No Link to Forums from new woodwhisperer site?


JakeL

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Hey All,

Was trying to access the forums this morning from the woodwhisperer website.  I noticed a new layout, but no link to these forums?  I could be blind and missed it, but I always liked going through his website to get here so I could see any new content on his site.

 

Thanks,


Jake

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14 minutes ago, JakeL said:

Hey All,

Was trying to access the forums this morning from the woodwhisperer website.  I noticed a new layout, but no link to these forums?  I could be blind and missed it, but I always liked going through his website to get here so I could see any new content on his site.

 

Thanks,


Jake

Top left corner, "Our Sites."

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It took me quite a while to find the link on the woodwhisperer website and I actually thought the forum was just gone.  I recommend making it easier to find unless you want this to be a super secret club.  If that is the case we should get a secret password, door knock and handshake.

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Well here's why we set it up this way. <inside baseball> Our goal with the new design was to simplify. In order to do that, some things need to be classified as 2nd and 3rd tier importance. Links to our other properties just can't be top-tier alongside important TWW-specific navigation items. So my logic was, give the frequent users an easy (but not necessarily immediately obvious) link. While it doesn't hit you over the head, you won't forget it once you know where it is. I'm not too worried about new user acquisition because the numbers just aren't there to support it. Here's how the forum's traffic breaks down:

77% - Organic search

18% - Direct

4% - Referral

Now TWW does make up the lion share of traffic in the Referral category, but in the big picture that's a very small number. And consider that most of that referral traffic is probably folks like you guys using the link as quick access to the forum.

Hence the final decision to at least provide the link for easy interplay between the two sites for folks in the know. But not necessarily feeling the need to advertise the forum overtly. We might decide to add a forum widget or even some kind of ad in the future if we feel the need to. But right now, the shear volume of quality information in the forum is our best asset. We're on the first page of Google when you search for "woodworking forum" and there have been numerous occasions where I'll search for something woodworking related only finding myself reading a post from our forum. </inside baseball>

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6 hours ago, thewoodwhisperer said:

Well here's why we set it up this way. <inside baseball> Our goal with the new design was to simplify. In order to do that, some things need to be classified as 2nd and 3rd tier importance. Links to our other properties just can't be top-tier alongside important TWW-specific navigation items. So my logic was, give the frequent users an easy (but not necessarily immediately obvious) link. While it doesn't hit you over the head, you won't forget it once you know where it is. I'm not too worried about new user acquisition because the numbers just aren't there to support it. Here's how the forum's traffic breaks down:

77% - Organic search

18% - Direct

4% - Referral

Now TWW does make up the lion share of traffic in the Referral category, but in the big picture that's a very small number. And consider that most of that referral traffic is probably folks like you guys using the link as quick access to the forum.

Hence the final decision to at least provide the link for easy interplay between the two sites for folks in the know. But not necessarily feeling the need to advertise the forum overtly. We might decide to add a forum widget or even some kind of ad in the future if we feel the need to. But right now, the shear volume of quality information in the forum is our best asset. We're on the first page of Google when you search for "woodworking forum" and there have been numerous occasions where I'll search for something woodworking related only finding myself reading a post from our forum. </inside baseball>

+ What he just said ?

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