SEO Tips

[Pebbles]

hello

i really want to know, how do i get my forum to show up more often in results other than googling ''kpop forum'' ?
my forum has been on the first page and still is when you google that^^^ for a long time now which is nice
but there is tons of fans who do not even google that specifically so how are they ever going to find us?

what i have done so far;
- meta description 
- relatable forum title
- custom domain
- affiliating
- posting ad on other forums like how its done on proboard forums
- all boards are open for guests so all content can be found, except staff ones obviously
- perhaps not SEO related truly but i have tried real hard on social media - not much effective at all

enough gets posted thats new and recent about kpop
so that's not the problem either
i have not done keywords because i read that is useless nowadays
but adding description has definitely helped me get on the first result page when googling kpop forum

anyways, more tips is appreciated because yeah, like i said
most don't even google ''kpop forum''

thank you

[Brian]

This is probably irrelevant if your forum is already placing well in generic search results despite its use, but I feel it necessary to bring these two posts up any time the description meta tag is brought up.

Apr 17, 2015 15:18:10 GMT -8 Tim Camara said:

Meta tags are basically tags that contain meta information about a page that is typically only used by browsers and search engines (occasionally apps and stuff too). A full (and more technical) breakdown can be had here: developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTML/Element/meta.

Generally you do not need to add any meta tags to your forum. The most common and useful ones are already supplied for you dynamically to match your forum.

Apr 29, 2015 15:00:25 GMT -8 Tim Camara said:

Just as a note, adding a description meta tag can actually hurt your SEO if the keywords in your meta tag differ from the keywords present on the page it's used on. Also, the keywords meta tag is generally considered a bad idea these days, with Google just ignoring it and Bing using it as an indicator that you might be a spam website.

[Kami]

Honestly if you don't have a budget for advertising / SEO there's not much more you can do other than filling your forum with natural (as in, not spammy) content that relates to the other word(s) you want to be searchable by and just keep going the way you are going. Legitimate link backs / relevant content on your site are the best free ways to get good SEO ranking so it's all a matter of making sure you link back on websites where permissible and making sure you continue to post relevant content for bots to index.

[Pebbles]

Apr 3, 2017 15:06:59 GMT -8 Brian said:

This is probably irrelevant if your forum is already placing well in generic search results despite its use, but I feel it necessary to bring these two posts up any time the description meta tag is brought up.

Apr 17, 2015 15:18:10 GMT -8 Tim Camara said:

Meta tags are basically tags that contain meta information about a page that is typically only used by browsers and search engines (occasionally apps and stuff too). A full (and more technical) breakdown can be had here: developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTML/Element/meta.

Generally you do not need to add any meta tags to your forum. The most common and useful ones are already supplied for you dynamically to match your forum.

Apr 29, 2015 15:00:25 GMT -8 Tim Camara said:

Just as a note, adding a description meta tag can actually hurt your SEO if the keywords in your meta tag differ from the keywords present on the page it's used on. Also, the keywords meta tag is generally considered a bad idea these days, with Google just ignoring it and Bing using it as an indicator that you might be a spam website.

are you saying adding a meta description was not a good idea?
if so, after i added it, only shortly after my forum finally came up on its own (so not on some other website where i posted my ad) on the first page when googled ''kpop forum''

so i just assumed THAT did the trick
before it never showed up
only my ads i posted on others like bigger jcink forums

or are you saying i shouldnt add keywords? cause if thats the case ignore what i said above
i just am a little confused lol, not sure which one you meant

anyways
it is unfortunate if more seo stuff thats good has to cost money
because i certainly do not have that kind of budget whatsoever 
the custom domain was something i got as a gift as well so yeah

[Brian]

In the post I quoted Tim is saying the description meta tag can hurt your forum's SEO if the keywords in your meta tag differ from the keywords present on the page it's used on.

Your description also has a tendency to get added to every single one of your forum's search results instead of content that could be relevant to the search. This makes it harder for someone searching to immediately see at a glance whether or not the page being linked in their search results contains discussion relevant to their search.

