Internet Marketing & SEO

How to Create A Successful Forum ?

Tuesday, March 27th, 2007 | Forums & Boards | 9 Comments

This is because making a forum is just as hard as making
a web site if not harder as there is no real content to get visitors attracted
what you need is a great design and active members to be on your way to having a
forum in which you can receive an income and maybe even live off selling
advertising and getting members to pay to signup.

Choosing A Theme:

When choosing a theme make sure you are knowledgeable in
that area as most users will be looking for someone to answer there questions
and if the admin cant it kind of sets the theme for the rest of the board and
you will end up failing in your quest to becoming a successful webmaster/forum
owner.

Before choosing a theme make sure you have a look at the
market I can tell you right now setting up a webmaster forum or domain forum
unless you have funds in which to spend then you are wasting your time there are
to many out there and the market its flooded but by all means if you have a
great idea then go for it as they are very profitable if you manage to get
members.

Buying A Suitable Domain:

Okay the second step in setting up a forum is buying a
domain depending on your theme this will be different but try to limit the
amount of words to at most 3 and try and use the following words after the
theme, forum, chat, discussion, board, talk if not you may need to think of a
catchy word that goes well with what you want.

Choosing a registrar is fairly easy as there are about a
million out there these days but my favourite is DomainSite it provides cost
effective and easy to manage features for your domain, they also allow you to
use Paypal as a source of payment as well.

Choosing A Forum Software:

One of the hardest things you will come by before
setting up your forum is choosing what software you are going to use with your
forum, the main 3 which are widely used today are Vbulletin, PHPbb and Invision
Power Board.

All of which have there good’s and bad points I will
give you a brief overlook at them but before going ahead with one I suggest you
read abit more about the features before setting one
up.

Ill start with VB (Vbulletin) this is used a lot because
of its great reputation especially within business and webmaster related sites,
this is due because it is a very safe and well updated software which gives
buyers probably the most advanced bulletin board on the market to date, although
it sounds great it does have some flaws this mainly is its price tag for a
leased licence (one year) it is $80 usd and $160 usd for an owned license there
are also other optional fees but don’t need to be
bought.

Another non free bulletin board is Invision Power Board
which retails for $185 usd this offers like Vbulletin a well made and updated
forum software which you mainly see used in gaming and graphics forums as a lot
of the mods and free skins are dedicated to those
themes.

Then we have the most used forum software on the web
PHPbb it is a free but yet still advanced and well made with updates regular
brought out, if you are on a low cost budget this is the way to
go.

Overall I prefer to use Vbulletin over the others but
this is just a personal choice and offers me the needs that I want from a forum
software and I don’t mind paying the extra dollars
for.

But like I said before making a choice read a bit more
about them by searching in google, msn and yahoo to find out what they all offer
I can only tell you what I think but that’s not the option every body chooses
really depends on your budget and type of forum you intend to
set-up.

Attracting Members Without Paying:

But before you can do this there are many months of hard
work recruiting and getting new members, when I started when there wasn’t sites
and services such as Google Adwords or Paid Post programs which can help you get
steady traffic and members for a pretty reasonable price, so we had to find
other ways this usually involved posting on other forums not blatant advertising
though as this will usually get you band and have your post deleted not giving
much exposure for the time it took you to sign up and
post.

I found the best way was to add your site into your
signature and post topics and replies that had to do with your subject, forget
posting about anything as this will only waste your time and have minimal
effect, take your time to make larger and more detailed posts also as more
people will read and contribute to your topic on larger forums you can get up to
500 unique visitors from one post not even having your sites link in the text
just as a signature, always make sure it is a different colour try reds, blues
and greens these aren’t to bright that it deters viewers but still catch’s there
eye.

I also found adding the hyperlink into a form of text
this makes the advert look nicer and tells them a bit about the site before
going to the forum, this allows you to get only those wanting to be apart of
your community and are related to the advertising that you may have on your
page.

Over the last few months there has been also an increase
of free forum directories try and add your forum to as many as you can this will
improve your search engine rankings whilst receiving more visitors in the mean
time.

Attracting Members By Paying:

There are many ways to advertise on the internet these
days but many don’t work and are a waste of time and money that’s why I will try
and lead you in the right direction and give you my thoughts on what is the best
method of getting a successfully forum for the lowest
cost.

