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

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. 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).

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.

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 etc

So 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 -

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. 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).

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.

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...

[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 :

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

[Peggy]

Nice site you have Jim

[eJM]

Awww, shucks, ma'am. Thankya.