Forum Website Design Help

Dirk

Dirk

Well-Known Member
Off topic, but I know there will be someone that can hopefully help.

I currently have a forum at www.akaiapc40.com. I use a free forum and as I am approaching nearly 2,000 members I need to revamp this into something a bit more pleasing on the eye and hopefully get some commercial benefit via advertising in the future.

Does anyone know what I need to do to get forum posts to appear in a google search? Anytime you post something at ibiza-spotlight, if you search in google that post will come up automatically (e.g type in Orange Juice Man Ibiza )

Do I need to use a specific forum? My website does appear o nthe front page if you type in akai apc40 in google, but no specific posts appear.

Hope this makes sense and someone can help.
 
hi dirk,

1. first of all you need a proper webhost. your forum is currently hosted using frames. this means it's very difficult for google to spider it and include it in its index. take a look at the source (view course) of your forum front page. you'll see <frameset>. now view source of this page - it is not framed, so google sees all the important content. see this for more info about frames.

any host will do as long as they give you your own webspace with no frames :) we use amongst others 1&1 and webhostuk, but any old one will do. should cost 10 pounds per month or less.

2. at the moment it looks like your forum is registration only. which means that no one (not even google) can see any info without registering. obviously google can't register (unless it tries a russian pseudonymn (see below lol)

3. in order for google to show the results, the page also needs incoming links from other domains which google already knows.

i) a simple way to do that would be to include a link to it in your signature on this forum. that way all your posts will include a link back to your own forum.

ii) another method is to search this forum (and others) for posts about dj controllers, write an interesting comment/reply or helpful tip and then drop a link to your forum for more info - IF ITS RELEVANT. i.e. if you have an info page about the topic on the post or a relevant thread on your forum. as long as it's on topic, most forum/blog owners don't mind you dropping links to your site. but please keep it on topic.

stephen has just written a post about ivanafukalot, the russian spammer (i kid you not). this type of spammer reply to posts about finding a hotel in ibiza with a link to a re-mortgage-your-house site. that is obv not on topic and as such spam. so before you go littering our forum with links to your site though, please make sure that it is on topic or i, and any other forum admin, will ban you quick as lightning :)

probably the best technique is to build up trust with the forum members/admins before dropping links to your site. you need to foster a reputation as a dj controller expert and then people will read your answers and enjoy visiting your site for more info.

iii) look for other sites about dj controllers. ask them if they want to swap links. but only when you have some decent content.

4. if you fancy writing a series of articles about dj contollers and related stuff, we'll gladly publish that in the main site with links back to your forum for more expert info. i know a lot of our readers would be interested in it and you'll get a lot of exposure. if you are interested pm grego about that and let him know that i suggested it.

cheers dirk and good luck :)
 
James - you are an absolute star!

Thank you for taking the time to give such a detailed response, this is hugely appreciated. Appears to all make perfect sense and I will spending some time this weekend seeing what I can do.

It would be a pleasure to do an article and would be good to tie this into the relaunch. I will pm grego when ready.

Once again, your good deed for the year - you are a top man!:):)
 
Some excellent advice from James there, He's covered most of it, and the most important parts are removing registration-only and getting a proper forum software on a proper host. It looks like your running PHPBB so it'd be relatively easy to install and add your database.

A few other pointers are:

Title tags - very important and should be utilised, at the moment you have "Akai APC40 Users Forum" which doesn't explain much about the type of content, even adding DJ controllers and a few over variations will help greatly.

Sign up for Google Analytics & Webmaster tools, both free utilities and will let google know that you're there. If your site has a sitemap, then submit this to Google Webmaster tools and Google will index your entire site.

Inbound links are extremely important - try naming the links with your chosen keywords, such as Web Search Engine.

I'm an experienced web designer and would be happy to help further if you need it - I'm not sure if I can post my site on here so just PM me if you'd like more info,

Cheers

Russ
 
Thanks for taking the time to help.

Pm sent for any info / links you can share.
 
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