Community site for link building?

[SamCUK]

I'm considering the following in order to get users to stay on my site and make it more useful to visitors. At the minute we list live bands for hire and have a blog - that's it. I'm looking to build a sense of community where users can build a profile, chat, list their gigs, upload demos and chat in forums.

Firstly I want improve the user experience and gain dedicated members but my second reason for doing so it to gain backlinks. My theory is that if the site is more useful it will gain more links. Does anyone have any info on how implementing 'community' features on a website helps with backlinks and whether this strategy works?

These changes would mean my site has evolved considerably but i don't see that as a problem. My long term aim is to monetise the site through classifed ads and spot ads. Would anyone advise against adding advertising to a site and if so why?

[Syed1]

It really depends on how you approach the advertising on the forum/community. If you do it in a positive way - by having helpful/relevant/subtle/non-intrusive ads, it could be a great strategy in the long run.

If you simply throw in some keywordy text links, the user experience is degraded and you also risk being 'reported' by competitors (who would be looking at your 'new' links; if niche is competitive).

It could be an affective strategy as long as you are very careful on how you carry this out - right from the initial strategy (where you host) to ads and link implementation (how you monetize)