I want my site to have better search engine rankings now that the forum had a little more activity so there is more content to index. Google is indexing my site but not putting my site in the results where it belongs and giving it the rankings it deserves...
From what I understand the rankings go by other sites linking to you. So by putting a link to OP420 in my sig on other forums, that helps? And despite what I said here posting a thread in Basic Promotion with a link helps too?
Do meta phrases still matter and are there things I can do on my site rather than just posting links to my site everywhere?
Do sites with better (lower) Alexa rankings get better search engine rankings? Because Alexa uses a similar formula as the search engines?
I hate using mods because I have 20 themes and installing them is a real pain. But I probably would have to only install this on the theme that shows up for the search bots though, woulnd't I because that's all they see. But I do have links like this:
http://operation420.net/forum/index.php?style=9
So maybe that would change the theme they see...
But what I don't understand is if this mod works so well is why isn't it already in phpBB?
PS, I want to talk about SEO and Alexa in more detail and not just SEO and phpBB, although the biggest part of my site is my forum. I want to know more about SEO and be able to apply it to my forum opposed to just blindly doing things to my forum...
Your main issue is the way you link to your forum. Instead of just using the URL use an anchor text that best fits your forum and will get you a good result within search engines, don't link to them with "Click here" there's nothing worse then that, unless you want to try and rank well within the "Click here" keywords within search engines.
You won't beat out the Adobe home page on the words "click here" anyway XD
Any link to your site 'counts' but how and how much it counts varies wildly.
While we're at it, I see in your sig you are paying for people to post...IMO this is a useless venture as it will not get you any permanent members. The very best way to start a forum out is to gather up a small circle of buddies who just want to be on your board for its own sake. Just 5 or 10 people can make for a good beginning and slowly they can help you spread the word. =) Good luck!!
I have a few permanent members, just paying a few others to help get some posts in the meantime. Most of my friends aren't into forums to that's not really an option...
