Basic SEO for phpBB

[jhansle1]

Hi all,

I was wondering if there is some basic SEO fundamentals for phpBB.

I currently run a site called Planet Steelers which has an extremely popular forum ( http://www.planetsteelers.com/phpBB3/ ). The site about a year and 3 months old and the forum has over 60,000 posts. Membership is steady and increasing but it's basically increase through word-of-mouth.

When I type into search engines:

1) Steelers Forum
2) Pittsburgh Steelers Forum
3) Pittsburgh Steelers Discussion Board
4) Pittsburgh Steelers Discussion Board

All my competitor web sites display and mine is buried and I can't figure out why. What frustrates me even more is that the websites that are ranked higher are old, obsolete, and less popular than mine. I mean, my forum is top 5 as far as popularity goes, but you would never be able to tell by looking at the search engines. People have told me that they heard of the site but they were having trouble "finding" it and once they did, they're pleasantly surprised.

I am looking for some advice on SEO for my forum in particular (although general tips and tricks won't hurt )

Help would be greatly appreciated.

Best Regards,

John

[ameeck]

Three of the searches you posted have the word Pittsburgh in it. Your site doesn't have that word in the title or in the main heading - h1 (which isn't set at all by the way.)

I would recommend you to change the forum name to something like: Pittsburgh Steelers Forum w/ or w/o the domain name, it might be too long if you include it.

After that I would add a h1 heading to the header. Next to the site logo add this:

Code: Select all

<h1 style="display: none;">{SITENAME} &bull; <!-- IF S_IN_MCP -->{L_MCP} &bull; <!-- ELSEIF S_IN_UCP -->{L_UCP} &bull; <!-- ENDIF -->{PAGE_TITLE}</h1>

It won't display, as you have the logo in that place, but it will add a title in the content for the pages. These occurences do a lot in search results.

[Lumpy Burgertushie]

If you type in a word or a phrase into google, the that exact word or phrase has to be somewhere on your site.

the point is to figure out what people are typing in when they search for info about whatever your site is about and then make sure those keywords are in your text.

as said above, you can also make sure those keywords are in your page title and as <h1> tags as well.

also, if you go around and get links to your site from some of those other sites that are at the top, you will then get close to the top as well.

other than basic SEO , there is nothing special that you need to do to phpbb to get better ranking in google etc.

robert

[jhansle1]

Three of the searches you posted have the word Pittsburgh in it. Your site doesn't have that word in the title or in the main heading - h1 (which isn't set at all by the way.)

I would recommend you to change the forum name to something like: Pittsburgh Steelers Forum w/ or w/o the domain name, it might be too long if you include it.

After that I would add a h1 heading to the header. Next to the site logo add this:

Code: Select all

<h1 style="display: none;">{SITENAME} &bull; <!-- IF S_IN_MCP -->{L_MCP} &bull; <!-- ELSEIF S_IN_UCP -->{L_UCP} &bull; <!-- ENDIF -->{PAGE_TITLE}</h1>

It won't display, as you have the logo in that place, but it will add a title in the content for the pages. These occurences do a lot in search results.

Thanks all for your response(s).

Firstly, regarding the the <h1> tag not being set at all. Where do I set this? Which file should I be editing?

Secondly,

Where and in which file should I add this? By, "near the logo" are you referring to after the <img> tag or before it? Also, which file would that be located in?

Code: Select all

<h1 style="display: none;">{SITENAME} &bull; <!-- IF S_IN_MCP -->{L_MCP} &bull; <!-- ELSEIF S_IN_UCP -->{L_UCP} &bull; <!-- ENDIF -->{PAGE_TITLE}</h1>

Should I replace the {Page_Title} with my page title or is that imported through phpBB settings?

Also, as a general question, when searching for a forum/discussion board do people typically search for "Forum" or "Discussion Board"?

Thank you,

Johh

[Dog Cow]

Should I replace the {Page_Title} with my page title or is that imported through phpBB settings?

No, leave it alone. It will get replaced by the phpBB settings.

Also, as a general question, when searching for a forum/discussion board do people typically search for "Forum" or "Discussion Board"?

"Discussion Board" seems old-fashioned to me. I think most people search for "forum."

[Lumpy Burgertushie]

people typically type in keywords about what they are interested in. They will sometimes add the word "forum" or whatever to those keywords.

remember, people are not looking for your board in the search engines, they are looking for information about a specific topic. they type in keywords relating to that topic. if your board has those keywords and is about that topic, they will find you.


robert

[jhansle1]

How to I add meta tags to the forum though? Both the keywords and description meta tags are empty.

URL is http://www.planetsteelers.com/phpBB3/

Thanks,

John

[jhansle1]

bump .. meta tags anything (description and keywords .. which file should I edit for these tags since there null on all my pages)

[jhansle1]

Anyone have recommendations for phpBB SEO ?

I've seen several mods including a whole website dedicated to phpBB SEO http://www.phpBB-SEO.com

But are these mods support and how much does it change the architecture of the phpBB software. For example, I don't want to make changes that will change the URL's to search engine friendly URL's if I won't be able to upgrade to the latest phpBB versions in the future because of these SEO changes.

Does anyone have a recommendation for phpBB SEO?

[stevemaury]

My recommendation is to do nothing. This site does nothing and all its posts are indexed within minutes.