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#204010 01/16/2000 6:23 PM
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Promoting web forums is a long and time consuming process if you want to do it right. I am convinced that there is not a one size fits all promotion strategy that works for all sites. Here are the key points in my experience:

1. An empty forum stays empty... If your forum is not seeded with interesting posts and content it may well stay empty much longer. People want to see what a forum is like BEFORE they post. If its empty they may not return.

2. Search engines matter but they are not the be all and end all of promotion
AND forget paying high rates for one time search engine splashed in 35000 Search engines. Each engine has its own set of rules. The top engines should always be hand submitted and this should be done AFTER you have set up your site properly for submission. If anyone guarantees you a top ranking for some amount of money--run the other way. They will not be of any help to you

3. In addition to search engines think about where people who would be most interested in your forums hang out--THAT is where you want to be see:)
So get out there and make interesting posts on related sites message boards etc

4. your members word of month will be the least time consuming and most effective promotion tool...Find ways to help them feel ownership

5. Promotion must be done again and again and again ..its not a one time job but continuous work

Well thats a start...i hope I raised some eyebrows with my search engine comments...hinm and perhaps some fingers have begun typing a response ;)


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Anonymous #204011 01/19/2000 12:25 PM
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Very well points Renee! I'd have to stress point #1 about an empty forum over and over again! The users to a forum need to see something there that they think is worth coming back to check later on... I've been a part of the building of several forums, and only once have I seen a forum start with nothing and end up with a huge user base.

And that was a special case... where I personally opened a board up after being a well known "expert" on a specific topic on various boards already, and when I opened the users simply flocked to follow me. That particular board started with about 5 messages the first day, and after two years has seen 3.5 million posted & viewed.

Back to the topic, search engines are important but very difficult to master with discussion boards. For different related searches on your site’s topic, consider entry pages with keywords, page titles, and descriptions with targeted search phrases for spiders to notice... plus, the more links to your site there are, the higher your rankings will be. Don’t forget to check your stats monthly for the referrers and, if you have the capability, a more complex report of the actual terms that your site was found with. Then adjust your tags accordingly.

On your point #3, I can't stress that one enough for commercial websites. Information you provide to others results in a sense of trust, which those who gain from your post will have in you. I've seen businesses go from nothing in web-related sales to 70% of their business being directly influenced by a discussion board in just a year's time... it is really amazing when you play it right, the results you get will be rewarding. (More on that later…)

Another great way of promoting your site is through a free newsletter. It’s probably a good idea to place it in the top right corner of your page if possible, since that's where people look first on a page, and see the subscriptions roll in. Once you gain a newsletter base, you can use that to execute viral marketing tactics like "forward this special code to your friends and let them save 15% too!" or other things along those lines. I can't tell you how many times I get e-mail forwards from people, and the forward lists are usually quite long! One e-mail you send to 10 people could possibly translate into 500, 600, 700 or more users getting that e-mail through forwards and, that is, as we call it, "viral networking."

Now let's see if we can get this discussion going!

Muhammad Chishti
Creative dIRECTOR
http://www.imcuniverse.com


Muhammad
paulj #204012 01/21/2000 11:59 PM
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On Search engines... Yes entry pages, keywords and such can be helpful as Muhammad points out.

The trick is not EVERY engine uses the same tags..adn SOME will penalize for things that get you a higher rating in another engine. To make matters worse how each operates CHANGES...So if you dont stay on top of the changes and submit properly it wont help. DONT pay the $600-$2000 to a firm that uses machines to submit. Machine submitted sites get lower rankings often.
AND here the deal with "guaranteed ranking:
1. If they guarantee you a first page ranking on a keyword that is popular ..they are lying unless you paid a HECK of a lot of money and BOUGHT the ranking from those engines that do that
2. They select a keyword that they CAN place because its so unpopular.
Of Course that means your site wont get found anyway ;)
So if they promise you that RUN the other way *fast*.
If you have time to do the research yourself and learn how to do the engines right (be prepared to speed a lot of time) You will want to spend time at http://www.virtualpromote.com which teaches these skills and has forums that keep up with EACH engine. OR you can use Muhammud and I right here and ask us questions ;)
We migh start a search engine thread when you do:)

Mailing Lists are important as well and done right these also take time :)

I think we have a bunch of information out there. Since you are all running websites I imagine you have much experience to share with promotion and what has worked for you or not...and/or many questions.
Lets help each other promote our sites!
Renee Levant
OracleWeb Services



Anonymous #204013 01/22/2000 12:23 AM
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Speaking from experience..

