Add HTML Pages to your Forum for Enhanced SEO

[Joeychgo]

This is something I try to do with every forum. You can see it in action here.

Once you have identified your main keywords, create a web page for each one of those phrases.

Why? Several reasons. First, because unlike on a forum thread, you control the exact content, so the page can be highly optimized for search engines and dedicated to that particular keyword. See: Basic Search Engine Optimization for HTML Pages (http://www.vbulletin-faq.com/SEO-HTML.htm)

Now, make sure that page links the the appropriate forum or forums on your site.

Then, treat that page as though it is it's own web site, and obtain links directly to that page that are related. This way, that page gains a good ranking in the search engines and becomes a strong page, so when you link it to the corresponding forum, that forum receives that relationship as well.

Be sure to link to this page from your homepage. I like linking to these pages in the archive as well. You will find your forums are being spidered more often.

SO for example, lets say you have a forum about the Ford Mustang.

Maybe you ahve one page for the 2005 & 2006 Mustang, Another for the 1998 - 2004 Mustang GT, Another for the 1998 - 2004 Cobra, etc etc.

Each og these pages should be strong with the particular topic. High keyword density, etc.

You can also sell links on these pages as I bet they wil have a high PR.

Your members will find this page helpful as well because they will find it to be directly relates to something of interest to them.

[Peggy]

hmmmmmm... interesting. I have only the forum on my site. I'd never thought of creating an html page.

[Biggles LLB]

That's more than just interesting. What a bunch of coincidences. This site must have been meant for me! Get this:

1. Purely because I didn't know how to set up a welcome page for vB, I put up a Dreamweaver html page as the gateway to my BB. It is getting a hell of a lot of hits. :D So, what Joey advises above is not just right. It works already for me. However, since I moved the BB to my host server in Ohio (Jumpline) I seem to have lost the Yahoo Slurp Spiders - only getting the GoogleBot now. Come back the Slurpies, please.

2. As said above, my server is in Ohio - and so, apparently, is my favourite Moderator! ;)

3. John, the website design whiz, lives in Newport (not far away) and has an interest in the law, just as I have (used to 'push tin' but have been studying law since I retired for medical reasons). :rolleyes:

Thanks for bringing me here, Peggy. By the way, I took a peek at your photography site. Nice work. Well done to babydoll. Bet you won't have problems with advertising and hosting with that one. Truly, the world has gone daft about Internet porn and anything even remotely adult. Smacks of human rights infringement to me, as a law student. Sorry to read that you've had problems Peggy. If you ask me your site is nothing more than a titillation and good humour site. There's no porn there whatsoever. P'raps you need a lawyer. On second thought, perhaps not. Best to stay away unless you're very wealthy. :p

Anyway, as usual I've taken half a page to say what might be said in three sentences. I'll be off.

Cheers all

Mike, aka Biggles LLB

[Joeychgo]

One of the big reasons for this is keyword targeting...

Most forums have several subtopics below the main topic. For example, vBulletin-faq is about:

vBulletin Forums

Search Engine Optimization
HTML and PHP coding
Adsense
Forum Management
etc etcSo we have article pages which focus on several areas important to vBulletin owners. those articles are designed to not only be helpful to the vBulletin administrator, but also are written to include the proper keywords to attract search engine rankings.

A quick word about "Proper Keywords"

Proper keywords refers to what words and phrases PEOPLE ACTUALLY SEARCH FOR. Here is a free tool that can help you determine what people search for: DigitalPoint Keyword Suggestion Tool (http://www.digitalpoint.com/tools/suggestion/) -

You want to know what keyword phrases people actually search for because ranking high or even #1 for a term such as "Happy vBulletin" wont do you alot of good. So you want to target more popular phrases.

[Blackice]

Thanks for this! :)

I have a hip hop forum, so if I were to make an HTML page talking about how to make money with your website, would google frown upon this? Should I make ALL the HTML pages having to do with my website?

Also, do you suggest using iFrames on these pages?

[Peggy]

That's more than just interesting. What a bunch of coincidences. This site must have been meant for me! Get this:

1. Purely because I didn't know how to set up a welcome page for vB, I put up a Dreamweaver html page as the gateway to my BB. It is getting a hell of a lot of hits. :D So, what Joey advises above is not just right. It works already for me. However, since I moved the BB to my host server in Ohio (Jumpline) I seem to have lost the Yahoo Slurp Spiders - only getting the GoogleBot now. Come back the Slurpies, please.

