These are the slides from my presentation at FOSDEM 2010 (07.02.2010, Brussels)

Forums and forum hosting. It can be asked why not simply run a blog. Good question. Yet for those involved in Search Engine Optimization – SEO – its practice , techniques and strategies , nothing calls out more and leaves a poor first impression of a websites than an empty forum. Blogs it seems do not have dead space and can be filled up with what might be politely call in the trade “filler” content.

Forums are extremely good matters of concern; whether you wish to link up with other like-minded people, talk over a new hobby ,discuss and share thoughts or simply just want to get your personal view out there. It’s one way of creating social bonds and interest groups for a topic of common interest. A favorably managed forum can also be an extremely productive tool for marketing your website, and could directly initiate earnings.

Facilitating the giving and receiving of ideas, opinions and knowledge about a particular subject, a forum can also become somewhat of an information center that people rely on. It’s basically trading ideas and information, giving out tips or day-to-day experiences. Through internet forum, a virtual community is formed. Correspondence and communication takes place. Multiple users share concepts and knowledge with one another thereby inviting people to be part of the ongoing interaction. If this can be achieved, the number of members taking part in the discussion threads will be remarkably high.

By simply giving a precise of your launch information in a thread, you could generate meaningful backlinks to your main site. More traffic still can be generated on a day-to-day basis, by contributing to up-to-date threads and reverting readers to your site through well placed content on both portals.

You could elect to build your own forum directly into your site of course, which can be very effective, particularly if your customer base is already healthy. However, this can be extremely time and financially consuming – not to mention the distractions it gives you from your other undertakings.

By far the best option is to host your forum off site, and create traffic to your main site. At Boardster. Net, they offer a very high quality of standard, free, forum hosting service. Using their high powered, fully scalable and customizable Open Source bulletin board package, you can create a specialized appearance of your forum with your own branding, on their faithful servers.

Using phpBB , you get a high -powered ,fully accessible, highly adaptable and free open source internet forum software package that can support a variety of database management system. Its key features are: simple installation, multiple-language interface, support for a host of database servers, high security, with extensive authorization system and strong encryption for password safety ,unlimited forums that can be organized into unlimited categories, unlimited forum members, private or public forums ,powerful search facility, private messaging facility ,template customization ,messages formatting in various font styles and sizes, allowing image posting, code display, automatic URL linking ,easy-to-use admin panel and a large number of phpBB users providing free support. Here you have access to a user-friendly crossing point; for both you the administrator and the visitors to the forum. With a fantastic and quick sign up, you can have your forum online in minutes. Amazingly up-front to get up and running, if you do have a queries, the sensibly organized and comprehensive FAQ section should make available the explanation. Happy hosting!

http;//www.tom-rogers.com/about/donate/ – We dive in to theming Drupal core search module looking at how they may be improved and how such changes are implemented.

WordPress Search engine optimization techniques (SEO) should become attention for bloggers who are interested in building high traffic to their WordPress blog. WordPress SEO can help improving the search engine rankings of their WordPress blogs. You can really base a significantly successful and profitable WordPress optimization program by having SEO enriched content on the website of your business. SEO enriched website content is an invaluable element of an overall profitable search engine optimization effort.

This article will explain some useful information for you who are considering starting a blog with WordPress and want to optimize your WordPress with simple tips using Search Engine Optimization technique. In this articles will be focus on a SEO technique called On Pages Optimization. Basically On page Search Engine Optimization will alerts the search engines to the topics of your wordpress blog which is absolutely necessary to get ranked highly in the search engines for your specified search keyword.

Why use WordPress?

WordPress is easy to use and provides a variety of templates and pluggins and offer excellent support to bloggers. One of pluggin that very usefull for On Page optimization is All in one SEO plugin. By this pluggin you can edit/add your niche keyword and Meta tags in your WordPress blog.

How to improve your wordpress blog by On Page SEO technique?

There are 3 importance keys to optimize your wordpress blog using On Pages Optimization. After you have installed All in one SEO plugin you should edit your blog as below.

Keywords: To optimize your wordpress blog you should place your keyword or keyword phrase in various specific locations on your webpage.

Meta Tags : Meta Tags contain of 3 main components:

a. Meta Keywords: Meta Keyword should be containing of our targeted keyword and related to your blog topic.

b. Meta Title: Create a short Title for your blog. Avoid to choose Title that not important and not related to your targeted keyword even “or” or “and”.

c. Meta Description: The Meta Description should be containing all keyword which is you fill in Meta Keywords.

Content: You should ensure the content in your articles contain 3% – 8% of main keyword.

Web crawlers usually discover pages from links within your site and from other sites. A use full WordPress pluggin called Google xml Sitemaps plugin will help you to generate a search engine friendly site map to your blog. It will provide additional information about your site to Google and will facilitate to the spider to crawl. Make your URL’s search engine friendly by go to your WordPress dashboard and click on “settings” then choose the “permalinks” option. Choose the “custom structure” and type in “/%postname%/”.

For more information about WordPress Search Engine Optimization, you may visit SEO Blog Optimization.

Tips on how to avoid duplicate content and set up theming or siloing on your wordpress blog installation

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SEOvB is a vBulletin services provider offering a vast number of services and specializing in vBulletin SEO (search engine optimization), modifications and customizations. The company, bringing in over 50 combined years of IT and vBulletin experience, has built a reputation for providing high quality customer service and being able to offer its vBulletin services at affordable prices with vBulletin Hosting. This is why it has served over 200 vBulletin customers and met their needs all the way.

Online forums have become a large market in the United States and around the world. Creating and maintaining a professional, vBulletin forum is one that requires skill, knowledge and up to date technology. SEOvB markets itself as a company with the ability to ensure forums are technologically competitive with current standards and prepared for the high amount of internet traffic that will come from the popular search engines. SEOvB is able to provide a full vBulletin install for customers just starting out with a new forum, and they can also provide upgrades, add mods and even migrate forums from other programs to vBulletin. Each project has a personal feel to it depending on the needs and desires of the customers, and there is professional support available at every stage.

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An important aspect of running a forum involves vBulletin SEO or Search Engine Optimization. These days simply maintaining a forum is not enough. It is important to draw maximum traffic to the community. When it comes to SEO, there are always new issues popping up and new concepts to consider. Unless a customer wants to spend endless hours researching and keeping up to date on this ever-changing world of SEO, it can be quite a relief to hand off the task to SEOvB professionals. The team increases rankings in search engines and brings in a more targeted traffic flow to customer forums. This can increase earnings and help the forum grow tremendously in a shorter amount of time.

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