Name Branding

[Patrick]

This is a theory I have, so if anyone can agree or disagree, please do so.

If you're planning on running a large number of forums, it might be cool to do a kind of brand name on your forum names and URLs.

For example, you could do your first forum, "www.discusswordpress.com (http://www.discusswordpress.com)," then, you could maybe do "www.discussvbulliten.com (http://www.discussvbulliten.com)." This is good for two reasons. If people who are comfortable on one see the name of the other, they may feel welcomed and comfortable at the second as well. Also, if someone thinks you have a forum for one thing, they'd be able to just go "www.discuss+topic.com (http://www.discuss+topic.com)" and see for theirselves.

This creates familiarity between forums and users, and could be good for SEO.

I have kind of set myself up for this, because with my site, moonlightfans.com, I can now make another fansite, like maybe newamsterdamfans.com or heroesfans.com, and it would make things easier.

Another cool way of name branding is by making up a word. For my other site, tevault.net, I decided to "make up" a word. That way, when people hear the word, they automatically think of my site. Tevault is for "TV Vault" just in one word.

Maybe you want to make up a name for your forum "network", that way when people hear the word, they think of your forum.

Any ideas? I realize it's kind of random, but I was just wondering if people have used this and had some success with it.

[Savage X]

I completely agree.

Although a bit plain, the forums in my network usually have "forum" in the URL (ie: NameForum.com). I think doing this, and probably being more original, is a great way to show your are forums from one network - and a good way to keep the members of each one connected to each one.

Good thread. It appears we think alike about this. :)

[Patrick]

I'm glad! And yeah, "topic+forum" is an excellent way to go. Good for SEO, and very clear about what the site is dedicated to.

Or, maybe you could get away with buying one doman, like www.unitedcommunities.com (http://www.unitedcommunities.com), for example, and then doing www.unitedcommunities.com/wordpress (http://www.unitedcommunities.com/wordpress) and www.unitedcommunities.com/politics (http://www.unitedcommunities.com/politics)

[Savage X]

I actually have never thought of that. The problem there, though, is that it may get a little confusing and probably wouldn't be as SEO friendly.

My network has a website. Within the site, it has pages for each forum, and some other information about the network. But, at the same time, a member of one of the forums may not even know about this, because it is the specific forum they want - not the network.

[Daniel]

Patrick, I think you're correct in your theory. If you're going to have a network of forums and promote them within each other, then I think that this sort of branding is excellent. I hadn't thought much about this before, but I'll keep it in mind in the future.

While still related to branding but a little off topic from your original intent, I'd like to say that the branding of any name is more personal and better for the community of a forum than a generic search engine optimizable domain name. For example, I'd like "tvfreaks" instead of "tvforum." Don't get me wrong - I'd snag tvforum in a minute because these sort are great for SEO. But I'd prefer to use a more personal, brandable domain name.

[Patrick]

That's true as well. The less generic, the better. Makes it feel more unique of a community. Though I think there is value to having a clear, obvious name.

Also, if you want to do a bunch of forums, maybe you could make one site that displays them all through a frame? I'm a really big Joomla fan, and Joomla makes it easy to do this with pages that use a "wrapper" function, which just displays another site within yours.

So, I could have www.forumsonline.com (http://www.forumsonline.com) or something, and then having pages that display each forum.