2. As said above, my server is in Ohio - and so, apparently, is my favourite Moderator! ;)

3. John, the website design whiz, lives in Newport (not far away) and has an interest in the law, just as I have (used to 'push tin' but have been studying law since I retired for medical reasons). :rolleyes:

Thanks for bringing me here, Peggy. By the way, I took a peek at your photography site. Nice work. Well done to babydoll. Bet you won't have problems with advertising and hosting with that one. Truly, the world has gone daft about Internet porn and anything even remotely adult. Smacks of human rights infringement to me, as a law student. Sorry to read that you've had problems Peggy. If you ask me your site is nothing more than a titillation and good humour site. There's no porn there whatsoever. P'raps you need a lawyer. On second thought, perhaps not. Best to stay away unless you're very wealthy. :p

Anyway, as usual I've taken half a page to say what might be said in three sentences. I'll be off.

Cheers all

Mike, aka Biggles LLB

LOL.. you are too cute luv... :p

[Joeychgo]

Thanks for this! :)

I have a hip hop forum, so if I were to make an HTML page talking about how to make money with your website, would google frown upon this? Should I make ALL the HTML pages having to do with my website?

Also, do you suggest using iFrames on these pages?


No, I dont recommend Iframes.

IM not sure what you mean when you ask: Should I make ALL the HTML pages having to do with my website?

[Blackice]

My website is about Hip Hop, so would it be alright to make a page about say...making a website, or should I keep all the pages hip hop related?

[Joeychgo]

My website is about Hip Hop, so would it be alright to make a page about say...making a website, or should I keep all the pages hip hop related?

It would be ok. It wouldnt hurt you, but dont expect great rankings for that page.

[Blackice]

k thanks :) do u have any more tips? ill show u my ending product, but im BRAND new to the SEO world. my last forum had alot of hits and thousands of members, but was hardly listed on google, hopin to change that with this forum :)

BTW i love your site

[Joeychgo]

BTW i love your site

Thanks - Tell others!

[m4ck]

How do you go about adding html pages like this site and keep it uniform and looking like the rest of the site with headers and footers.
M4ck

[dakar]

Sounds like a great idea... one question not answered... think it would make a difference if 'the' html page with the links lives on the same domain or another?

(I fell into the godaddy trap offering a decent deal on a bundle pack) I have the .com .net .org .info .ws and .biz for the domain my forums lives on. Might as well make use of them some how.

[Neal]

Thanks - Tell others!

I like her :p :

[Peggy]

getting back on topic....

this question wasn't answered:


Sounds like a great idea... one question not answered... think it would make a difference if 'the' html page with the links lives on the same domain or another?

(I fell into the godaddy trap offering a decent deal on a bundle pack) I have the .com .net .org .info .ws and .biz for the domain my forums lives on. Might as well make use of them some how.

[Joeychgo]

Yes, they should be o the same domain. They should also be linked from the homepage where possible.

[good2laugh]

When you said html pages - do you mean specifically with the html extension?

Sorry its probably a stupid question, I've created pages in my VBA which have weird urls example www.mywebsite.com/index.php?film=Blade-Runner

Where film is the identifier and blade-runner the page itself

Would I have to ditch VBA and create plain html pages? ie. website.com/film/blade-runner.html in order for this to work for me?

I did the headers on the forums last week H1/H2 etc and have jumped 1 place in google - no idea about yahoo though. Not sure if that is because of the Headers or some other reason so looking to improve it in other ways, hence my question .


TIA

[eJM]

Good2laugh, you don't have to ditch vBa in order to have static HTML or PHP pages. I use vBa and have a number of static pages I built with it -- some located in sub-directories too (see TheFloorPro.com link in my sig). You can use mod_rewrite to show the pages you have as static pages. And there's no rule your pages have to appear as any particular extension (PHP, ASP, HTM), you can use .htaccess to make them appear to have any extension you want, like www.your-site.com/about.g2l. I would caution you to pick an extension that is not used for something else. There is a wannabe social networking site that has decided to use an extension that is the same as a compression file format and download managers will try to download the page instead of opening them.

