Develop Existing Domain More & Develop New Domain

[CrazyTech]

Okay, so long story short, I have a religion forum of ~6,000 members. Probably 100-150 are active users of the site that visit x times a month - enough to count them as active and contributing members.

My various analytical tools place traffic at somewhere between 13k-18k unique visitors a month. The forum is setup at the root of the domain and it has functioned for 7 years or so.

I want to move towards a blog/magazine type feel with an active commenting group. I don't have a ton of time to develop an integrated forum commenting solution, and truth be told I know most thing forums are on the way out. I would like to hedge my bets a little, I suppose.

My quandry is whether I develop the blog/magazine under the existing domain (IE: christianityboard.com/content/) or if I launch a new site (domain litaflame.com).

Do you think I am harmed by the philosophy of having two not entirely integrated websites on the same domain or would I be smarter to take advantage of the existing traffic?

I'm doing my reading (googling) but educated opinions (and facts) are welcome!

Thanks in advance!

 

[Lithium]

You have a powerful marketing tool in your forum, and there's no need to force changes upon a rooted forum population, since as you said, that's getting rare nowadays. Personally, I think having two sites is the better option. Seed conversations on the forums with links to your blog articles, and you'll create a following of users that are willing to contribute. If you play your cards right, both sites will gain more value for your users, and you'll successfully transfer some traffic to your new site as it develops, helping you win the massive uphill battle of finding a good blog following. In the end, you would have two properties to leverage in the future for any new projects.