DO spend the time on getting the top 10 search engines submitted correctly.

DO NOT spend time posting at 500 free for all links pages. :-)

Ever heard of Banana Spider? Didn't think so..lol. Free for all's are a big waste of time.


Anonymous #204014 01/22/2000 12:47 AM
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Jay... For some sites it may be a waste of time.

In doing promotion for many websites I have found that each site requires a different strategy. Free for all links take one second to post. The only use they have IMO is when timed correctly they can increase the popularity rating with some engines. In general though I agree and rarely put much effort into those unless the site is one for which there is a higher yield.

Most affective for long term return traffic is having people post on message boards that are directly related to your site.

But The Search Engine Rankings matter for many sites and when done right I have not found it to be a waste. I would suggest that its not worth all one must learn if you have limited time and will not be needing the skills for many sites...you may be better off by other means. But I WOULD OFTEN suggest to clients in a web plain settig the pages for proper spidering to be a PART of an larger site specific plan. Promotion is not one size fits all. And for me part of promotion is helping the webmaster see the unique value of their site...and using that for all its worth in developing strategy. I see promotion and site -building as deeply connected.

As to Banana Spider..I'd only use it if it has icecream with it.


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Anonymous #204015 03/09/2000 5:11 PM
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I tried getting one of my previous sites listed in Yahoo! but they never added it to their database...yet when I was conducting searches on sites like MSN, AltaVista, etc...because I had soooo many links to it (from itself) I was getting a ton of my different pages in the top 15-20, on one keyword in particular even (on MSN), I was returned with 59 out of the top 60...why is Yahoo! so strict when others are so liberal? And by setting a script that deals with "indexing robots" aren't you in violation of Yahoo's rules?

On another note, does anyone have a list of Robots $ENV{'HTTP_USER_AGENT'} that can be used in the creation of a perl script that can customize the META output for various robots? Oh yeah...and my old ISP had a program that sent out requests for re-indexing to specific search engines with the url of any "new pages" it found, the UNIX touch command worked beautifully, I was seeing almost 5000 hits a day just from indexing spiders, but it sure kept me easily in top 20...has anyone heard of or know where an example of this type of script can be found?


twalpole #204016 03/10/2000 2:48 PM
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There is nothing harder to do on the web than get listed with Yahoo. They still have to approve every submission and there are millions.

While Yahoo is very popular and you should try your best to list, it won't make or break your site's search engine results (as you mentioned).

Just keep re-submitting if it isn't listed within a month. (that's how long it takes!) Or pay the $200 or whatever it is, and they will look at your submission within 24 hours, but won't make any promises to listing. Also, if you are lucky enough to find their phone number... give them a call - that will get better results. Just say, 'I have a site submission - who do I call?'

(Maybe they have modified their methods by now but at one recent time you could submit a listing over the phone.)

Muhammad Chishti
Creative dIRECTOR
[:white]http://www.imcuniverse.com


Muhammad
paulj #204017 03/10/2000 8:34 PM
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ummm... If you want to get listed with yahoo..head over to the Yahoo forum on virtual promote http://www.searchengineforums.com..Read up :)

There are different ways to do it depending upon your type of site.

I would STRONGLY advise against repeated monthly submissions to Yahoo with the same content. This can get editors LESS inclined to view your site.
Instead learn what appeals and where yoiur site would best fit according to THEIR way of looking at things. Ask the folks at this forum..give them a description if the site and the url and ask what they think and how to approach it
editors from yahoo check those forums regularly;)
Once you learn help others the same way
nts

Renee Levant [b]Oracle Web Services[b]
[email protected]

Anonymous #204018 03/12/2000 7:26 AM
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Thanks for that link, Renee, I will check it out.

Muhammad Chishti
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[:white]http://www.imcuniverse.com


Muhammad
Anonymous #204019 03/14/2000 10:59 AM
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Yes thank you for that link I will definately look into it...


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