R'gards,

Jim
PS: A CMS is an excellent way to make sure your navigation and other static content appears on your HTML pages.

[Peggy]

Nice site you have Jim

[eJM]

Awww, shucks, ma'am.:o Thankya.

[Peggy]

lol.. you're welcome.

BTW, welcome to vb-FAQ

[eJM]

Thanks. Pretty nice place you got here. I'm also happy to see a lot of people I am familiar with from other sites. I joined sometime last month, but just never got around to posting until now. And now ya cain't shut me up. :eek: Actually, I do this kinda thing when I am trying to avoid doing something productive on my own site.

Best R'gards,

Jim

[Noppid]

Your posts are very Insightful and well written eJM. We appreicate you posting.

[eJM]

Oh jeez, now ya went an' done it. My hat don't fit right now.

Now quit that.

:)

[Noppid]

Oh jeez, now ya went an' done it. My hat don't fit right now.

Now quit that.

:)

Your posts are very mature as well. I questioned you/challenged you and you didn't bring your mommy back to get even with me. That is a big deal IMO. I enjoy a good debate that stays about the object and not the people in the debate.

*/me couldn't resist sucking up some more to see the reaction.*

[eJM]

Your posts are very mature as well. I questioned you/challenged you and you didn't bring your mommy back to get even with me. That is a big deal IMO. I enjoy a good debate that stays about the object and not the people in the debate.

*/me couldn't resist sucking up some more to see the reaction.*

It is so easy to take things personal, and I do sometimes. But I try to read a bit more carefully and try to see if comments are meant to take jabs at me or just my ideas. Ideas are easily debated, personalities can only clash. I am pretty sure one can't change another's personality, but one might be able to change an idea. I, too, enjoy a lively discussion and think it's a real shame to see one degrade to sniping and insults.

I'm kinda old and way more than half dead, so I need to make my time enjoyable and gainful. I leave my mommy out of it most of the time. ;) It would be too easy to just lull the rest of my life away surfing and lurking. But like so many others, I have been somewhat dissatisfied with what I have done with my life -- not so much what I have done for myself, but what I have done for others. So, I'm on a mission right now. I'll prob'ly not be able to go as far as I'd like, but I'd like to do what I can today to give back what I have gotten so freely. It's too hard to do that when you argue stuff that just ain't all that important.

To move more back to the topic at hand, I've learned that so many sites out there are nothing more than just a forum. Not that there aren't some very high quality forum-only sites, but that they could be so much more as a complete website. Most of my time online since 1992 has been on one type of forum or another. I'm relatively new to webmastering, yet I'm anxious to share what I have learned. For me, a CMS has enabled me to add quality pages and content to my site to make it a whole site and not just a forum (or even a forum and a portal page). I've found that my members will spend as much time reading my other web pages as they will the forum. And it will pay financial dividends too. :D

R'gards,

Jim

[good2laugh]

Good2laugh, you don't have to ditch vBa in order to have static HTML or PHP pages. I use vBa and have a number of static pages I built with it -- some located in sub-directories too (see TheFloorPro.com link in my sig). You can use mod_rewrite to show the pages you have as static pages. And there's no rule your pages have to appear as any particular extension (PHP, ASP, HTM), you can use .htaccess to make them appear to have any extension you want, like www.your-site.com/about.g2l. I would caution you to pick an extension that is not used for something else. There is a wannabe social networking site that has decided to use an extension that is the same as a compression file format and download managers will try to download the page instead of opening them.

R'gards,

Jim
PS: A CMS is an excellent way to make sure your navigation and other static content appears on your HTML pages.

Wow your site is pretty neat.. everything looks so well organised. I've no interest in floors only that I always hope to be on firm ground ;) but I'm sure for your users this is one great resource. Real nice work!

Anyhow thanks for your post, I've actually no idea about mod re-write (total novice) so shall go google and see what I can find out. Thank you so much for your help.

:)

[b2w]

There is nothing wrong with calling your Mommy for backup. :p

[Noppid]

There is nothing wrong with calling your Mommy for backup. :p

Cut the apron strings dear. :D

[thebuckeyeforum]

So to clarify...