[Pebbles]

ok thanks for showing me
ill probably get rid of it then lol
as this seems real bad

[Former Member]

Your Opening paragraph is actually denying proboards from doing it's default behavior regarding SEO.

The reason for this is because, proboards does not supply a meta description tag, so the google bot will look for the first relevant block of text(> 100 characters) and use that as the pages meta description.

For the default theme, this is actually the first (140-160) characters of your forum post.
For your theme however, it is the paragraph suggested above.

If you want to rank for organic traffic using keywords, you need to add those to your title, as well as a variation in your description, or first 140+ characters in your post.

Forums are not considered authoritative(as they are considered discussion) so you won't rank as high as say a blog.

Some people will say, well a meta description does not have a ranking value, so they don't pay attention to it, they couldn't be more wrong, consider this...

Imagine you are ranked on page one(1) of google for a particular keyword or longtail keyword, lets say you are ranked 6th, and your viewport can show the top 8. If your meta description is more engaging and hits home with someone more than the 1st ranked, who do you think people are going to click on ?!

[Pebbles]

Apr 7, 2017 14:58:36 GMT -8 @synthtec said:

Your Opening paragraph is actually denying proboards from doing it's default behavior regarding SEO.

The reason for this is because, proboards does not supply a meta description tag, so the google bot will look for the first relevant block of text(> 100 characters) and use that as the pages meta description.

For the default theme, this is actually the first (140-160) characters of your forum post.
For your theme however, it is the paragraph suggested above.

If you want to rank for organic traffic using keywords, you need to add those to your title, as well as a variation in your description, or first 140+ characters in your post.

Forums are not considered authoritative(as they are considered discussion) so you won't rank as high as say a blog.

Some people will say, well a meta description does not have a ranking value, so they don't pay attention to it, they couldn't be more wrong, consider this...

Imagine you are ranked on page one(1) of google for a particular keyword or longtail keyword, lets say you are ranked 6th, and your viewport can show the top 8. If your meta description is more engaging and hits home with someone more than the 1st ranked, who do you think people are going to click on ?!

so in normal english (these different terms make it confusing for me, forgive me)
you are saying the opposite of above? the meta desc is actually a good thing? lol

also you are saying the welcome message i have is bad? if so, what do i do instead
and my forum title .... if i add more to it, it looks ridiculous and cluttery, if thats one of the things your recommending.... im not sure lol

for some reason im not always on page 1 anymore when googling ''kpop forum''
kinda funny in this regard..... i did remove the meta desc as recommended though

[solarbronco]

My best advice to you is to embrace the very thing that is killing new forums. Facebook.

Create a facebook fan page and update it often with images/videos/memes , with links to your forum on the page.

Also create a Facebook group. Some see this is counter productive to a forum, but I do so and I share interesting posts form the forum into the facebook group.

Yes, some people might start posting in the facebook group and this may seem frustrating at first. But you manage the group, so you can post about your forum whenever you want to and drive traffic to the forum.

Facebook can and does grow new forums, if you use it correctly.

Also, Google plus can help alot too. Google plus posts show up in search results, which in turn can give you an SEO boost and certainly drive traffic to your forum.

The best thing for SEO is good old fashioned web traffic. Social media can drive that traffic. 

[Former Member]

Apr 8, 2017 12:15:23 GMT -8 Pebbles said:

so in normal english (these different terms make it confusing for me, forgive me)

English is my native language, If you don't understand,I'm happy to help

you are saying the opposite of above? the meta desc is actually a good thing? lol

Yes, meta descriptions are important

also you are saying the welcome message i have is bad? if so, what do i do instead
and my forum title .... if i add more to it, it looks ridiculous and cluttery, if thats one of the things your recommending.... im not sure lol :p

I just told you what to do? If your not sure of my advice, pay someone to do exactly what I just said.

for some reason im not always on page 1 anymore when googling ''kpop forum''
kinda funny in this regard..... i did remove the meta desc as recommended though

you won't be, unless you apply SEO rules,

-1 have a domain that matches your keywords(kpop forum)
-2 have a title that matches your forum name
-3 have a description that matches both of the above

[Former Member]

Apr 17, 2017 10:39:22 GMT -8 solarbronco said:

My best advice to you is to embrace the very thing that is killing new forums. Facebook.

