How to get more traffic to my site?

[PPF]

What are the best ways of advertising a site? Buying adwords from google, adding code to site for easier search engine finding, etc... I am looking to find ways to get my site out there for people to see (find easily, etc..)

Any tips are greatly appreciated

[Shellee Hale]

Hi,

Submit your board to search engines. Read this: http://www.hobo-web.co.uk/seo-blog/i...-to-tuesday-2/

Also try to use lots of keywords in your posts. Spiders will pick up on these and over time you will start appearing in searches.

Try using H1 ref tags in your posts. (for the highest-level heading)

http://htmlhelp.com/reference/html40/block/h1.html

Metatag your forum:
in the admin panel go to vBulletin Options -> general settings -> meta keywords & desriptions


Good luck!

[PPF]

thanks. My site is listed in google, but if i search say "digital photography forums" which mine is, I dont show up on any of the pages. Do I need to pay for google adwords in order to get on the first page or are there other ways?
Thanks

[DoE]

It can take a couple of weeks after you submit a site to a search engine.

[PPF]

I didn't submit my site. After I opened it in October '07 if I type my sites name in the search it shows up but wont show up if search for things like "digital photography forums, or photo forums, etc..."

[Shellee Hale]

You really need to list the site with search engines. Yes, it will show up in time without doing this, but you will not see fast results. You can request spiders to visit your site on a regular basis.

If you want your site to come up when you put in very specific terms use metatags and the H1 refs as I mentioned. When you write up threads, be sure to add catch phrases in as often as possible

Good luck

[DoE]

Shellee gives great advice.

Submit your site to each of the major search engines, it is well worth the time.

[PPF]

You really need to list the site with search engines. Yes, it will show up in time without doing this, but you will not see fast results. You can request spiders to visit your site on a regular basis.

If you want your site to come up when you put in very specific terms use metatags and the H1 refs as I mentioned. When you write up threads, be sure to add catch phrases in as often as possible

Good luck

How do you request spiders?

[webmastermarty]

To start getting traffic from search engines, you need to learn about and impliment SEO in and around your website. You could also join similar forums, and take part in discussions... Add a simple link to your signature and if the members of that forum find any of your posts interesting, they might take the link in your sig = traffic.

[PPF]

appreciate all the responses. 2 ?s

1. how do I request spiders?
2. What is SEO?

[dkon26]

appreciate all the responses. 2 ?s

1. how do I request spiders?
2. What is SEO?

Go check out your other thread and read the info on the google link I posted. If you have SSH access, you can also use googles software. It will update the spiders based on your server logs.

[aussieinor]

One of the best ways to get your site or forum indexed for search engines is to have an already indexed (already showing up on google, yahoo etc) site linking to it.

If you already have a website, then link to your forum and this will index much faster as the search engines already know of your site and will index your forum from your current site.

Exchange links on other sites that you know of. If you have any friends or colleagues that you know that are in a similar industry, why not add them as a sponsor of one of your sections in return for them adding you on their links page or having them do a write about your forum in their blog (obviously making sure they link to your forum)

[harrysmith]

appreciate all the responses. 2 ?s

1. how do I request spiders?
2. What is SEO?

Ans 1 : Content,just unique and helpful contents and relevant backlinks will surely invite spiders to your site. Google and almost all SE love to see what's new on the site so that they can index it and will show it to world.
Setting up a bolg and adding relevant content to your blog as often as possible will attract bots to your site

Ans 2 : SEO is a wider concept and is usually referred as Search Engine Optimization. You make you site more search engine friendly so that your site will rank well in SE for your important keywords ( digital photography forums, or photo forums, etc )

There are many sites and tools which will help you to build your site more SE friendly ( Web CEO ) most important do get register at " Google Webmaster guide " and build your site more of SEO. It's the most important and freely available.

Start with onpage optimization (Title tag, meta tag, keywords in content and at important places etc....)
Also try to get as many backlinks as possible from relevant sites. Do forum posting/blogging social bookmarking sites, directory submission etc...
If you have good budget and don't have time for all these stuff then just pay Google for Adwords and get traffic.

All the best.

[class101]

thanks. My site is listed in google, but if i search say "digital photography forums" which mine is, I dont show up on any of the pages. Do I need to pay for google adwords in order to get on the first page or are there other ways?
Thanks

This is google pagerank and there is nothing you can "buy" to gain google ranks, the most better thing you can do is to build interesting threads or pages and if people find your site interesting they will linkback to your site, and this link backs are like "points" for earning google pagerank, if you would like ot know much about vb and SEO look at vbseo.com

[harrysmith]

This is google pagerank and there is nothing you can "buy" to gain google ranks, the most better thing you can do is to build interesting threads or pages and if people find your site interesting they will linkback to your site, and this link backs are like "points" for earning google pagerank, if you would like ot know much about vb and SEO look at vbseo.com

IMO Google PR is nothing to do with site ranking, PR used to be important but not as of now. PR can be considered as small factor in google algorithm for ranking site. In olden days PR used to be considered as an sign of popularity for your site, i mean if you have good PR then your site was to be considered as popular but after webmasters starts playing with Google algorithm and had break it's ranking algo so now most webmaster don't pay much attention at Pagerank, rather i will suggest you to go for getting relevant backlinks which will bring you targeted traffic.