First off Adwords, this method of advertising can be
great if you have an established forum with regular posters and members its also
cost effective (depending on keywords) and easy to do if you have a credit card
on hand.

Don’t get me wrong this could be a great way to get
members to your forum at the early stages but I don’t believe it’s the best way
at this point of time.

One way I have found to be very successful is
www.PaidPosts.com this provides a cost effective way to not only get
members on your forum but to get posts which people will search for on search
engines, find via friends and will want to respond to giving you more members
and helping to create your active forum.

Although some places do not provide detailed posts but
just 3 word replies which really do nothing for getting members apart from
deterring people as the forum will look spammed, and you don’t want this so
early on you will have enough of this later on in your
forum.

Another way is one of the most common seen on the
internet Banner Advertising this is where you either buy or trade banner spots
on another forum or site, usually you will try and advertise on a site with the
main topic related to your forum to maximise your CTR (click through
rate).

The best way to go about this is to find a friend or
someone via another forum/chat room and purchase a spot for a small amount of
team and report how well its doing by the number of click throughs to the number
of new members if its not looking to good move on until you find something you
think works, there’s no point advertising if you don’t get anything in return it
will just be a waste of money in the long run.

Making Money From Your Forum:

One of the main reasons people decide to make a forum is
to make a profit or a return by doing something they enjoy and have an interest
in, this is quite common and a lot of people actual do make a living from doing
so but it does involve a lot of time and dedication, don’t expect to wake up the
next morning with thousands of dollars in your account from setting one
up.

There are many ways to make money from your forum it
would take me days to list them all but I will list the main ones, first of
Google Adsense you would have seen this been used many times before on sites and
forums you have seen you may not know it well but it is a box like shown on
www.Games2web.com to the top right of screen, it can be seen many
ways to find out more please have a look at www.Google.com/adsense
set-up your account and simply add it to your board somewhere preferable in
sight of your visitors and members this will improve the revenue made and help
you put money back into the forum.

It is very easy to customize and edit to suit your
forums colour, size and it automatically adds ads related to your forums theme
this improving the amount of clicks.

Another way is Yahoo Publisher Network which also
provides you with a service that like Google’s, I personally haven’t used this
but I have heard the amount per Click is higher giving you more money per click
but have found to get less clicks, this giving you the choice to use what you
think will better fit your forum.

One way that has been used probably the most of the last
4-5 years is banner advertising allowing people to pay upfront for a spot on
your forums pages whether it be just the index or site wide this is up to you,
there is no current rate for what you should charge this should be up to you
depending on amount of members, hits, posts a day.

I found it better to list services, items related to
your theme better then other things even though you get the same amount of money
but it seems to make your forum look more professional, so you wouldn’t list
computer games on a car forum.

There are also thousands of referral programs out there
where you receive a commission based on item sold and amount of clicks I’m not
going to list them all but try searching for referral programs, affiliate
programs in your preferred search engine, I’m sure you’ll find something that
will fit in quite well with your up coming community.

YouTube recognizes best videographers

Tuesday, March 27th, 2007 | Internet News | No Comments

In a video called “Close To Your Head,” struggling artist-turned-YouTube star Terra Naomi sings lyrics she penned after receiving an encouraging message from one of her YouTube fans. The words might be a fitting theme song for video-sharing site.

“We’re standing on the edge of all that we imagined,” sings Naomi, among the winners of YouTube’s first annual video awards, which were announced Monday. “Keep it up. The stars are close to your head now. It’s magical times that we live in.”

Naomi’s video “Say It’s Possible” won in the Best Music video category.

San Bruno, Calif.-based YouTube named winners in seven video categories, including Most Creative (Ok Go, “Here It Goes Again”), Most Inspirational (PeaceOnEarth123, “Free Hugs Campaign”) and Best Comedy (Smosh, “Smosh Short 2: Stranded”).

For over a year, YouTube has tapped into the world’s talent pool in an unprecedented way. The awards are the culmination of the company’s transformation into a new entertainment medium.

A hundred years ago, people nailed pine planks atop whiskey barrels for the community’s most talented people to perform on. YouTube founders Steve Chen and Chad Hurley built an online stage where anyone in the world with Internet access can potentially play to an audience of millions.

In a surprise victory, “Ask a Ninja,” the brainchild of comedians Kent Nichols and Douglas Sarine, won the Best Series category over Lonelygirl15, perhaps YouTube’s best-known serial.

Australian Juan Mann’s “Free Hugs” is a clip of him offering hugs to passerby. In the black-and-white opening, Mann’s offer is rejected repeatedly. Finally, a small elderly woman stops, hugs him and then gently cups his face in her hands as color moves into the video.

The three-minute clip inspired others to launch their own free-hugs campaign in countries across the globe.

An animated video called “Kiwi,” the tale about a kiwi bird who nails trees to the side of a mountain before jumping off the mountain’s ledge in order to simulate flight, won for Most Adorable video.

A video called “Hotness Prevails” won for Best Commentary.

Microsoft extends Vista bulk license discount to Europe

Tuesday, March 27th, 2007 | Microsoft & MSN | No Comments

Microsoft is extending discounts for multiple Vista licenses to small businesses and home users in Europe.

Nick White, product manager on the Vista launch team, revealed the extension to Europe of the Windows Vista Additional License program in his blog.

The bulk license discount, which Microsoft made available to U.S. customers in February and extended to European customers on Monday, allows small businesses and home users to install the same edition of a previously purchased Windows Vista operating system on additional computers. Customers can purchase up to five additional licenses at 10 percent off the suggested retail price.

Comments posted on White’s blog show that some users still find Vista too expensive.

“I’m willing to give Vista a go. Only, however, if the family discount is extended to the U.K. in June, when the current limited-time U.S. only offer expires,” one United Kingdom-based reader of White’s blog said. “Otherwise, it’s way too damned expensive for the three PCs I have. Ten percent per additional license is just not enough of a ’sweet deal’ for me.”

The family discount, which enables people purchasing Windows Vista Ultimate to buy up to two licenses of Vista Home Premium for $49.99 each, is currently unavailable in the United Kingdom.

Another blog response pointed out that many U.S. retailers already offer Vista at 10 percent below list price.

“Honestly, it leaves much to be desired–and I speak not as a Linux or Apple zealot–especially as you can easily find Vista discounted by 5 (percent) to 7 percent at Amazon.com or marked down by about that much at (U.S.) retail stores like Best Buy,” the posting said. “Ten percent isn’t worth it, unless you are completely incapable of comparison shopping–or you live 100 miles from the nearest computer store, and you’re on metered dial-up.”

In Europe, the Windows Vista Additional License program is currently available online only.

Yahoo names click fraud czar

Saturday, March 24th, 2007 | Contextual Advertising, Yahoo, Yahoo! Publisher Network | No Comments

Yahoo has promoted one of its staff attorneys to an executive-level position that is akin to being click fraud czar at the second largest Web search provider.

For seven years, Reggie Davis helped the Web search company defend itself against lawsuits by advertisers who claimed they were overcharged for pay-per-click ads that resulted from click fraud. Click fraud occurs when clicks are generated by people paid to click ads over and over or by automated software programs, usually for the purpose of boosting revenue for the Web site the ads appear on.

Now, Davis is the company’s first vice president of marketplace quality, responsible for reducing the amount of click fraud and making sure advertisers and publishers are happy with the company’s display and search listings.

from CNET News.com

Baidu Japan now open baidu.jp

Saturday, March 24th, 2007 | Internet News, Search Industry | No Comments

The leader of the Chinese search industry now has a foothold in the Japanese market with the opening of their new Japanese language search engine Baidu Japan:

# http://www.baidu.jp/

The home page no longer shows “beta” in the logo, but this still shows in the SERPs.

The SERPs oddly enough remind me of the old Google SERPs. Everything is very minimal. There don’t appear to be any advertisements yet. All that is offered right now are Web and Image search options. I am sure more options are waiting in the wings.

There are reports that baidu.co.jp was transferred to Baidu this week after being ruled on by Japan’s intellectual property arbitration center. The site still shows the old CBC Japan Inc. page for me today though.

Adsense Referrals, now with Google Checkout

Saturday, March 24th, 2007 | Google, Google Adsense & Adwords | No Comments

Today we’re excited to announce that in addition to AdSense, AdWords, Firefox with Google Toolbar, and Google Pack, you can now refer your users to Google Checkout through AdSense.

