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The default single-post comes a little too stripped IMHO. User feedback says that they miss the normal navigation and don`t know how to get back to the forum. If visitors click on a direct link to a single post e. g. in a google search result the bounce rate is probably very high as they don`t find the way into your forum.

The template name for the single post view is "SHOWTHREAD_SHOWPOST". The first thing I changed was the title.

default:

Code:

<title>$vboptions[bbtitle]

...

After installing the welcome headers mod the other day (and a great big, honkin' googlead next to my image header for guests), I'm ancedotally noticing some differences.

I did customize the messages for my userbase; my community is basically known for friendliness and supportivenss, so that's the tone I looked to hit and I think I was reasonably successful.

Linking to the intro forum in the "you haven't posted yet" message especially seem to encourage folks ...

ok, following the advice of the fine members here at vbseo, i did some tweaking today!

added the welcomeheaders plugin, and changed the guest message to an image.

added the magical 336x280 adsense block next to the new image...since this is the only adsense size and placement that's reported to do well on forums (and my other experiments so far support that most don't).

and added vbseo RR for guests, including h2 and h3 tags, before the welcome headers. ...

trying to take the "little at a time" approach to seo. not stressed, but make it fun. like a puzzle to solve, y'kno?

i sucessfully managed to get all redirects working right, so everyone coming in with the www. prefix will get redirected without it to both the site and the forums. yay, me.

traffic is going up gradually. i'm currently getting about 600 hits a day, so i'm approaching levels pre site redesign. that's good news. bounce rate is also down from ...

Well, it's time. Probably past time. After doing web dev work for several years, I have my own site that I want to promote, so I'm learning about SEO. Not that I was 100% unclued before. But I'd never really gotten into it, because I didn't want to do SEO work. High stress with anxious clients. That's why I quit doing database work, for goodness sakes.

However, it's a different ballgame with my own forum and site to promote. SEO = Cash. Therefore, SEO = Freedom, from having to do projects ...