How To Advertise Your ProBoard

[freakaboutsims]

I know I should do that, but most of the time I hardly know what they are talking about. I just wanted to have big time forums, that doesn't mean I am good at coding.

[myke]

freakaboutsims said:

I know I should do that, but most of the time I hardly know what they are talking about. I just wanted to have big time forums, that doesn't mean I am good at coding.

You do not have to be good at coding, or anything to run a nice Proboard. All of us started off as beginners at one point or another. For the coding, it's as easy as copying a code, and pasting it into the forum headers and footers. For custom graphics, it's as easy as making requests in the graphics request sub-board. There's virtually nothing you cannot do to your forum, but if you're wanting to run a large, successful forum, you will need to be willing to expand your horizons.

This entire forum exists to help members, all you have to do is ask.

However, this is off topic from how to advertise, so lets get back on topic.

[El ZØRRØ™ - Ron Paul in 08]

diatonalitypp said:

dw02 said:

Google puts sites in a queue line. This can take 4 or more months for your site to get listed. And without any links your site will get de-indexed. Getting HTML links to your site will get you indexed faster and better rankings. Resubmitting doesn't help anything just tells google you are desperate and that isn't a good idea.

Hey ZORRO. Great post and great advice! I have a question regarding the indexing of google. You said that it is a wise idea to include links to your site on various different forums (preferably active ones, right?) in your genre. But what if i don't really want people from that site to click on my link? What if i just want it to improve my Google ranking? Would google de-index me if i used a 1x1 image link? Is that a bad thing? I've read a lot of conflicting arguments on the internet about that issue and now i'm thoroughly confused. Thanks in advance -diatonality.

Sorry I didn't find your post sooner.

If you are getting links for search engines use html text links. I would highly discourage image links that can't be seen by a regular person or hidden text links. There really isn't a way to get links that only search engines will see this will be considered by search engines to be spam and you may get penalized.
Stick to html links

[Diode]

dw02 said:

diatonalitypp said:

Hey ZORRO. Great post and great advice! I have a question regarding the indexing of google. You said that it is a wise idea to include links to your site on various different forums (preferably active ones, right?) in your genre. But what if i don't really want people from that site to click on my link? What if i just want it to improve my Google ranking? Would google de-index me if i used a 1x1 image link? Is that a bad thing? I've read a lot of conflicting arguments on the internet about that issue and now i'm thoroughly confused. Thanks in advance -diatonality.

Sorry I didn't find your post sooner.

If you are getting links for search engines use html text links. I would highly discourage image links that can't be seen by a regular person or hidden text links. There really isn't a way to get links that only search engines will see this will be considered by search engines to be spam and you may get penalized.
Stick to html links

That's what i thought! I had a hunch about the hidden image links from the get go, but i wasn't sure. Thanks so much ZORRO for clearing that up for me!

[BrickByBrick]

I know that some sites have cboxes or shout boxes or something like that, and I know that a lot of spam is created in their where people just put in their URL and leave it like that. I personally think this is stupid and it gives the board a bad rap. My suggestion is to do what I do. DON'T POST THE URL. There's a spot in most cboxes to post your URL or E-mail so that's where you put it. Start with just a "Hey" and start making members on the forum that has the cbox. Sometimes I do this and actually end up joining the board. That way, it's not considered spam, your being polite and kind to the members of that forum and the URL to your forum is there the whole time.

[bsf1002]

The way I advertise is by joining several advertising forums, affiliating with people, submitting to search engines and ads in you signature. I also think for most ads on forums to work you need to be fairly active and polite there, nobody wants to join a board who's admin is a spammer.

[Frosty225]

myke said:

You may not be doing anything wrong advertising wise, it may be your forum that could use some improvments. You may want to post it in the Get Opinions About Your Board board to allow other members to rate the forum, and make suggestions for improvment.

Sometimes that don't always work, I mean With GOAYB's there are alot of people who want to get their site out there. So by the time you post your site on an active place like a GOAYB, it's already knocked down by five other threads and barely anyone notices it...

[andyy]

dw02 said:

diatonalitypp said:

Hey ZORRO. Great post and great advice! I have a question regarding the indexing of google. You said that it is a wise idea to include links to your site on various different forums (preferably active ones, right?) in your genre. But what if i don't really want people from that site to click on my link? What if i just want it to improve my Google ranking? Would google de-index me if i used a 1x1 image link? Is that a bad thing? I've read a lot of conflicting arguments on the internet about that issue and now i'm thoroughly confused. Thanks in advance -diatonality.

Sorry I didn't find your post sooner.

If you are getting links for search engines use html text links. I would highly discourage image links that can't be seen by a regular person or hidden text links. There really isn't a way to get links that only search engines will see this will be considered by search engines to be spam and you may get penalized.
Stick to html links

Yes, stick to HTML links. Since only putting HTML links in sigs, my ranking has gone from 2 to 3! Hopefully will rise again.

[Fallen]

I have learned that if you have a site (lets go with an rpg site) and the topic is famous, it might not be a good idea to create another one just like it. For example, I have a Warriors forum. A couple of years ago the forums were high in demand because of how popular the books have become. But now most Warriors forums you see are basically dead because rping the Warriors series has become monotonous and are seriously begging for members. I've seen some sites that have survived about a year or so that have 300 members, but over 40% of them are inactive. Other sites are dead with only three members because everyone else is already part of a Warriors forum and too many boards are inactive so they leave.

So don't create a site that has an overused topic.

[buttonpresser]

The best way, as you xkamelx said, is to spread the word to a person who spreads it to another person....and so on. Linkreferral seems to work as well.

[Tanya]

I find that if your forum is on a particular subject, joining fanlistings and displaying your sites link on there helps to get members, it worked for me.

Other members have come from affiliates and links posted on other forums.
and joining a directory for the subject of your forum helps alot

[pollywollydoodle]

I submitted my site to Splut - www.splut.com - it's a directory of UK websites.

My link on their site now comes up on Googles first page if I do a search for 'childminding forum'.

Hope this info helps someone else.

[coldstone]

I was wondering if you could clarify what you mean by

This will go in the bottom of your headers

.

Do you mean on the admin page: Headers and Footers? Html entered there is not in the HEAD tag and won't be recognized (the TITLE tag is useless outside of the HEAD tag).

Can we modify the html appearing in the HEAD tag? If so how? I have not seen any way to do this in the admin tool.

Thanks.

[束コッӞ]

I really don't know how to advertise my board without being a pest. I've tried submitting it to Search engines but all the sites did was spam my e-mail inbox. I did get a couple of guest, but they were probably search engine bots.

Word of mouth never works for me. If I IM buddies asking them to join, they'll either:

Say Maybe and never decide
Say they'll join later but never do
Join but won't be active at all.

I really don't know about affiliates. I really don't have anyone to affiliate with. So is there an effective way of advertising?

[buttonpresser]

What seems to work for me is i search around in GOAYB, then look for sites that have open advertisement for guests, post there, and then the admins come on over and end up joining!