New community - Is being more niche/local better/worse for adoption?

Hey guys,

I have a fair bit of experience in the web world but still wanted to get feedback on a specific question I have around starting a new project.

I basically want to start a community around 3 alcoholic drinks. Beer, wine and cider. Predominantly brewing it at home but associated topics.

Would you A get a domain like alcoholforum.com and do it all.

Or B get individual domains like wineforum.com, ciderforum.com, beerforum.com

I am thinking by being more niche it will aid gaining members because people will identify with it better.

Further I can get a great uniform 3 set of .co.uk domains for each drink. I am uk based and its a good market size.

Do you also think keeping things more local can aid gaining members?

Does anyone have any experience with this? Getting a community off the ground is very difficult these days with the recent Google changes. Id rather have a big piece of UK than tiny piece of the world so to speak.

Many thanks.

I wouldn't call it alcohol forum but I'd do it all in one.

If you want to do it local I'd offer to post about promotions, to list the local spots (wineries, breweries, bars, clubs, etc) in your site (nicely, like a featured page) and more in exchange for letting you put up a flyer or brochure.

And put flyers up in your local supermarket too!

If the domains are available and your serious about building it as a brand then i would personally probably go down the route of registering all relevant domains such as "wineforums" , "beer forums" etc etc, but then forward them to the related categorys of the forum and have a catchy brand type domain as you actual domain.

A brand which you can market and will interest people will be better than trying to capture people via 3 or more specific category domains.

Alundra said:

I wouldn't call it alcohol forum but I'd do it all in one.

If you want to do it local I'd offer to post about promotions, to list the local spots (wineries, breweries, bars, clubs, etc) in your site (nicely, like a featured page) and more in exchange for letting you put up a flyer or brochure.

And put flyers up in your local supermarket too!

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Thanks, I ment online local, so pick a country over going global

Well you can have a local focus but have a couple of boards for global wine, beer, and etc... Like have a category for "blah around the world" and then have a separate board for each so people can still discuss it.

It depends on wether you already have a local realworld community to fall back on, or can create one.

I suppose that depending on the niche, it could help securing sponsorships tied to realworld events or local sponsors. Auto sites tend to be hyper-local for example, but so are niches covering the discovery of Asian culture. A properly nurtured local following could be managed separately from the global one and more actively, and will provide more opportunities for staff you can join anytime you need (and punch if they mess up).

Regarding the drinking topic, it's an interesting one that can be leveraged more efficiently locally, with expansion of your reach globally a welcome bonus. Reason is you could reach out to realworld folks for events, meetups, associations like 'alcoholics anonymous', medical folks and merchants/brands. Such folks tend to be very social so I think you're striking gold with this audience, albeit a site may not necessarily the best way to reach out to them or the one with the highest growth potential.

Hey check out meetup.com or meetup.com.au or what ever for your country and see if there's beer/wine meet ups in your area!

There's like 4 or 5 in Melb, most of them do bar crawls, some do actual winery events and trips, some are just hang out at the local pub for beer and chat/footy....and if you can even start there and put your forum down as a sponsor and direct people there sort of thing you'll get a bunch of people who you become friends with PLUS members on the forum and hopefully the added influence of the meet up stuff will help you get in with the wineries and breweries and they'll see you're working well. If you have a crowd of 20-80 people coming into their tours or what ever all the time or that you're offering their beer for sale to or something then they will pay you back with kindness.

Alundra said:

Hey check out meetup.com or meetup.com.au or what ever for your country and see if there's beer/wine meet ups in your area!

There's like 4 or 5 in Melb, most of them do bar crawls, some do actual winery events and trips, some are just hang out at the local pub for beer and chat/footy....and if you can even start there and put your forum down as a sponsor and direct people there sort of thing you'll get a bunch of people who you become friends with PLUS members on the forum and hopefully the added influence of the meet up stuff will help you get in with the wineries and breweries and they'll see you're working well. If you have a crowd of 20-80 people coming into their tours or what ever all the time or that you're offering their beer for sale to or something then they will pay you back with kindness.

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Pity i dont drink anymore,now there is a group i could of formed in Perth

What brings you users is content. If your content is very niche, say, you only have content about ciders available in the London area, you'll get a specialized and much smaller user base and a fairly easy topic to cover. Though, this might be a bit limiting.

