Money’s blog vs money’s forum – what is more profitable?

The fact, that to have site with content about e-money is undoubtedly profitable, does not need to be proof, as payable traffic always may be either gainfully converted or successfully offered to the advertisers. However formats of data publications and conversation in the Internet continuously have been changing and for about several years the people ask a topical question, that is, what business-model is worth to choose – blog with content about e-money or forum on which people may communicate on the basis of the common interests in the field of e-finances.

Before to conduct concrete comparison let’s try to understand the core of forum’s model and its evolution in the net. 10 years ago the forum was the most popular and successful model for the site which allows to gather people upon their interests, meet them and achieve their loyalty in the matters of site’s daily visit. Time passed and forums popularity begins to fall. We can list a lot of reasons but there is an opinion that the people have stopped to visit the forums due to appearance of the wide row of data sources (such as news sites, blogs, magazines) and in connection with it necessity in conversation begins to pull down and users may get information not only from direct conversation with each other.

There is a contrary situation with blogs. 10 years ago only a few persons know such word “Blog”. Technologies WEB 2.0 have just appeared and they are in store to gain their popularity. But in course of time the people have understood that blog’s format allows users being even absolutely incompetent in the programming and web-design to create not only diaries but enough serious and large sites with content and sometimes “mini-mass-media”. The mad popularity of blogs has led to the explosion of content volumes concerning any topic including e-money subject and it has begun to bring to the gradual satisfaction of information starvation at the people who do not go more to the forum searching topics they are interested in but looks for the information in the blog spheres.

Anyhow the result is that the curve of blogs’ popularity tends upward and forums’ popularity is directed downward. But it does not mean that forum’s format is dying, it only shows that if you create a forum you have to thoroughly analyze your potential visitor and understand whether he goes finally to the blog or not. And in order to understand it there is a necessity to define initially content’s type or topics which will be discussed on your forum. Here is a golden rule: questions to be discussed on the forum should not have a simple answer, they must require the public opinion! None of the blogs with their comments may be compared with the forums upon this aspect.

So having left behind the back the theoretical part let’s pass on to the practical discussion of blogs with e-money content and forums where such topics have been discussed. If we talk about the project generation we may assuredly declare that it is more profitable to choose blog’s format, unless you have the reputable budget which you are ready to spend on posters and advertisement for the forum. The sticking point usually consists of the following: if people having come to the forums do not see active discussions on them they do not want to register on them. And active topics may draw to a head only on the ground of stormy discussions of at least posters in the beginning. But as there are never too many of posters the golden rule of mass discussion is impossible to realize and the business comes to a deadlock.

Much more easier is to begin to create a blog about e-money. Here you do not require users’ registration, posters and as a suitable advertisement tool you can use the blog sphere, in which your blog if it is enough interesting will be mandatory find and promote among the friends. In the blog you can feel yourself more flexible at the offering of content formats. You can prepare convenient makeup which allows you to offer people articles, news, voting and a lot of other information which in contrast to the forum will be visible on the main page at once.

Let’s have a look on a blog and forum in terms of earnings.

Let’s begin from traffic conversion through Google AdSense. There is no reliable statistic data about the places where traffic is better to be converted. However one can make conclusions on the basis of indirect signs. In favor of blogs there is the fact that they are usually characterized with much amount of content in comparison with the forums having the same traffic. Such announcement is based on the fact that forums’ content consists as a rule from the short posters even they are in a huge amount. And blogs’content includes articles, news and other materials in which are not used short catchwords but complicated forms of information presentation that is led to exceed of letter’s amount. As a result the more content means the more pages, the more pages – the more visits, the more visits – the more clicks and higher profit. Plus very often people who are far away from the discussed topics wander to the blogs where they are successfully converted to AdSense.

As for earnings on the partner programs the positions here are approximately equal as the highest targeting on the forums is compensated with large information volumes on the blogs which describing in details such or another site brings a person to click on the referral link.

Nevertheless somebody would say but it was noticed repeatedly that banner advertisement costs more expensive on the forums about e-money than in the blogs. It is evident that it connects with the high targeting of the forum audience because the forums as a rule are visited by the professionals coming to the forum every day. So the payment for traffic loyalty is the high price of banner advertisement. It is worth to say that the price is justified as targeting audience of the forums is better converted at the advertisers in comparison with the audience in the blogs where a lot of accidental visitors appear.

In this question the forums are without a rival. This format allows promoting various advertisements on behalf of users, arranging an effect of “bush telegraph” and meanwhile avoiding any pushiness or prenotion.

Blogs have no such capabilities. And if you promote an article with well concealed product placement any reader will have doubts that blog’s owner tries to “plug” someone to him. That’s why the forums are more attractive as places for hidden promotion and forums’ owner can earn on it.

The above listed are the main ways of earning on the forums and blogs. There are a lot of other methods of traffic conversion but they are approximately equal for both formats.

In conclusion we can say the following: If you have a working forum with permanent audience it has no sense to think about a blog. Develop your project, stimulate new audience attraction and finally you will have professionals’ community on which you can earn more than on the blog with the same audience. But if you only start your business and think what to choose – blog or forum, begin to create a blog. Promotion, positioning and first years of project’s existence will be much easier and mainly more profitable for you than for forum’s owner.

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