Brilliant Stuff After the Threads

[davide101]

Like many forums, we have a lot of search engine traffic that pops in, reads a thread, and then takes off. We're looking for ways to do better.

What have clever UI designers done to capture that traffic? The default stuff after a thread is not very sticky. Any great examples of a good pre- or post- thread experience you'd like to share? What layout tweaks can improve pageviews and conversions?

[Razasharp]

It depends on the forum and what you want. On one of my boards I don't let guests read the first post. We get a lot more sign ups and while they still read what they want and leave - least I have their email for when we launch the front end of the site

On other sites - I just try to make them 'want' to sign up, that's usually where the branding and design come in to play.

[davide101]

I agree. I was thinking more along the lines of where you prevent related posts, tags, and stuff like that. Also, what do you remove? It seems like there's too much unnecessary elements on vB pages. I don't necessarily like things to be quite as simple as Google makes it, but I think they're closer to an effective UI for novices than vB is.

[Razasharp]

Do you mean for guests or logged in members?

My pages are quite different for guests - although I have been doing a lot of experimenting lately :lol: