SEO Your Forum - tip #1

[Brighteyes]

H1, H2 and H3 tags can help search engines such as Google, Yahoo and MSN figure out what a web page is about.

SO this is an important modification to make. It also is good for your members, as it gives a more descriptive introduction to a thread.

As always, be sure to back up your database before making any modifications to your site.

________________________

In the FORUMDISPLAY template find:

$navbar

Below it add:

<br />
<center>
<h1 class="myh1">$foruminfo[title_clean]</h1>
<h2 class="myh2">$foruminfo[description]</h2>
</center>
<br />

This adds the Forum name in the H1 Tags and the Forum description in the H2 tags, and places these items below the navigation bar in your forums.

Next, in your SHOWTHREAD template find:

$navbar

and Below it add:

<br />
<center>
<h1 class="myh1">$thread[title]</h1>
<h2 class="myh2">$foruminfo[title_clean]</h2>
</center>
<br />

This adds the Thread Title in the H1 Tags and the Forum Name in the H2 tags, and places these items below the navigation bar when you visit a thread.

(see where this is going?)


Now, you can control the size and appearance of H1, H2 and H3 tags via your CSS, if you so choose.

For example, in your Style Manager, Main CSS, under Additional CSS Definitions, scroll to the bottom and add this:

/* ***** H1 Tags ***** */
h1.myh1 {font-family: Arial; font-size: 20px; 
color: #000000; font-weight: bold;}

h2.myh2 {font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; 
color: #000000; font-weight: bold;}

You can change the font, font size and whether its bold or not by simply changing the variables. You can also change the color if you like.

Why is this important for SEO? Just as I said in another thread here that descriptive meta tags and key words/phrases draw spiders like flies... so do descriptive Forum titles and thread titles! Search Engine spiders crawl your titles, not just your forum and thread content. The titles are cached in search engines and brought up when a user is searching via key words/phrases. So be DESCRIPTIVE!

[penguinmama]

Thanks very much. I hadn't thought of changing up a forum to use the headline tags. I will have to check out how this works on my husband's forum!

[danielmichel]

Thanks for the first tip Brighteyes. We're actually using H1 and H2 tags. Messed around with the CSS a little bit and put them in a table to make them a bit more esthetically pleasing.

[Brighteyes]

You're both very welcome. I'll be posting more tips after the first of the year. Busy time around here, the holidays are!