The home page of this forum is a static html page? You would use something like dreamweaver to write this page (at least a code hack like me would)? I was wondering about that and thought that it may be a vbul hack or something.

I like the way it provides a directory. I assume that programming wise, it has nothing to do with vbul other than the links. I was thinking of doing something similar with blogging software like WordPress. I have found WordPress very easy to SEO, send out RSS, etc. Would this be essentially the same thing that you have done here?

Check out www.learntoblog.net. I set this up this summer and a couple of the articles get ranked very high on google. I was thinking of doing something like this to promote the forum.

Oh, one more thing. Would it make a difference in SEO where you put the static pages. For example, This page has the static page as the main url with the forum as a subdirectory. What if the static page was a subdirectory of the forum url? Would this make a difference in SEO? I am trying to figure out how I would run the links here.

Am I on the right track?

Thanks,
jim

[Noppid]

The home page here is DW page I believe. Oh the thought, but yes, HTML. No vB magic.

Any html page is a good thing anywhere if linked to properly.

[Noppid]

Having read this post several weeks ago, I decided to create some pages.
I've now got 4 pages ready and a fifth is almost complete. 4 .html and one .php.

Regarding the <meta > part of the pages. How do you approach this.
With the exception of the <title> should they be the same on each page ?

No, unique unique unique. ;)

[protoss]

Having read this post several weeks ago, I decided to create some pages.
I've now got 4 pages ready and a fifth is almost complete. 4 .html and one .php.

Regarding the <meta > part of the pages. How do you approach this.
With the exception of the <title> should they be the same on each page ?

[b2w]

OK so is there an edit to what Joey posted? If so, can someone edit it so I can do mine over?? Please.

[Noppid]

OK so is there an edit to what Joey posted? If so, can someone edit it so I can do mine over?? Please.

I don't understand the question. Edit what where?

[b2w]

I don't understand the question. Edit what where?

Wrong thread sorry. I'm on my way over to the H1 thread. :o

[Peggy]

lol

[protoss]

:eek: noppid can read the future

next weeks lottery no's plz ??

Seriously, could someone confirm this for me please. For every extra page I create:

<title> This changes </title>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1" />
<meta name="Author" content="protoss" />
<meta name="description" content=" This changes " />
<meta name="keywords" content=" This changes " />
<meta name="copyright" content=" same " />
<meta name="expires" content="same" />
<meta name="Revisit-After" content="same" />
<meta http-equiv="Robots" content="same" />
<link rel="icon" href="favicon.ico" />
<link rel="shortcut icon" href="favicon.ico" />

[timscrib]

I have a question about this...

first off, my main homepage for my forum is the root of my domain name www.htcafe.com goes straight to my forum...

second thing www.htcafe.com is actually an add on domain to my original webhosting domain so basically when I go look at my files on cpanel I have public_html/htcafe this is the root for www.htcafe.com and the files that are directly under public_html/ are for my original domain www.homecentric.com

How can I get this frontpage stuff working when my forum is my first page?

Lastly, because I'm ignorant, what or how will vb advanced help me in this situation or can it?

Thanks,

Tim

[Joeychgo]

vBadvanced is the easiest solution - and for you - probably the best since it does the coding for you.

[qryztufre]

I got GARS (Geek Article & Review System) for articles and kind of like the options it gives (allowing me to make things no so VB ish) but after playing with it, I'm thinking that maybe it'd be better if the titles were something other then showthread.php?t=123 as I'd assume that google will still see it as any other thread and treat it as such.

Any suggestions to work around this, or will this be OK?

[timscrib]

vBadvanced is the easiest solution - and for you - probably the best since it does the coding for you.

Ok, if I do the VbAdvanced thing, will it still look like my original forum? I have 4 other skins. I want to make sure I'm not going to mess things up in terms of the "look" of the forum. Do I have to buy vbAdvanced skins as well?

[timscrib]

I have a question about this...

first off, my main homepage for my forum is the root of my domain name www.htcafe.com goes straight to my forum...

second thing www.htcafe.com is actually an add on domain to my original webhosting domain so basically when I go look at my files on cpanel I have public_html/htcafe this is the root for www.htcafe.com and the files that are directly under public_html/ are for my original domain www.homecentric.com

How can I get this frontpage stuff working when my forum is my first page?