Checkout gives your users a faster, safer, and more convenient way to shop online. OK, that sounds great for them, but what do you get out of it? Well, every time you refer a user to Google Checkout, you make a little money. It’s a simple process that includes all of three steps:

1. You place the Checkout referral button on your site.
2. Someone clicks on the button, signs up as a buyer with Google Checkout using a valid U.S. credit card, and completes a purchase of at least $10 before shipping and tax through Checkout within 90 days. (The current $10 minimum purchase corresponds to our existing $10 promotion for new buyers, so this amount may change in the future.)
3. You earn $1.

It’s that simple. Please note that Checkout referrals are currently only available for U.S. publishers, and Google Checkout is currently only available for buyers with a U.S. credit card. We hope to make both Checkout and Checkout Referrals available in more countries soon.

If you’re not convinced, why not try it out yourself? It costs nothing to sign up (actually, you’ll even get a $10 bonus) and it’ll make shopping online a little easier. And remember, if you’re still figuring out how to improve the performance of your referrals, take a peek at our optimization tips for referrals.

You can get started with Checkout referral ads by visiting the AdSense Setup tab in your account. We think your users will thank you for showing them Google Checkout, and your wallet will like having some extra money for you to spend at all of those great Google Checkout stores.

Termination of RegisterFly.com Registrar Accreditation Agreement

Tuesday, March 20th, 2007 | Internet News | No Comments

ICANN today issued a formal notice of termination of RegisterFly.com’s Registration Accreditation Agreement (RAA).

ICANN has issued a letter to RegisterFly [PDF, 902K] indicating that it will cease operating as an ICANN-Accredited Registrar on March 31, 2007. Under the terms of the Registrar Accreditation Agreement (RAA), ICANN must provide 15 days written notice to RegisterFly of its intention to terminate.Effective immediately ICANN has terminated RegisterFly’s right to use the ICANN Accredited Registrar logo on its website.

Between now and 31 March RegisterFly is required to unlock and provide all necessary Authinfo codes to allow domain name transfers to occur. Any and all registrants wishing to transfer away from RegisterFly during this period should be allowed to do so efficiently and expeditiously.

“Terminating accreditation is the strongest measure ICANN is able to take against RegisterFly under its powers,” Dr. Paul Twomey, President and CEO of ICANN said today.

“ICANN has been frustrated and distressed by recent management confusion inside RegisterFly,” Dr. Twomey, President said. “I completely understand the greater frustration and enormous difficulty that this has created for registrants.”

When the Agreement is terminated, ICANN can approve a bulk transfer of all current RegisterFly domain names to another ICANN accredited Registrar.

“Of course, RegisterFly does not have to wait till then. They can request ICANN to approve a bulk transfer immediately. I call on RegisterFly to act in the interests of registrants and seek such a transfer from us straight away,” Dr. Twomey said.

ICANN intends to hold a forum to discuss the reform of the Accreditation policy and process at its Lisbon meeting in a week’s time*.

A set of questions and points to inform the discussion will be made public prior to the Lisbon meeting.

* The Lisbon meeting is one of three meetings held a year by ICANN to meet with global stakeholders. It will take place from 26-30 March 2007.

I also have my domains in registerfly…

Registerfly deserves its suspension

Study Exposes ‘Search Spam’

Tuesday, March 20th, 2007 | Search Industry | No Comments

Anyone brave enough to type “cheap tickets” in a search engine can find a plethora of one-page Web sites designed to drive traffic to other Web sites and generate click-through advertising revenue.

They’re an irritant to users and another way in which the Internet is being abused for profit. But a new study by a team of Microsoft Corp. and University of California researchers has shed light on how so-called “search spammers” work and how advertisers can help stop the practice.

“By exposing the end-to-end search spamming activities, we hope to… encourage advertisers to scrutinize those syndicators and traffic affiliates who are profiting from spam traffic at the expense of the long-term health of the Web,” wrote authors Yi-Min Wang and Ming Ma of Microsoft Research and Yuan Niu and Hao Chen of the University of California in Davis. Their research will be reviewed at the 16th International World Wide Web Conference in Banff, Alberta, in May.

The researchers looked at “redirection spam,” where a user clicks on a URL (uniform resource locator) but is then automatically transferred to a different URL or shown advertising content that originates from somewhere else on the Web.

Often, legitimate companies have their advertisements served on questionable sites through redirections designed to “obfuscate the connection between the advertisers and the spammers,” the researchers wrote.

