The importance of Having a Home Page

I see so many forums around today that have no home page of any type. The vBulletin forumhome serves as the homepage for the site.

This is not a good idea for the site owner for many reasons. One of the basic reasons is appearance and functionality. People expect to find an "entrance" to your site. It's kind of like having an entryway for your home. Sure people you know will come in the kitchen door, but visitors you want to come in the front door. Same thing here.

Your home page offers you the chance to tell a little about your site and its purpose. It also is the place to show your users what your site offers besides forums.

As important, is how search engines see your site. vBulletin, although better then most other boards, isnt super friendly for search engines to crawl. They will crawl it, but it tends to be slow. A homepage can help that because your homepage can be a roadmap to your site for the search engine spider.

There are several options for a homepage. You can use VB Advanced's CMPS homepage system (http://www.vbadvanced.com/products.php?do=productinfo&p=4), which is the one I use on this site. I like it because it is easily customizable and it also offers you the ability to create additional pages in vBulletin easily. Its fully intergrated with vBulletin so everything works together seamlessly. Oh yeah, its free too.

From the vBadvanced Site:
vBadvanced CMPS (Content Management & Portal System) is an advanced portal / content management system that will allow you to easily include different options from your vBulletin message board on your site's homepage. It also allows you to easily create and manage new pages in which you can set different settings other than the default. It's module system also makes it very easy to add custom modules without hacking any of the files, plus it is very easy to integrate with other vBulletin pages and hacks. Everything is also template based and completely integrated with vBulletin, so it is very easy to customize and change everything through your Admin CP.

There are other similar portal systems out there as well, such as vbindex.

Another option you have is to have a simple HTML page as a homepage.

Your homepage should be the most optimized page on your site, and should be designed with search engines in mind as much as possible. What that means is that you want to limit images, limit or exclude flash elements, have direct links to the major parts of your site, have a keyword rich description of your site, have all the proper meta tags, and not be overly large in size, among other things.

So, your next task should be to spend a little time and create a homepage for your vBulletin.

Great topic Joeychgo, I think the question of "should I or shouldn't I" is one many vBulletin webmasters wrestle with.

Another option you have is to have a simple HTML page as a homepage.This is the option I went for but I added "Today's Posts" and the last five (5) "Recent Posts" to my SalesPractice (http://www.salespractice.com/) home page.

You really made me consider a homepage...

good post.

Its really a very important element IMO. It makes your site look complete and professional, and it helps with SEO as well. Glad you liked the post.

Yeah great post, even just a simple page would help alot as it shows a lot more information about what your site is about by looking at the new threads titles and polls.

Why does vbulletin not have this as standard or even a option? Is it cause it is takeing the first concept of a forum beyond that or too much hassle?

Yeah great post, even just a simple page would help alot as it shows a lot more information about what your site is about by looking at the new threads titles and polls.

Why does vbulletin not have this as standard or even a option? Is it cause it is takeing the first concept of a forum beyond that or too much hassle?
I'm sure Jelsoft will release a vb homepage in the future... they must.

Not necessarily. Alot of the forums sold are for corporate use and never see the public, or the forum is an add on to an already existing site. I doubt they'll release a home page, especially with hacks like vBadvanced, CMPS and vBindex out there, plus standard HTML.

This is the option I went for but I added "Today's Posts" and the last five (5) "Recent Posts" to my SalesPractice (http://www.salespractice.com/) home page. Very interesting. We just set up our forum and we're all scratching our heads about this. Where can I learn how to feed Today's Posts or Recent Posts to the main HTML page?

There are several options for a homepage. You can use VB Advanced's CMPS homepage system (http://www.vbadvanced.com/products.php?do=productinfo&p=4), which is the one I use on this site. I like the way you did this. It is uncluttered, and combines some the features of CMS with the open look of an HTML page.

...it also offers you the ability to create additional pages in vBulletin easily.So is your home page a result of the additional page feature you mention, and it allows you to put it in your root folder?

No. The home page is standard,you can creat extra pages with whatever elements you want on it. WHat is the coolest part about CMPS is that each section of the page is a module, and each module has permission on who can see it. So for example you can let guests see a welcome message and turn it off for registered members. Its a great way to have the page more SEO'd cause you can not show the less SE friendly modules to guests (which spiders would be)

While everyone plays the SEO game, it seems that membership is the point, but often over looked.

Site branding is very important too. Pick a logo/banner, color scheme, and a catch phrase for your forums too.

Don't forget your priority, membership. While you have worked your tail off to get um there, what is unique about your place that's gonna keep um?

Where can I learn how to feed Today's Posts or Recent Posts to the main HTML page?Here is the code I use. Customize it for your forums and then place this code in the page wherever you want it to display:

<?
$server = 'XXX';
$login = 'XXX';
$pass = 'XXX';
$dbname = 'XXX';
$forumdomain = 'http://www.yoursite.com/forums';
$ext = 'php';
$results = '5';
$link = mysql_connect($server, $login, $pass)
or die('Error with Forum ' . mysql_error());
mysql_select_db($dbname) or die('Could not select database');
// Performing SQL query
$query = 'SELECT title, threadid'
. ' FROM `thread` '
. ' ORDER BY lastpost DESC '
. ' LIMIT '.$results;
$result = mysql_query($query) or die('Query failed: ' . mysql_error());
// Printing results in HTML;
//echo "<h4>Recent Posts</h4>\n";
echo "<h4> <a href=\"http://www.yoursite.com/forums/search.php?do=getdaily\">Today's Posts</a> </h4>\n";
echo "<ul>\n";
$alter = "odd";
while ($row = mysql_fetch_assoc($result)) {
echo "<li class=\"".$alter."\"><a href=\"".$forumdomain."/showthread.".$ext."?t=".$row['threadid']."\" rel=\"nofollow\" >".$row['title']."</a></li>";
if($alter == "odd") $alter = "even"; else $alter = "odd";
}
echo "</ul>\n";
// Free resultset
mysql_free_result($result);
// Closing connection
mysql_close($link);
?>

Very interesting. We just set up our forum and we're all scratching our heads about this. Where can I learn how to feed Today's Posts or Recent Posts to the main HTML page?