If your content covers a wider range of topics, like alcoholic beverages in general, you might be able to get a better user base, but it will be a lot harder to "fill the void" with content. You'll most definitely need to find a good mix, which it seems you are doing or rather thinking about.

Start out with a smaller target niche and if you see things can be expanded, then go for it. I'd avoid splitting your topics over different domains. That only waters down your community efforts. And, I'd come up with a domain name, which is catchy, and possibly indirect to anything "alcoholic". For instance, a name I'd think could be good would be something like imbibe.com.uk or quaff.com.uk

Scott

Adam H said:

If the domains are available and your serious about building it as a brand then i would personally probably go down the route of registering all relevant domains such as "wineforums" , "beer forums" etc etc, but then forward them to the related categorys of the forum and have a catchy brand type domain as you actual domain.

A brand which you can market and will interest people will be better than trying to capture people via 3 or more specific category domains.

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The only problem with that, then you're stuck with the extra cost of keeping those domains going every year. And the list could be never ending as well keep registering domains like that related to your own niche. How many domains can have the word WINE or BEER in it?

I would actually go the opposite way and don't use a domain with WINE or BEER in it. Reason being your domain if somebody searches for those two keywords could be listed on page 200 of google because there's too much competition with those keywords in domain. Instead go for a domain name that has no competition, that can acually work better if you concentrate more on the forum content and build up a rep as a good site. Then when people remember your site title and search your domain later you'll get listed number 1 in google if using an obscure domain name.

Think of it like this. What if XenForo.com was called ForumSofware.com. They would have a hard time getting listed 1st in Google afterwards once they become popular due to such a common domain name used. Far harder then to work your domain name up into page 1 of google rankings.

Anyway, google mainly shows pages in search based on content indexed from pages, not the domain name. So people sooner or later are going to land on your forum searching for beer or wine and if using a domain name like: FredsComeAndGetPissed.com

They search for that later and your ranked Number 1 in Google.

Something like brewforum.com

Thanks for all the replys, been a great help and thought provoker...

I think a drinking forum is actually very similar to autos.

Having a UK ford forum makes more sense than a global forum about ford and Mercedes and VW. It makes sense to split them up.

Wine enthusiasts don't tend to be into beer the same and vice versa. Being UK means I can align with a local audience better, meets ups, advertisers, selling stuff, competitions. Being in the same physical county as the visitor I can connect better I think.

Plus I have a nice wine and beer matching .co.uk domains, no decent .coms out there.

Combining too means going with a brew or homebrew domain, and I want to include other topics, It's not just about making it. There is tourism, commercial products etc...

Only other real solution is get a brandable domain, and I can then do whatever now or in the future... But that is harder than you think to get something catchy and relevant.

Something made up and borderline legible just looks unprofessional IMO.

i'll go with one domain like: pickmywain.com (pickmywine.com is taken) brewee.com or something like that.


Good luck!

luiss said:

i'll go with one domain like: pickmywain.com (pickmywine.com is taken) brewee.com or something like that.


Good luck!

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Are you kidding?! He wants to create a serious branding around his niche. Misspelling it is not only the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard but really immature and would have to be the worst business decision ever.

I don't even understand why you would suggest that as a viable solution.

Alundra said:

Are you kidding?! He wants to create a serious branding around his niche. Misspelling it is not only the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard but really immature and would have to be the worst business decision ever.

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Might be. Misspelling is not always "immature" as you said, (reddit, tumblr, digg), and i know the domains that i gave sounds kind of "immature" i just made a suggestion, that's all.

Alundra said:

I don't even understand why you would suggest that as a viable solution.

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It's ok if you dont understand it, as long as he does,that is what it matters to me. If he doesn't it is also good to me, no worries.

Reddit, tumblr, digg, they are made up names, not misspellings. They're purposely built like that. No one is going to think wain is wine.

He'd do better to use alcomaholic.com or wiine.com or whne.com. At least they look like they could be intentional LOL.

Or w1ne.com. LOL! Edit: oops. Looks like it is taken.

Scott

I would keep it all in one name.

Maybe this?

Now that is an awesome name!! LOVE IT!!