Lets face it, when was the last time you searched on Google or Yahoo? 2 hours ago? 30 minutes? Just like these search engines can provide you with information on your favorite movie, they can also provide you with free traffic to your forum.

This is the reason behind our recent forum optimization project. Due to the overwhelming amount of content, poor link structure, and session issues, forums tend to preform worse than normal websites in search engines. Having said that, with some key optimizations and upgrades you can make those issues a thing of the past.

Thanks to a mod from phpBB SEO, as well as some in house modifications, we were able to make some key adjustments across the network which will help search engines better crawl and index your content. The result? You should see more of your pages indexed and thus more people coming to your forum.

As always, the best way to get people to your forum is through quality content. Below we’ve listed a few tips to help put search to work for you:

1) Edit your META tags - We have a custom mod in your admin panel that lets you edit your META tags. Editing these can help search engines understand what your forum is about.
2) Use a targeted header - Instead of naming your forum “The best forum ever” consider naming it “Forums for Wrestling and WWE Fanatics”
3) Be descriptive - Try to encourage your members to be more descriptive when posting a topic. Instead of “Cool thing I found” have them make the subject “Seagate Readies New Hard Drive Technology”.
4) Link to your forum - Relevant sites linking to yours not only bring a lot of traffic, but can also help with search engine.
5) Be patient - Traffic from search isn’t going to come in the first few weeks or months. It may take time but it will be worth the long term results you reap.