5 Benefits of Adding a Community Forum to Your E-commerce Website

1. The forum will be used as a tool to communicate with your visitors frequently and closely. You could use the forum to start an online class, provide free tutorial and tips, and respond to your visitors inquiries. This way, your visitors will begin to trust you and as a result these visitors may start trying your products or services and you make more profit.

2. If your forum has become a popular place for discussion of a niche topic, then many people will often come back to your site’s forum and participate on discussions. You’ll gain a steady stream of free massive traffic. With this steady traffic, you can have an additional income stream by displaying pay-per-click ads like Google AdSense and YPN or selling advertising space.

3. You understand more about your visitors by reading the conversations and discussions between them. Your visitors may talk about your products, services and website. Studying these information and feedbacks can help you market your products or services more effectively.

4. You could open a section in the forum to provide after sale support to your customers. By answering your customer questions in a friendly manner, you’ll increase your customer satisfaction. Also your customers might get the answers of their questions immediately by reading other previous inquiries by other customers in the forum. This will give you and your business more credibility. And your satisfied customers will recommend your products or services to their friends.

5. The forum enables you to network with other businesses and exchange business tips, ideas, strategies, advertising, etc.