Forum with links or site with forum?

[corpfan1]

I am planning on starting a forum for one of my interests and hobbies - not related to gambling/poker.

I want the forum to be the focus...but may decide to have some other pages.

I plan on using Vbulletin.

From the forum experts out there...

Is is better to have the FORUM as the main site and have some links to some other pages...(e.g....XXXforums.com)

OR

To have the site (eg...XXX.com/forums) link to the forum.

I am especially concerned about getting traffic/generating new visitors via SEO.

Any tips/ideas/suggestions/experiences would be very helpful here!

Thanks!

[mjmurphy53711]

All I can show you as an example is my wakeboarding forum, where I built the whole site around the forums themselves for the most part, for what its worth anyways.

www.midwestwakeboarder.com

[corpfan1]

Ya - that is cool...can that be effective using Vbulletin?