Please check my forum

[peterfoti]

I seem to have to keep making these becasue I never get straight answers.

I have had VBseo installed since December and ive noticed NOTHING from it. What is happening?

Site is randomchatter.org

[marco1]

Hello Peter

• i think you will need professional header also professional design of your forum template
• you should use H1 Tags in your forum
• you should use Relevant Replacements feature (Also include H1)
• you should make a Good welcome message [HOW-TO] Make your Welcome Headers an image!
• you replacing your showpost link on your thread pages with the Permalink this is great Peter and remember to disable include showposts pages in your sitemap
• Choose good keywords you may take a look in my first post in my thread (Template SEO In My Sig) You will found a good Keyword Suggestion Tool
• this will be good if you getting rid of the FAQ, Member List, and Calendar links in your upper nav area (using conditionals to remove them for guests only). check this thread May help you in Conditionals http://www.vbseo.com/f28/your-guide-...mplates-31065/

[Joe Ward]

Hi Peter,

You have a new forum. Don't get discouraged. However, with only 200 threads, it is going to take some time. Remember to keep working on expanding your content.

Here are some tips that will help you improve:

• Your site is about random stuff, so it does not have a tight niche focus. All of you sub-forums are general.
  
  • You should make up for this by going through each sub-forum description and adding more info to it.
  • Give the users as well as the search engines some ideas about what specific topics to create inside of there.
  • Motivate them and get keyword coverage at the same time.
  
  
• In your "Car and Home Audio" sub-forum, the description is: "Talk about the newest systems available here".
  
  • This is an example of something way too generic.
  • What are the *brand names* and *model* names of the newest systems available?
    
    • That is one way to get some better coverage in there.
    
    
  • All of your other sub-forum titles and descriptions are similarly generic. Please try to work on this.
  • Here is keyword strategy you might be able to adapt for your own use:
    
    • Strategy for Optimizing Keywords in Your vBulletin Forum Title and Descriptions
    
    
  
  
• I would complete the Top 5 Stats on your homepage for guests, using conditionals.
• You need to update your welcome message. Make it specific, motivating, and focused on your niche.
  
  • Get rid of the info about the FAQ and removethe link to it.
  
  
• I would like to see you hide your "Register Now for FREE!" block using vBSEO 3.3.0's new Virtual HTML Display feature.
  
  • Note: 3.3.0 RC1 is currently available. 3.3.0 GOLD is not yet available, so you may wish to wait until the official release.
  
  
• You should use our Relevant Replacements feature for your sub-forum and thread pages.
• You should use our Permalink's option to replace the show post link on your thread page with the Permalink.
• You should remove the "Random Chatter" title from the TITLE part of your thread pages to allow you to better optimize for long tail search.
• You should use a H1 tag on your site. A good way to do this is to add it within your Relevant Replacements when you set them up.
• You should add index.php and index.php? to your "Define Homepage Aliases" setting in the vBSEO Control Panel (/vbseocp.php#seo_homepage).
• What plugin are you running at the top of your thread pages?
  
  • You should disable this for guests, using conditionals.
  
  
• You should also consider upgrading your template. You are close to the default right now.
  
  • The vBSEO 1.0 or 2.0 styles are good choices. 2.0 is not yet released, but is being tested by our Pre-Release team.
  
  
• A professional logo may also help to build your image, and better motivate users to participate on your forum.
• With a non-niche site, you will have a lot of competition. To be successful, you will need to focus your efforts on creating really great discussions that act as linkbait. You should also find opportunities to get as many links to your site as possible. This will be easier once you have implemented some of the recommended changes.
  
  • 101 Link Building Tips to Market Your Website : SEO Book.com
  
  

[briansol]

You're also in a near impossible niche. A 'general' forum is hard to get off the ground without dedicated posters. You're competition is huge (in fact, offtopic.com is one of the largest sites on the net).

Your 'niche' forums like politics, gaming, etc have to compete with every politic dedicated board out there, every gaming board out there, etc etc.

you have 0 linkbacks
link:randomchatter.org - Google Search


I would also recommend removing the archive.


At the end of the day, you need to round up 20+ dedicated posters who post all day long. It's really the only way you'll ever be competitive is to get more content out there every day.

[peterfoti]

Thank you for all of the insight guys. Joe I will be going through and making all of the changes that you and marco have said. A new logo/design is already in the works and I cannot wait for it to be unveiled. Brian I am well aware of the competition and thats part of the reason i started the website, I want to try and someday give off topic a run for their money. I know I was a bit naive to think that the forum would be more successful at this point, but I will continue to push on and build the site.

I will be reporting back in around a month from now, hopefully with good results from these tips

[marco1]

Thank you for all of the insight guys. Joe I will be going through and making all of the changes that you and Marco have said. A new logo/design is already in the works and I cannot wait for it to be unveiled. Brian I am well aware of the competition and that's part of the reason i started the website, I want to try and someday give off topic a run for their money. I know I was a bit naive to think that the forum would be more successful at this point, but I will continue to push on and build the site.

I will be reporting back in around a month from now, hopefully with good results from these tips

Great Peter and remember your forum content is your way to get your forum No.1