Lastly, because I'm ignorant, what or how will vb advanced help me in this situation or can it?

Thanks,

Tim


Based on the setup I have above the robots.txt file doesn't seem to be working? I have this as a robots.txt file:

User-agent: *
Disallow: /htcafe/admincp/
Disallow: /htcafe/clientscript/
Disallow: /htcafe/cpstyles/
Disallow: /htcafe/customavatars/
Disallow: /htcafe/customprofilepics/
Disallow: /htcafe/images/
Disallow: /htcafe/modcp/
Disallow: /htcafe/ajax.php
Disallow: /htcafe/attachment.php
Disallow: /htcafe/calendar.php
Disallow: /htcafe/cron.php
Disallow: /htcafe/editpost.php
Disallow: /htcafe/global.php
Disallow: /htcafe/image.php
Disallow: /htcafe/inlinemod.php
Disallow: /htcafe/joinrequests.php
Disallow: /htcafe/login.php
Disallow: /htcafe/member.php
Disallow: /htcafe/memberlist.php
Disallow: /htcafe/misc.php
Disallow: /htcafe/moderator.php
Disallow: /htcafe/newattachment.php
Disallow: /htcafe/newreply.php
Disallow: /htcafe/newthread.php
Disallow: /htcafe/online.php
Disallow: /htcafe/poll.php
Disallow: /htcafe/postings.php
Disallow: /htcafe/printthread.php
Disallow: /htcafe/private.php
Disallow: /htcafe/profile.php
Disallow: /htcafe/register.php
Disallow: /htcafe/report.php
Disallow: /htcafe/reputation.php
Disallow: /htcafe/search.php
Disallow: /htcafe/sendmessage.php
Disallow: /htcafe/showgroups.php
Disallow: /htcafe/subscription.php
Disallow: /htcafe/threadrate.php
Disallow: /htcafe/usercp.php
Disallow: /htcafe/usernote.php

I have this robots.txt file in the public_html folder...why do I keep getting crawl-66-249-66-40.googlebot.com checking my calendar, etc? Also is this "spidering"???

[rezapci]

Thanks in advance for your experties

[nevetS]

That's brilliant advice Joey - and something I never thought of before. Off to work... :)

[protheory]

Great advice here. I just would like to know how I host my HTML pages on my forum internally so to speak. Can I just upload the new pages into a new folder and link to them from my forum?

I'm guessing that this would involve me having pages hosted under myforum.com/htmlpage.html

I've got a whole site of relevant content and a lot of old threads in HTML format.

Thanks :)

[Joeychgo]

Yes - myforum.com/htmlpage.html - Or you could put them in a folder such as myforum.com/pages/
I suggest you put your vBulletin in myforum.com/forum/
Keep them seperate. Makes things organized and neat.

[protheory]

Yes - myforum.com/htmlpage.html - Or you could put them in a folder such as myforum.com/pages/
I suggest you put your vBulletin in myforum.com/forum/
Keep them seperate. Makes things organized and neat.
Sounds like just what I've been looking for, thanks.

[GrendelKhan{TSU}]

actually... IN ADDITION to the suggestion here...

I'd argue its best if you could have these pages on a separate domain completely and separate host serve if possible (ie: different ip). Its possible too many sites linking to each otehr from the same IP can be flagged.

ie: You'd have your own network and get reciprocal link benefits from them as well as individual monetization opportunities. In general, horizontal as well as vertical distribution of your pages is ideal.

caveat: best to change the content a bit for the pages though to avoid duplicate content penalties.

Yes, a bit of a content management hassle...but as long as separate html pages are being suggested I figure I'd throw in.

[PaulQQ]

Anyone can post an actual exemple of this? (from their own forum)

Thanks

[Mike54]

Here (http://www.aztech.ws/forums/view-history.html) you go. Another example (http://www.aztech.ws/forums/view-memorial.html).

Those pages are actually Logician's WebTemplates pages and I'm using a custom rewrite in vBSEO to produce that URL structure.

[baanmaha]

thank you for advice

[TProductions]

I think I will look into this more :)

[kimsmarkin]

Once you have found your main keywords, create a website for each of these sentences. Why? Several reasons. Firstly, because unlike in a discussion forum, you can control the specific content, so the page can be highly optimise for search engines dedicated to that keyword.