SEO this site?

[Steve B]

I just did a search for "small business discussion forum" and our site was number 8. For "business discussion forum" I got tired of looking after the 6th page. I would have thought without any special effort this site would have ranked better.

But, perhaps ranking better wouldn't matter much anyway. I logged on to a forum that ranked much higher on one of those searches and the most recent posts were from almost 4 years ago.

I'm curious if this type of discussion forum is going by the wayside due to twitter and facebook type things.

[thx4yrtym]

Steve,

Sure hope not! I have no interest in twitter or facebook. Hoping there are a few others who feel this way as well.

I check in here maybe 4-5 times a day. Never feels like a waste of time.

Take care,

[KristineS]

I think forums will always have a place, because there will always be people who like longer, more in depth discussions. Twitter is the fad right now, and I expect will always be used by a certain portion of the population, but the buzz will settle down in time.

To me, that's one of the beauties of the Internet, there are a variety of ways to communicate and each person can select the one that works best for him or her.

[Harold Mansfield]

I just did a search for "small business discussion forum" and our site was number 8. For "business discussion forum" I got tired of looking after the 6th page. I would have thought without any special effort this site would have ranked better.

But, perhaps ranking better wouldn't matter much anyway. I logged on to a forum that ranked much higher on one of those searches and the most recent posts were from almost 4 years ago.

I'm curious if this type of discussion forum is going by the wayside due to twitter and facebook type things.

No definitely not. They are two completely different platforms. Micro blogging (Twitter, Facebook, etc) for the most part cannot, or do not have the controlled ability for discussions among a large group of targeted people seeking information and help...it's more short blurbs..mainly self promotional in nature...administered by one specific entity.

You have to remember that a few years back, everyone and their mother had a business or webmaster forum. There were hundreds of them.
I think in 2008 I belonged to at least 20 different forums, out of those only 3 are still running, most are dormant, full of nothing but spam, or just completely gone.

It's always tough to rise above a site with a 3 year head start, even if there is no new content. As well all know SEO is a steady, brisk stroll...not a sprint.


A forum is only going to be as good as it's community. Members hold significant power in how well a forum is promoted among their individual peers and associates.

The more we link or refer to discussions within the forum, the more juice the forum as a whole will have within the SE's.

I've looked around as well and there aren't really too many active business discussion forums out there. Some of that may be due to the number of businesses (especially small businesses) that have gone belly up in the last 2 years, and the stability of each individual administrator.

Twitter, Facebook and the like for the most part are not discussion platforms...at least they aren't used as such.
They will never take the place of a well run forum that has an exchange of different ideas, opinions and experiences.

[Spider]

Facebook does have an extensive discussion forum application - viz. every page, personal and business, and every group, has a discussion capability. Set up like this, though, only the friends or members/fans of the person, page or group, get to use it, and then not much. It means the whole discussion complex is very fragmented.

I suggest this indicates that when people are in Facebook-mode, they are not in discussion-mode. When in discussion-mode, people go to the community they know and like.

At any party, there will be some people who are flitting about, chatting briefly with as many people as possible, and others who settle down in a corner, on the patio or in the kitchen, and spend the entire evening conversing with a small group.

Discussion forum will survive - if they are well-administered - as is SBF.

And as long as not too many people disagree with me at any one time!!! :D

[Harold Mansfield]

Facebook does have an extensive discussion forum application - viz. every page, personal and business, and every group, has a discussion capability. Set up like this, though, only the friends or members/fans of the person, page or group, get to use it, and then not much. It means the whole discussion complex is very fragmented.

:D

Maybe I said that wrong. Social networking platforms do have the ability to set up discussion groups, but rarely do they offer, or receive input on a variety of topics, they are normally specific to individual issues...controlled by the Group administrator who most times has a special interest.

[vangogh]

For "business discussion forum" I got tired of looking after the 6th page. I would have thought without any special effort this site would have ranked better.

It's simply your choice in keywords. This forum ranks well for some phrases and not so well for others. You can't look at how well the site does in search engines based on one specific phrase.

Now truthfully very little has been done to market and optimize this site. I do have another business to run and since that one makes money where this forum doesn't, I tend to spend more of my time there. The basics here have been put in place and for the most part the content gets created without being optimized. I certainly can't go into every post and rewrite them because I think a certain word would be better to use.

