure the domain name is the best keywords for your business topic
4 buy a forum software and like with a blog software, be sure it is one that you own, we use vBulleton  

About your website, things you need to check into
Logic also must iterate a hot topic that we are dealing with in regards to your website, be sure that you buy a website platform that you own, because all services offering you (CMS) content management systems own the software meaning, that if like a current client ours is experiencing, they are now too big (a great problem you might not ever experience, though we hope you do) and need to step up and out away from those services that allow you to own your domain name but not the software you are using to build and maintain your website, there are plenty of software’s for sale, that you own, and that still allow you to control add and remove content images and links without the need or time required to go through a webmaster. This client also requires due to the daily traffic and retail orders their own dedicated server, so the days when they were sharing a server with nearly 2000 other websites are over, it was an issue of site uptime and website speed. 

Forums capture email addresses for marketing purposes
Here is a great thing, a benefit of launching a forum dedicated to your business products and or services.

Each site visitor that becomes a member of your forum will be providing you with their email address and this means you now have yet another group you can add to your email-marketing-service account automatically (ESP) Email Service Providers offer multiple groups and automatic signup inclusion software for your websites, blogs and forums, so each time a new forum visitor comes along and becomes a member, they are added to a group you might have named forum members as an example.