Hello From Virginia USA

JDM6763 · #1 06-02-2008, 07:18 AM

Ok, at the risk of sounding like I'm at an AA meeting...

Hi everyone!

My name is Jim MacDiarmid. I've been working in the IT field for roughly 20 years, and during that time I would say 10 of those years have been doing development of either software or web applications. Most of my professional experience has been involved in Visual Basic 6, and Classic ASP. I tried the forum thing using ASP but I just wasn't happy with the performance and since there wasn't any way to use templates effectively I decided to ditch that and switched to PHP. This lead me to vBulletin and I am happy to say that I'm a HUGE fan of vBulletin now. I also run 2 sites, one is for a World of Warcraft Guild(Knights Vindication) I am a member of, and the other is a social networking site focused on the state of Virginia (TalkVirginia). I've been a resident of Virginia for roughly 40 years, and I've really enjoyed living here so I decided I wanted to try to give something back in the hopes of helping other Virginia residents connect and share common interests, not to mention for those outside of Virginia that may be thinking of moving or would like to participate in the fun.

Thanks and I look forward to talking with everyone here.

Jim

Joe Ward · #2 06-02-2008, 12:37 PM

Welcome Jim.

You've come to the right place Jim if you are a fan of vBulletin. vBSEO is the must-have plugin of the last 3 years.

If you have any questions, let us know.

Best of luck with your forums.

JDM6763 · #3 06-02-2008, 01:27 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Joe Ward

Welcome Jim.

You've come to the right place Jim if you are a fan of vBulletin. vBSEO is the must-have plugin of the last 3 years.

If you have any questions, let us know.

Best of luck with your forums.

Thank you for your wishes of luck and all!

Its a pleasure being here. I'm still trying to get my head around this whole SEO thing. I've had my site up now for about 5 months and I'm finding it very difficult to turn visitors into members of my forum. When I first started my forum, I signed up with a paid posting service that did ok. What can ya expect for a $40 plan, right? I did install the free vbSEO addon that is listed on vb.org and that has brought a lot of spider activity. The last visitor I had that registered turned out to be a spammer that got through the anti-spam feature built into vbulletin and posted a bunch of garbage ads, so that was my first banning of a member. lol
Aside from all that, I am planning on purchasing vbSEO as soon as I can get back to work. Any advice, tips, etc I can get that will help me get my site out there to other Virginian's and all those interested in Virginia conversation, will be greatly appreciated!

Jim
Talk Virginia

Joe Ward · #4 06-02-2008, 02:37 PM

You should check the keywords that are getting you traffic. Are they strongly related to your theme? If not, that could account for your low conversion on visitors.

If they terms are on topic, then you might need to look at your forum. What aspects could you improve to make it instantly appear as a good place to signup and participate. Usually great content is a good way to do that. But a very strong promotion might also help.

vBSEO can help deliver more traffic to you. But you want to make sure that you are effectively handling with those visitors when you get them.