How would you like it if the visitors of your Adsense sites produced FREE and ORIGINAL content for you? It’s possible and a lot simpler than you reckon.
What is a Highly Optimized Forum?
There are a few vital differences between a habitual forum and one that is optimized for the search engines.
The problem with a habitual forum is that spiders have a hard time crawling through them. This is because the pages of most forums aren’t habitual .html pages. Most forums are PHP pages that have a lot of “junk” after them. This junk is really a bunch of numbers (called a session id) that is assigned to a web site visitor and which is used to footstep the visitor’s path and the time of entry and exit.
For example, the URL of a typical forum URL might look like this:
http://www.domainname.com/forum/viewforum.php?f=5&sid=dada710f34b2dcc1eb79ea
Obviously that isn’t the ultimate situation if your goal is to get your forum indexed into the search engines.
Instead, you want your forum’s URL to look like this:
http://www.domainname.com/forum/keyword10.html
Why You Need a Highly Optimized Forum
There’s a way to optimize a forum in such a way that, every time a name posts a new forum topic, it really makes a new html page.
This is a huge deal because it’s like the members of your forums are making keyword-rich content for you every day!
And if your forum become really standard, this means hundreds or even THOUSANDS of pages of content is produced for you on a daily basis! All this content is free, original, and useful to your visitors!
A further fantastic reason why we place a forum on all of our Adsense sites is because it differentiates our web sites from all the other Adsense sites on the Internet.
As we’ve mentioned in previous education, you don’t want to make your Adsense sites look like all the other “Made for Adsense” sites on the Internet. Some search engines are early to ban web sites that look like they have no other purpose but to show Adsense ads.
Installing the Mod
First, what is a mod?
Mod is fleeting for modification. A mod, as it refers to forums, is a touch that is typically produced by the public that adds features that aren’t available in the original forum script.
But this mod isn’t a typical one. It doesn’t add any cool features or extras. In fact, it takes some away. But the vital thing is the fact that it makes every topic in your forum its own optimized HTML page.
The mod is provided by Able2Know.com and can be downloaded at:
http://search.able2know.com/cgi-bin/jump.cgi?ID=5478&view=File
We have a video in the A/V Department that will show you how to install the mod. If you need any help, just post a message in our forum and we’ll give you a hand.
Growing Your Forum
Now that you have your Highly Optimized Forum installed, you have to get people to start posting in it!
Unfortunately, that’s simpler said than done. The problem is, most people don’t want to post in an empty forum.
So here are 7 tips for jump-early a new forum:
Post a prominent link. Make sure you post a huge bold link on your front page of your web site that advertises your forum. You want to drive as much traffic to your forum as you can when you are first early out. Nobody can post in your forum if they can’t find it…
Make some starter topics. You can get the ball rolling by making a few “starter topics.” One way to get people posting is by asking a controversial question. For example, if you have a political forum, you could question, “Should George Bush be impeached?” This will get people to post because a lot of your visitors will have an opinion since this is an easily debatable topic.
Let guests make topics. A lot of forums on the Internet require visitors to register previous to they can post. This seems to discourage a honestly large percentage of people from posting. Some people feel that it’s not worth the hassle of registering just to post a simple question or comment. That’s why we recommend giving guests the ability to start topics on your forum… at least until your forum grows larger.
Link to your forum from every article. Most Adsense sites have a lot of articles on them. It’s a excellent thought to post a link at the end of every article that says, “Discuss this article in our forum!” Your visitor will be more willing to go to your forum since they are done reading the article any way.
Limit the number of categories your forum has. A common mistake I see a lot of people make when they first start their forum is they have too many categories. For example, your forum could have a “General Discussion” as well as an “Off Topic” category. If you have too many, and people only post in a couple of them, your entire forum will look like a ghost town! Once your forum becomes standard, start count more categories if you feel like it needs them.
Start a poll. Most forums (such as phpBB) have the ability to start polls. We’ve noticed that even people who don’t like to post at all in forums will at least answer a poll to find out what the results are.
Make fake posts. Okay, this tip is a small controversial and not everyone feels comfortable doing it… but it is an effectual way to make your forum look less “empty”. You can make a few posts with fake names in order to make your forum look more standard than it is. This seems to work well because people are more likely to post in a forum if they see other people doing it too.
Your highly optimized forum is a valuable thing! Remember, every time a name starts a topic, that’s a new HTML page that can be indexed by the search engines!
Exactly how valuable is your forum? Well, I’ll place it this way… some people pay writers $20 or more for articles that they can post on their Adsense sites. Each topic to your forum is just as original, keyword-rich, and useful as any article on the Internet… and it’s completely free!