There are many ways of increasing interactivity between your site and its visitors, but one of simplest and most efficient methods of creating a true sense of community remains the use of web-based discussion forums. If you want to cover a large subject area such as automobile maintenance, you could have many different forums on your site, one for each manufacturer. In many other cases you will need just one forum in which many discussions can take place. Discussion is not mere chat Discussion forums are very different from live chat or bulletin board systems because messages within each forum are organized into structured discussions that are left on-line over a period of time. Typically, a discussion will start with a question.
Visitors can also reply to the replies rather than the original question.
One visitor may disagree that 1995 is the best year for Bordeaux and will post their reply directly under the message that suggested it was. As users return to the forum to see the state of the discussion they started or participated in, they are clocking up more hits on your site and becoming more familiar with your company and the products and services you offer. There is a lot of work to be done to make sure that visitors do participate in the discussion forums and that they become invaluable sources of information in themselves. Always bear in mind that running a successful on-line community will not only mean increasing the number of hits to your site, it will also improve the relationship you have with existing and prospective customers. Start discussion forums with the intention of achieving the latter and the hits will follow.