Some plans to help the site grow

sintekk · Post by **sintekk** » Wed Dec 15, 2004 8:14 pm

1) Make the entire forum google spider friendly. This will involve changing the urls and won't have any noticable effect other then different looking urls when you hover, but if I do it like Iceteks even the address bar urls won't change. But I may also play with .htaccess style urls which would have an affect on apearance of urls but it's not like that's an issue. There's 3 ways I have in mind to go about doing this, so I'll pick one of em and go from there.

2) Ads... maybe not everyone will like this but I'll put some ads, for sure a leatherboard banner on top of everything, but below the logo, and other ads may go at other places such as the bottom. This will probably be only on the index, forum view and topic view, given those are the most potential places where someone would want to click. Don't worry there won't be popups I'm completely against them even if they do pay well. I'll go with google ads, and possibly try out a few other ad networks, though I tried in the past and got declined so don't count on them, we're not big enough yet.

Oh and the ads would probably be IP based. They would only show up a certain ammount of times per IP per time span. I'll experiment with this to see which offers the best CTR.

3) Forum skin. I do want to put a custom skin or at least a non-default one, so I may just change the CSS and graphics, or get and install a premade skin. I don't have time to make one, though if any of the other admins want to, go nuts. Just create a new skin set and when it's ready then we'll switch over and disable the default. I want to stick to having only one skin though, for modding purposes.

4) Offer extra service. Since this is just a forum, it might not be enough on it's own to attract people, so I want to think of other "services" that would be available. I only have one idea in mind but I'm open to others. One of them is to make it so members can have their own blogs. I'd make a php script for it, and that too, would be google spider friendly and have a few ads on it, and point to the home page and forum.

#1. Sounds good to me
#2. Stay away from graphical ads, they have a lower CTR than Google ads, plus they are ugly

I believe a google ad, on the side of the anything forums banner, on everypage and maybe another google ad at the bottom on everypage. The text ads aren't intrusive.
#3. Maybe you should make me admin, I got time to do that kinda stuff

#4.I like the idea of a blog. You should also look into the Invision Arcade here (http://www.ibproarcade.com/index.php?). People love games, and if you put the ads there too, that might help out with the ctr

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Red Squirrel · Post by **Red Squirrel** » Wed Dec 15, 2004 8:18 pm

Yeah graphical ads I'll stay away from though some do pay well. But it's the thing of getting them. Adsense is much easier since I already have an account. I was thinking of getting a new account so I can have 2 budgets but figured I'll just put the money all in the same budget, easier that way, since basically it's the same server anyway so the costs are for both sites.

The games is another thing to try out, I might look into that. BTW the skin on that forum is nice...

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sintekk · Post by **sintekk** » Wed Dec 15, 2004 8:58 pm

I wub the invision pro arcade

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Bookworm · Post by **Bookworm** » Wed Dec 15, 2004 9:57 pm

#4. I might use a blog if one was available. I would even be satisfied with a generic webpage. A place for my name, a family picture, a few words of text. Just to be able to say I have a webpage.

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sintekk · Post by **sintekk** » Wed Dec 15, 2004 10:00 pm

Bookworm wrote: #4. I might use a blog if one was available. I would even be satisfied with a generic webpage. A place for my name, a family picture, a few words of text. Just to be able to say I have a webpage.

I'd use a blog too, if only for random ramblings

Here's a cheap 50 buck one that plugs right into the board:
http://www.invisionblog.com/

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Red Squirrel · Post by **Red Squirrel** » Wed Dec 15, 2004 10:23 pm

Wow are they ever getting into the cash stuff now. A while invision site could end up making them like 2000 bucks of profit if everything was put into it.

I'd probably program it myself though, maybe even get a trial of that one just to get ideas.

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sintekk · Post by **sintekk** » Wed Dec 15, 2004 10:32 pm

why don't you get a 'trial' and plug it in here for us to try?

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Red Squirrel · Post by **Red Squirrel** » Wed Dec 15, 2004 10:34 pm

I could do that, but it's hard not to get caught, so instead I'll just put it on my server and get ideas off of it.

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MrSelf · Post by **MrSelf** » Wed Dec 15, 2004 11:28 pm

wow guys, this is really cool, I'm glad this seem to be picking up and the members are taking such an interest ing things.

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Bookworm · Post by **Bookworm** » Wed Dec 15, 2004 11:31 pm

MrSelf wrote: wow guys, this is really cool, I'm glad this seem to be picking up and the members are taking such an interest ing things.

*gets hanky* you don't realize how important something is until you almost lose it *weeps uncontrollably*

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sintekk · Post by **sintekk** » Wed Dec 15, 2004 11:46 pm

Bookworm wrote:
MrSelf wrote: wow guys, this is really cool, I'm glad this seem to be picking up and the members are taking such an interest ing things.

*gets hanky* you don't realize how important something is until you almost lose it *weeps uncontrollably*

I do like the blog idea.. when do you think you can gets it done, red? Or is it more of a "When can I find the time to start?" sort of things

If this site was in Coldfusion, I could whip one up real quick...

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MrSelf · Post by **MrSelf** » Wed Dec 15, 2004 11:57 pm

Bookworm wrote:
MrSelf wrote: wow guys, this is really cool, I'm glad this seem to be picking up and the members are taking such an interest ing things.

*gets hanky* you don't realize how important something is until you almost lose it *weeps uncontrollably*

*sniff*

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Red Squirrel · Post by **Red Squirrel** » Thu Dec 16, 2004 12:34 pm

sintekk wrote:
Bookworm wrote:
MrSelf wrote: wow guys, this is really cool, I'm glad this seem to be picking up and the members are taking such an interest ing things.

*gets hanky* you don't realize how important something is until you almost lose it *weeps uncontrollably*

I do like the blog idea.. when do you think you can gets it done, red? Or is it more of a "When can I find the time to start?" sort of things

Should be able to very shortly. For sure in the next few weeks if, before. Got business related stuff going on such as websites to make, and a bunch of orders but once I'm done the websites I'll be able to start coding php for here.

If I get really lazy I might just get a pre-made blog script... I'm sure there must be plenty available out there.

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The Gheyness · Post by **The Gheyness** » Thu Dec 16, 2004 5:39 pm

Oh shush, ya bunch of babies!!

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Bookworm · Post by **Bookworm** » Thu Dec 16, 2004 11:20 pm

Regarding the blogs, would they be subject to the same rules (regarding profanity and obscenity) as the rest of the forum? And wouldn't the admins editing a blog be taken a bit more personally than when they edit a forum posting?

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Red Squirrel · Post by **Red Squirrel** » Thu Dec 16, 2004 11:23 pm

Not sure about the rules. I guess I'd have to come up with a seperate TOS for the blog service. But instead of editing, offensive entries would be deleted. But it would not be moderated, but if I'd get an email or what not then I'd take action. I don't think online blogs are actually moderated anyway... there would be a note that we are not responsible for the content etc...

I don't think it will become a big issue though, and I'd make it so you need a certain ammount of posts to get a blog.

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sintekk · Post by **sintekk** » Thu Dec 16, 2004 11:38 pm

I don't think blogs should be edited for profanity, but they should be moderated for excessively offensive stuff (e.g. racism and the such)

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