need someone to check

[waring192]

Hi guys, started my 1st forum about 2 weeks ago. Got a few members (14) but most have been friends or colleages. I am indexed on google www.thepropertyforums.co.uk/forum but no posts are indexed. also the result shows info about how many posts etc, but id like it to show the forum infomation like what the forum is about.
Is everything ok?
oh and also, do i need a robots.txt file?

Cheers for the help

[H]

Google may take awhile to fully index your site.

also the result shows info about how many posts etc, but id like it to show the forum infomation like what the forum is about.

Try searching the board for meta description

[die4me]

you can try submitting your site to google or yahoo

[nick09]

look for the text

Search engine friendly URLs

to find it go to Features and options.

click and save.

[waring192]

cheers guys

[karlbenson]

it can take a month to get an INITIAL listing. (eg 1 or 2 pages).

It can take alot longer before you get a good proportion of your site listed.

[waring192]

cheers karl. does everything else look ok?

[Noddegamra]

This should probably gone in the "Showcase" section of these forums, but as I'm here I'll give some feedback.


1. The template
The template your using is one of the most used free ones for SMF. This isn't necessarily a bad thing as it looks nice, but it looks no different to millions of other forums. "First impressions" is an important factor for people signing up. I strongly recommend hiring someone to make you a custom template, or atleast to modify the free one you have. Give it more of a property theme.


2. The logo
It's quite nice. Nothing amazing, but it works.


3. The URL/ site address
Your foruim is at http://www.thepropertyforums.co.uk/forum , when i go to http://www.thepropertyforums.co.uk it re-directs me. This will hurt your rankins in search engines. Set it up so the forum is at the root of your domain, it is a LOT better, trust me. Sure, you can use a .htaccess redirect and stuff, but just re-install it in the better place




If your going to go for a colour scheme stay away from blue, it makes it look cold, heartless, and bad corporate. Or atleast, reduce it. When someone wants a home they want it to be warm. But red is also a bad colour as it kinda means "warning/danger". Simplify your site/design. Use whitespace, and be a bit more minimalistic. Blue gradients looks bad. You can use whites, greys, blacks etc but try to use solid colours and/or glass effects. Looks nice. I'm not entirely sure what you need to improve the design, but you will do alot better with something different to what you have.




Okay, so what to do AFTER you have fixed all this? Search property and investment blogs (there are LOADS!). contact their webmasters or comment on their blog to get backlinks to your forum. Also submit to search engines. If you have the cash, pay for some google Adwords. I hope you are successful