There is a post on this already:

See: http://www.vbwebmaster.com/forums/showthread.php?t=12


:)

Here is the code I use. Customize it for your forums and then place this code in the page wherever you want it to display...Thanks! grabbed a copy of the code, and I'll give it a try.

the coolest part about CMPS is that each section of the page is a module, and each module has permission on who can see it. So for example you can let guests see a welcome message and turn it off for registered members. Its a great way to have the page more SEO'd cause you can not show the less SE friendly modules to guests (which spiders would be)Sounds great! I'm going to have to take a closer look at it.

This can help or HURT a forum Joey, I think in many cases it hurts traffic and views because some folks never click into the forum.

If the average web surfer hits a page and his or her interest is not captured within 15 seconds then they leave in most cases.

I think a home page makes a site look more like a portal versus a forum and that could be part of the problem with installing a home page.

I like to go directly to the forum index page myself most of the time.

I think it depends on the actual content you place on your homepage. I have gotten good feedback from vBadvanced CMPS. There are some forums where I will bookmark directly to the forums index and some that I actually visit the homepage.

Yes - This is why you should change content on your home page from time to time. Also, that gets you more response from google.

A blog can make a great "homepage" too. I just recently replaced my single .html page at my sports forum with a Blogger blog. Still need to tweak the design some (anyone want to design a blogger template that looks like a "sports page" for me?) but after I put it in place traffic into the forums actually increased. Granted, the page that was there before (still in Google's cache right now) sucked :D

Okay, I said in introductions that I ask some rather silly questions and here is the first. I have reviewed this thread and have down loaded the vBadvanced Homepage System.

1. What, if any adverse issues should I expect installing this program considering I already have several hacks installed on my website?
2. I have an html home page installed that I created in DreamWeaver. Should I keep this current set up or is the vBadvanced better and if it is better why do you say this?

Depends. I like CMPS because you can easilly have different homepage elements for different usergroups.

Be sure you downloaded CMPS - not vbadvanced.

SHould be no problems installing

Depends. I like CMPS because you can easilly have different homepage elements for different usergroups.

Be sure you downloaded CMPS - not vbadvanced.

SHould be no problems installing

this one, right? vBadvanced CMPS (Content Management & Portal System)

I think a forum home page like CMPS can work well to direct traffic to different areas of your site. However, you need to be careful and consider how a spider would enter and reach your valuable content. This takes a lot of thought. Fortunately, CMPS is flexible enough to do this.

Agreed.

The other thing that is nice is that you can show modules only to specific usergroups. So you can have, for example, a welcome message module for guests that only shows to guests and not registered members, making the content on the homepage more targeted to each usergroup.

I think a forum home page like CMPS can work well to direct traffic to different areas of your site. However, you need to be careful and consider how a spider would enter and reach your valuable content. This takes a lot of thought. Fortunately, CMPS is flexible enough to do this.

Yes. That's the flexibility. Best thing to do is set it up lite for guests. Then view it with a spider simulator and Lynx to see how easy it would be for a spider to find your forum index or threads.

Yes. That's the flexibility. Best thing to do is set it up lite for guests. Then view it with a spider simulator and Lynx to see how easy it would be for a spider to find your forum index or threads.

Agreed.

This can help or HURT a forum Joey, I think in many cases it hurts traffic and views because some folks never click into the forum.

If the average web surfer hits a page and his or her interest is not captured within 15 seconds then they leave in most cases.

I think a home page makes a site look more like a portal versus a forum and that could be part of the problem with installing a home page.

I like to go directly to the forum index page myself most of the time.

From my recent experiences you couldnt be more wrong. Previously I just threw up a simple HTML homepage with a basic navigation menu. I felt I wasnt making the forums prominent enough on the main part of the site. Since converting to vBa the online users in the forums have doubled! Using the vBAdvanced CMPS makes the forums very prominent on the homepage.

Not only that, but getting forums off the ground aint easy. Setting up a site solely as a forum makes it even more difficult. If you have more content then just the forums, your giving your site a better chance of success, IMO.

Excellent point. I see some many forums without any kind of homepage or even introduction. First, it takes me a bit to figure of what the forum is about. Second, if it is just a message board, it gives me impression that the owner doesn't care much about one he/she is doing. Just plops a board with google ads, here, post.

Having a forum without a homepage doesn't look 'right' to me. It's a good add on.

Frontpage like you have to click something to actually get into forums? NO! A forum is a forum, and its main purpose is to what, POST. Yes, it may look proffessional with a forum with a homepage, but it just guides people away from the purpose. Its easier for people to just register, login, and post.

I know of several very popular forums without a homepage. WHT (http://www.webhostingtalk.com/) for example.... So is it important. Well maybe not very important.