Forums like this one will do better ranking for a lot of different albeit less used phrases as we generate more content. We'll rank for more of those phrases as our authority (in the eyes of search engines) grows. Much of that will come from links pointing back to the forum, whether that's the home page or a specific page or post.

I would like to spend more next year marketing this place a little better. Just because it doesn't make money now, doesn't mean it can't in the future. Other than asking everyone to link back here and tell your friends and neighbors about us, I'm pretty sure the marketing and seo is going to fall completely on me. While I certainly want to see this forum do well, I still have to prioritize things.

One thing I may and likely will do in the coming year is update the vBulletin software. vBulletin recently released version 4.0 of their software and is moving to a slightly new product. Instead of vBulletin being forum only it's going to be more CMS like. Their pushing to turn it into a publishing suite with a blog and individual pages and an ability to add new things more easily.

It will still exist as a standalone forum, but the makers of vBulletin are looking to get everyone to switch to the full suite.

Here's a comparison of the features (http://www.vbulletin.com/index.php?do=features) and here's what the new version looks like (http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/). What you see in the sidebar is suite only I think.

An ability to add more of a site around the forum adds a lot of possibilities to optimize and generally market what we have here and as the 3.0 line of vBulletin will eventually come to an end it only makes sense to upgrade at some point. For now the current license we have let me download version 4.0 of the forum only. I'd like to install it locally on my laptop and see how it is before upgrading live. For now I've paid for support and upgrades until August. At some point I'll likely pay to get the full suite.

As far as ranking now, I'm actually happy with how well we do considering how little time has been spent marketing this place. In less than a year we were on the first page for a phrase like "small business forum" You'll generally see the old SBF rank first for things because of all the links they're acquired over the years and because search engines aren't really all that good when it comes to realizing the place has basically died.

I've also noticed that when someone new registers here their profile begins to rank within an hour or two and often ends up outranking their profile on other similar forums. Both show our authority in terms of search engines is growing. Places like the old SBF will outrank us for awhile though based on the fact that they have 10 times as much content as we do and tens of thousands more links pointing back to the site.

[chirozz]

I don't really think that twitter can replace forums, discussion over twitter is nothing compared to forums wherein we can learn and have a conversation with other people.

[MrGamma]

I'm curious if this type of discussion forum is going by the wayside due to twitter and facebook type things.

I don't think so... I personally cannot stand the social networks.

Twitter is a chat room (100% completely dysfunctional chat). Facebook is a dating website. If you see it any differently please do share...


controlled by the Group administrator who most times has a special interest.

Completely agreed... they either completely abandon it, or skew it to suit thier own purpose. I am not very fluent with what you can and cannot do with it... but I see no real value in it other than pure entertainment.

[Steve B]

I'm glad to hear you don't think forums will be replaced by these social media fads, but it still begs the question where is everybody?

My wife spends a lot of time on Facebook - hopefully, she's not using it as a dating website. She likes to see what's going on with friends and families that don't live nearby and don't care enough to actually call us or send us a personal e-mail. I, personally, don't have the time for it and don't particularly like it. I've never been to Twitter - what little I know about it it's even less appealing to me than Facebook.

[MrGamma]

Before Facebook there was Faceparty, After Facebook...

Well... There is no life after facebook.

Just to add... there seems to be a severely limited pool of people who hit up this type of venue in general. Jmo... I mean to be honest I am starting to recognize several people from various other small business forums. It's a small world indeed.

So when you say "where is everybody?", it reminds me of Jack Nicholson when he says, "What if this is as good as it gets?".

Best make the best of it... jmo...

[dynocat]

I don't know about the site as a whole, but eborg's thread on "Hooked on American Greed..." came up in one of the top listings last week when I searched for "American Greed."

[Spider]

We might not do well for "business discussion forum" but we are on page 1 at #8 for "small business discussion forum." (Searched on Google a few minutes ago.)

[Steve B]

That's exactly what I got several days ago.

[eguynth]

forum content change time to time. so we cant usually target a specific keyword. unless we build links using it.
Also most of the time people get to a forum by the long tail keywords, while searching for a question in search engines.

[jimcro55]

I think this forum is a very informal, but great way to exchange information with other small business workers and owners. I initially found this through google, and I have not left since. Keep up the good work everyone! We don't need google to keep this forum strong with great information.

JC

<please set up a signature>