In one example, they traced the origin of advertisements for orbitz.com, a popular travel services site, that appeared on suspicious Web pages. They uncovered five layers that lie between a legitimate advertiser and a questionable search spam Web site.

For example, a business such as orbitz.com may buy advertising from a syndicator, who then buys space on high-traffic Web pages from an aggregator.

In turn, the aggregator buys traffic from Web spammers. The spammers set up the millions of “doorway” pages, designed to show up high in the search engine rankings, for products such as ringtones or prescription drugs. They also distribute URLs by inserting them as comments on users’ blogs.

If those links are clicked, the doorway pages then redirect to other pages, potentially bringing revenue back to its controller via pay-per-click advertising offered by companies such as Google Inc. through its AdSense program.

But by using new spam detection and Web page analysis, the researchers say they’ve narrowed down some of the confusing redirection chains, from hosters of doorway pages through to redirection domains.

Three out of every four unique Blogspot.com URLs that appeared in the top 50 results for commercial queries were spam, the study said. Blogspot is the hosting site for Google’s blogging service. Blogs created for marketing purposes are sometimes referred to as “splogs.”

Also, one domain– topsearch10.com– hosted many other redirection domains that were responsible for 22 percent to 25 percent of the spam detected during the researchers’ tests, the study said.

They also narrowed down two blocks of IP (Internet protocol) addresses that advertisements were directed through to spammers’ pages. That bottleneck, they said, “may prove to be the best layer to attacking the search spam problem.”

A responsibility also lies with advertisers to assert greater control over where and how their ads are placed.

“Ultimately, it is advertisers’ money that is funding the search spam industry, which is increasingly cluttering the Web with low-quality content and reducing Web users’ productivity,” they wrote.

Dot TK The most Spammed out TLD According to McAfee

Tuesday, March 20th, 2007 | Internet News | No Comments

which released a survey Monday ranking the world’s most dangerous Web addresses. McAfee says more than 10% of all Web sites registered out of Tokelau, identifiable by the “.tk” at the end of their Web address, will expose users to spam, viruses and spyware.McAfee’s survey was based on data from SiteAdvisor, a Boston-based company that the security company bought last April. SiteAdvisor’s free online tool assigns Web sites a safety score based on whether they send spam, infect surfers with malicious programs or deliver excessive pop-up ads.

The new survey distinguishes sites based on their domain registration, which shows up as the last two or three letters in a Web address: Brazilian sites, for instances, end in “.br”, while sites registered by academic groups tend to end in “.edu”. McAfee says it looked at 8.1 million heavily trafficked Web sites registered at 265 different domains.

http://www.forbes.com/technology/2007/03/12/web-domain-risk-tech-security-cx_ll_0312mcafee.html

Europe exec confirms Google Phone

Tuesday, March 20th, 2007 | Internet News | No Comments

The head of Google in Spain and Portugal has confirmed that Google is working on a mobile phone. “Some of the time the engineers are dedicated to developing a mobile phone,” Isabel Aguilera is quoted as saying on the Spanish-news Web site Noticias.com.

A Google spokeswoman in the United States released this statement when asked for comment: “Mobile is an important area for Google and we remain focused on creating applications and establishing and growing partnerships with industry leaders to develop innovative services for users worldwide. However, we have nothing further to announce.”

Google stateside has repeatedly declined to comment on rumors of a Google Phone, but the smoke has been rising lately. Earlier this month, Simeon Simeonov of Polaris Venture Partners wrote in his blog that an inside source told him the Google Phone will be a BlackBerry-like device running C++ at the core with an operating system bootstrap, or loading program, and optimized Java, and that it would offer voice over Internet Protocol.

Rumors also circulated that Google and Samsung were building a phone, code-named “Switch,” Simeonov said, and his posting includes what he claims is a leaked photo of the device. That wouldn’t be so far-fetched, since Google and Samsung announced a partnership in January to bundle mobile versions of Google Search, Google Maps and Gmail on certain Samsung phones. Late last year, the rumor was that France Telecom Group’s mobile-telephony division Orange was in discussions with Google.

Plus, Google has on its payroll Andy Rubin, the founder of handheld device maker Danger who later started Android, a mobile-software maker that Google bought in 2005. Google also acquired mobile-applications company Reqwireless and secretly acquired a company called Skia, whose first product is a portable graphics engine that renders 2D graphics on handhelds.