Create a facebook fan page and update it often with images/videos/memes , with links to your forum on the page.

Also create a Facebook group. Some see this is counter productive to a forum, but I do so and I share interesting posts form the forum into the facebook group.

Yes, some people might start posting in the facebook group and this may seem frustrating at first. But you manage the group, so you can post about your forum whenever you want to and drive traffic to the forum.

Facebook can and does grow new forums, if you use it correctly.

Also, Google plus can help alot too. Google plus posts show up in search results, which in turn can give you an SEO boost and certainly drive traffic to your forum.

The best thing for SEO is good old fashioned web traffic. Social media can drive that traffic. 

Google plus is good If you have lots of followers.
For example, everyone in your group shares a common interest, if you post about that interest an use the right keywords, If people from your group search for those keywords, your forum will be number 1 on their search term, simply because they are friends of yours on google plus.(google plus and youtube) will always be priority, simply because google owns them.

Social media does play a big part but is not the main driving force of organic traffic

[Pebbles]

Apr 17, 2017 10:39:22 GMT -8 solarbronco said:

My best advice to you is to embrace the very thing that is killing new forums. Facebook.

Create a facebook fan page and update it often with images/videos/memes , with links to your forum on the page.

Also create a Facebook group. Some see this is counter productive to a forum, but I do so and I share interesting posts form the forum into the facebook group.

Yes, some people might start posting in the facebook group and this may seem frustrating at first. But you manage the group, so you can post about your forum whenever you want to and drive traffic to the forum.

Facebook can and does grow new forums, if you use it correctly.

Also, Google plus can help alot too. Google plus posts show up in search results, which in turn can give you an SEO boost and certainly drive traffic to your forum.

The best thing for SEO is good old fashioned web traffic. Social media can drive that traffic. 

thanks for the tips
but to tell you the truth, i already have a fb page going on for a while now
and i got a decent amount of likes i guess but it has not helped one bit
the only person that i got on my forum through that , a member that registered and actually became active
is one person only.
im getting most members in a different way of promoting but not cause of my fb page lol. thats for sure
and its because like you said, fb is killing the purpose of forums

most kpop fans on facebook don't even know what the word forum means
never heard of it 
because they grew up with facebook being THE THING
so now i am thinking like thinking
i'm better off promoting my forum on other FORUMS
at least on forums i won't come across people that got no clue what a forum even is 
and so it increases chance they will register and become a member


and i'm saying kpop fans but actually it applies in general if you think about it, i bet 50% or more active fb users never have heard of forums so yeah
why promote a forum on there? the chances your stuff gets seen by people who want to find out more and are interested in trying a forum out is very small - they rather stick to fb as its something they know and already comfortable with

oh and as for google plus
a member on my team has already been doing that
but it has not helped at all
lol
 
@synthtec

-1 have a domain that matches your keywords(kpop forum)
-2 have a title that matches your forum name
-3 have a description that matches both of the above

i have all those 3 things going on so not sure what your point is?

anyways, i was saying THAT when i removed the meta description as people said above it only hurts your forum and not helps
seems to me - 1 person says this and the next one says differently when it comes to this stuff
very confusing 

[solarbronco]

then maybe switch to a facebook group, where people are more inclined to visit and post? I know that sounds crazy, but if you own the group, you can post links to the forum whenever you want. I took the plunge and have a facebook group for each one of my forums and it works. I get 3-4 new FB group members per day, I always welcome new group members and remind them to join the "real" action on the forum, and the forum gets 6-8 new members per day.

Now, getting them to post is another story. 70% of my forum members have no posts.