- Joined
- Jul 12, 2017
- Messages
- 150
Bear with my lengthy post. I'll bullet point my dilemma.
1. I own/run a vB messageboard community at www.bgobsession.com for fans of the Washington Redskins. 'BGO' as we refer to it stands for 'A Burgundy and Gold Obsession'. We've been open since 2009. Our site description is 'The most intelligent community of Washington Redskins fans on the web'.
2. When we first opened, we had a large influx of new member registrations. There were several large well-known Redskins forums that either moderated with an extremely heavy hand, or attracted lots of trolls. The idea of a more civil, reasonable board appealed to quite a few folks. We quickly gained 500+ members. Since those early days, registrations have slowed to almost zero (unless you count spammer accounts which we quickly remove). We have 800 members but less than 100 of them or so are active.
3. It is difficult to find us on search engines. I think not having 'Redskins' or 'Skins' in our site title/url probably contributes to this issue. We also updated to an SSL certificate, and although we had SEO enabled, when our product had security issues, we switched to DB Tech's SEO, but had to disable it as it caused all kinds of site navigation issues. Unless you search 'Burgundy and Gold Obsession' on Google or other search engines, you will not find us. Redskins Forums that have been started even just in the last year or two are far more 'findable' than we are.
4. I am a self-taught webmaster, but have never taken the time (nor do I have the time or desire) to learn how to optimize search engine optimization. We have a Google Webmaster account but most of what I read there is greek to me.
5. We do have active pages for our site on Twitter and Google and are using some of the auto-posting options/apps to keep those pages fresh. I have also tried Twitter and Facebook ads, but this has never resulted in new registrations.
6. I firmly believe we have one of the best Redskins fan forums out there. We have a ton of features that should be attracting lots of members: contests, member-written blogs, a media guide library, arcade, game chats, weekly newsletter, lots of great stuff. And yet my site is stagnant as hell from a new member registration standpoint. I have come to the conclusion that fans looking for a forum to join simply don't know we are out there and can't find us via search engines. We are willing to spend money, but can't afford a major marketing campaign.
I'm wondering if anyone here is an SEO genius or would be willing, for reasonable compensation, to fix whatever our issues might be. I would even be willing to make this an ongoing relationship. I know I should be able to and could get to a better place just by diving in and educating myself. I simply don't have the time. I literally run my site by myself. We have a few staff members, but they do not contribute in a significant way. It's on me. And in this aspect of managing my site, I am woefully inadequate.
1. I own/run a vB messageboard community at www.bgobsession.com for fans of the Washington Redskins. 'BGO' as we refer to it stands for 'A Burgundy and Gold Obsession'. We've been open since 2009. Our site description is 'The most intelligent community of Washington Redskins fans on the web'.
2. When we first opened, we had a large influx of new member registrations. There were several large well-known Redskins forums that either moderated with an extremely heavy hand, or attracted lots of trolls. The idea of a more civil, reasonable board appealed to quite a few folks. We quickly gained 500+ members. Since those early days, registrations have slowed to almost zero (unless you count spammer accounts which we quickly remove). We have 800 members but less than 100 of them or so are active.
3. It is difficult to find us on search engines. I think not having 'Redskins' or 'Skins' in our site title/url probably contributes to this issue. We also updated to an SSL certificate, and although we had SEO enabled, when our product had security issues, we switched to DB Tech's SEO, but had to disable it as it caused all kinds of site navigation issues. Unless you search 'Burgundy and Gold Obsession' on Google or other search engines, you will not find us. Redskins Forums that have been started even just in the last year or two are far more 'findable' than we are.
4. I am a self-taught webmaster, but have never taken the time (nor do I have the time or desire) to learn how to optimize search engine optimization. We have a Google Webmaster account but most of what I read there is greek to me.
5. We do have active pages for our site on Twitter and Google and are using some of the auto-posting options/apps to keep those pages fresh. I have also tried Twitter and Facebook ads, but this has never resulted in new registrations.
6. I firmly believe we have one of the best Redskins fan forums out there. We have a ton of features that should be attracting lots of members: contests, member-written blogs, a media guide library, arcade, game chats, weekly newsletter, lots of great stuff. And yet my site is stagnant as hell from a new member registration standpoint. I have come to the conclusion that fans looking for a forum to join simply don't know we are out there and can't find us via search engines. We are willing to spend money, but can't afford a major marketing campaign.
I'm wondering if anyone here is an SEO genius or would be willing, for reasonable compensation, to fix whatever our issues might be. I would even be willing to make this an ongoing relationship. I know I should be able to and could get to a better place just by diving in and educating myself. I simply don't have the time. I literally run my site by myself. We have a few staff members, but they do not contribute in a significant way. It's on me. And in this aspect of managing my site, I am woefully inadequate.
