vBulletin SEO Setup

I notice these days that there is a site a minute popping up, but people don’t exactly understand how one gets and maintains members. They think they can just throw a site up and BAM you have magic. A website takes a lot of hard work and time. But after many years of learning the hard way, I have come up with what seems to be a fool proof plan.

Step 1 The Name

One mistake people seem to make a lot is having a website name that is not relevant at all to their site. This hurts you so much in the web world. You have a site names applesandoranges.com, but you’re selling hats. Now these people come to your site and see there are no apples or oranges. Well needless to say they aren’t going to come back. That’s equivalent to lying to ones face in the web world. So always think very hard about your name and make sure it’s relevant to your content. If you can pick a word for your name that appears multiple times in your content this will help you tremendously later on down the road.

Step 2 Picking a host

Now you are asking why does this even matter. Well, a lot of times people go for cheap hosts who offer unlimited this and that. In most cases they are probably someone who oversells their hosting. This is not always horrible thing, but it could end up costing your site up-time. And every minute your site is down, that’s a minute you could have been making more members. So take your time and investigate a host. The best way is to hop on Google and look for reviews. See what people think, and also check their up-time. They have many sites online that monitor up-time of hosting companies.

Step 3 Staff

I have found that this may be one of the most important choices of all. If you pick a bad staff that doesn’t contribute or help add content, then your site will most likely fail. A good think to look for in a staff member is that they are knowledgeable about your content and who are as passionate as you about your site. One of the biggest reasons sites fail and people are run off is infighting from the staff and or members. So you want to pick people who will help and nurture your site. Not someone who is temperamental and will hurt it.

Step 4 Setting your Rules

This is highly important for any site. You must take the time and establish a good set standard of rules. You can never deviate from your rules and show favoritism. If you start to do this, you will end up running off members and losing lot more in the long run. As a staff and owner you must maintain and show control. It is after all your site. I know at times this is harder than others, but you must be willing to make the tough judgments in order to maintain your sites success.

Step 5 Content

This is pretty much self explanatory. If you don’t have content then people have no reason to come to your site. So you must always maintain and build your sites content to draw members. Try not to fall for the old smoke and mirrors deal. I have seen lot of sites adding content that’s not relevant to their site because they feel at this time this information is popular or sought after. This is horrible practice when running a site. Always stick to your site theme and subject. I promise you this will help you in the long run.

Step 6 Advertising

I think everyone has their own ways of doing this to attract members, but I find referral drives are great when just starting. Also, never underestimate to search engine submissions. Some people tend to do this way too early though. I would wait like a week and allow my site to establish itself some before I go submitting like crazy. This is something I have always done, so it doesn’t bring people to an empty site. Another thing is to only advertise to your target audience. What I mean by this is if you own a car forum or site; don’t spend money advertising in a place where they don’t have car people. I’ve seen this common mistake all the time where people think any advertising is good advertising. This in most cases is spamming site to site. I mean be logical, why would someone want to check out a spammer’s site? I just can?t see myself taking my time to check out a site that spammed somewhere I like to visit. Also, don’t gay up your site with tons of advertising. I understand you want to make money, but do it in moderation. Everything is better when it?s done in moderation.

Step 7 The 8 second rule

This is the last thing you must never forget. Market research has shown that if your site takes more than 8 seconds to load or your site doesn’t have easy to find content viewable in those first 8 seconds, you will lose that visitor. I really believe in this. So watch the crazy flash stuff and long loading graphics. I understand you want a pretty site, but don’t overdo it. If you stick to this as a rule, I promise you your site will start to grow.

Now I’m not saying this is a perfected formula, but it?s what works for me. I have been using these base rules for years and I have never had problems starting a site. But you should know that sometimes it’s better to fold em than to hold em. I mean if your site idea is not working in a month or so, good bet it’s not going to work. So don’t drain bunch money into trying to revive it. Not every idea will be a success. So go back to the drawing board and start over. And don’t feel bad, I have sometimes discarded 10 sites before finding 1 good idea. I hope you find this information helpful and insightful. I know I could have explained it more, but I am just trying to get the basics out there for now. If you tune into my blog at a later date I will try to go in-depth on some of these subject and offer some tools to help you all out. So have fun and enjoy. And always remember if you do what you love, no matter what happens you will always be happy.

Blake2181

Webmaster of Site soon to be launched

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