Important - home page, or straight to forum?

Post by **sp3ctre** » Sun Jun 24, 2007 10:06 pm

Ok, so I set this up in a bit of a hurry and put the forum on the root of the domain... It seems a bit difficult to work it so we have a home page now, as the forum uses the index.php file. I could have an index.html but then that wouldn't be able to be dynamic.

I know some of you have admin'd before, so I am after advice for what to do if we want a home page? Do I mode it all into a /forum dir and wait for google to find its feet again with the missing links, or do I hack phpbb wo it uses forum.php (or such like) as opposed to index.php?

Please feel free to throw in suggestions, or PM me about it.... am sure I could work something out, but I have hardly slept for a weeek messin with this forum

Ski · Post by **Ski** » Mon Jun 25, 2007 7:55 pm

Don't worry bout googlebots not finding the forum if you have a front index page..just create a phpbb page and link it in..

Btw site looks good, nice job..

Post by **sp3ctre** » Mon Jun 25, 2007 7:58 pm

It's not so much it not finding the forum, it's the already spidered pages being inaccurate... although I guess I could 310 the links that are there at the moment, there aren't too many.... yet

Ski · Post by **Ski** » Mon Jun 25, 2007 8:01 pm

Well, it would still direct ppl into the site in which is what you want to begin w/..but I know what your leading to and I wouldn't sweat it..

Post by **Wondermike** » Mon Jun 25, 2007 9:45 pm

Do we need a home page? What would be on it? I never used to read Z4um home page, only the latest posts section but you could probably add that to this section, no?

Post by **sp3ctre** » Mon Jun 25, 2007 10:15 pm

Wondermike wrote:Do we need a home page? What would be on it? I never used to read Z4um home page, only the latest posts section but you could probably add that to this section, no?

Yeah, I know... I initially thought it would be good to go straight to the forum but thinking about it, it may be useful to have a front page. Not only for getting up the google ladder but also for any major announcements etc... I get your point that most front pages never get viewed much, and that's why I am still a bit confused as to what to do

Post by **Wondermike** » Mon Jun 25, 2007 10:18 pm

Couldn't you have a pop-up window to display news or announcements, or stream the latest posts in the title bar, towards the right hand side, like a news ticker or something?

Post by **sp3ctre** » Mon Jun 25, 2007 10:27 pm

Not a fan of popups really.

I haven't quite formulated my big plan yet, but at some point I imagine we will get some affiliates and cross linking going on, to bring in some more members. I don't want to fill the forum with adverts like some of the forums have, but I think the home page would be a good location to place any posts of this nature.

It's hard to describe what I'm thinking of here, and I can't find any examples of people who have done it well. Most seem to turn themselves into online adverts, which I do NOT want.

Most of my ideas so far are surrounding getting more people on here... we are blitzing most other forums on a posts per member basis (thanks guys!) but we still have a little way to go to get the member count up!

...and after that little ramble, I still haven't answered my own question,

Post by **Wondermike** » Mon Jun 25, 2007 10:33 pm

sp3ctre wrote:...we are blitzing most other forums on a posts per member basis (thanks guys!) but we still have a little way to go to get the member count up!...

I think because we were always "guests" on the other forums, but here was a start from scratch, which is why it has worked so well. Probably more posts on here in a week than the other 6 (7?) put together. Zed-cars seems to be changing it's nature. Zpost was successful too, mainly 'cos the mods who ran it were

What's your strategy for increasing the membership?

Post by **sp3ctre** » Mon Jun 25, 2007 10:39 pm

Wondermike wrote: What's your strategy for increasing the membership?

Good question... I don't have the answer just yet... I have been in touch with a few companies so far about getting deals put together for our members, and also seeing if we can advertise through them too. My main issue is I have a £0 budget for this, so I am trying to come up with low cost ideas.

The first thing that will help a lot is if any of our members have websites they could put a banner on, that would be a good start!

As always, I am open to suggestions too!

ovrkll · Post by **ovrkll** » Mon Jun 25, 2007 10:43 pm

I vote for straight to the forum. Don't know if you can set it up, but maybe have guests go straight to a hompage and members to the forum?

Post by **Wondermike** » Mon Jun 25, 2007 10:54 pm

I'm going to PM a few more people on other forums to see if they are interested, perhaps there are more than a few that are yet to hear about this place.

Vroomer · Post by **Vroomer** » Tue Jun 26, 2007 6:06 am

straight to the forum, no pop-ups.

Rick Hunter · Post by **Rick Hunter** » Tue Jun 26, 2007 7:10 am

I think it's a good idea to have a frontpage, since you're showing it off to the new guests that lurk onto the site. Of course, most of us addicts will just bookmark the link that goes straight into the forum.

One idea I'd like to propose is to have a monthly photo contest and whoever that wins gets their car pic plastered on the homepage for the month.

Post by **sp3ctre** » Tue Jun 26, 2007 8:18 am

Rick Hunter wrote:I think it's a good idea to have a frontpage, since you're showing it off to the new guests that lurk onto the site. Of course, most of us addicts will just bookmark the link that goes straight into the forum.

One idea I'd like to propose is to have a monthly photo contest and whoever that wins gets their car pic plastered on the homepage for the month.

I'm liking the photo competition idea, mate!

Z4-forum.com

Z4-forum.com

Important - home page, or straight to forum?

Important - home page, or straight to forum?