Customizing SMF > Building Your Community and other Forum Advice
Time for a rethink, need a home page
kathiemt:
Hi everyone, I've set up a couple of forums, one for my own industry and one for a mountain biking club. The MTB one is very successful and growing well as the members there meet and network with one another and tell everyone they know about the forum. It's linked to a website for the club.
The other one is a standalone one is linked to from my main website, however I very much want to build up the forum as a separate entity. I'm thinking I really should create a home page for it that I can optimise for SEO and submit to directories and other places where I know that my target audience hangs out. But I'm not sure what to do to create a home page for the forum.
Currently the forum URL is set in the server settings as http://virtualassistantsgroup.net.
I've done some searches here on 'front page' and 'home page' but haven't really found any clues on what I need to do to create a home page. Am I right in thinking I'll need to point the forum to another address, such as forum? And if so, would that mean I need to shift the forum to a folder named 'forum'? That will open up a whole new set of questions if so. ???
Or, could I perhaps set up a page in front of it and get the domain to point to that page first and then link the forum to it? At this stage I know the home page would be index.php so that would make it difficult. I would prefer to do the home page in Wordpress, which would also want to use index.php. I could create something in html but I'm thinking Wordpress is more easily manipulated these days, for someone who doesn't write code from scratch (me). Although I am capable of editing code and do use Dreamweaver often.
I guess I might have done things backwards here, not sure. Some forums I visit don't have home pages, i.e. the forum is the home page but others do. I'm thinking I really need to do that now.
I'm using SMF2.
Looking:
Usually I try to install the forum under a directory so your domain goes to your 'home' page and then to get to the forum you will send them to a directory so in your case: ...virtualassistantsgroup.net/forum/
This also keeps things clean and frees up your root folder for other things.
Alternatively most portals can be used to give you a home page effect.
kathiemt:
--- Quote from: Looking on July 07, 2012, 11:41:57 PM ---Usually I try to install the forum under a directory so your domain goes to your 'home' page and then to get to the forum you will send them to a directory so in your case: ...virtualassistantsgroup.net/forum/
This also keeps things clean and frees up your root folder for other things.
Alternatively most portals can be used to give you a home page effect.
--- End quote ---
Yes, I'm realising that now but I didn't. Guess I need to read up on how to shift the forum so I can do that, huh?
Or perhaps I find a portal that can do that? I'd like the front page to have a similar theme/look to the forum so I wonder if that's the answer? Does anyone here have an example of what they've done for a home page using a portal?
mashby:
A portal does sound like a good solution for your needs. You can look at my site in my profile. I'm using TinyPortal (but I'm on a older version of both SMF and TinyPortal). SimplePortal is also another good option amongst others.
ApplianceJunk:
Hi Kathiemt,
What is Virtual Assistant? I have looked around your site a bit, but I'm still not sure just what it is.
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