SEO and forums
 

I'm overseeing the writing of a few websites currently and it's a bitch RECONCILING the fact that their keywords for Search Engines is a bit different from text needed to filter forum-driven traffic. Someone searching via SEs uses differing keys as opposed to driving traffic via sigs and targetted posts.

Well, I guess it could be worse. It could be reconciling SEO with community site driven traffic. :helpme

Anyone else run across this issue?

Please post more about reconciling traffic. As I develop sites I?m having issues concerning differing traffic sources. I?d like to learn what your take is. And I?ll explain what I?ve been doing so far.

Basically, it's a conflict between TRAFFIC OPTIMIZATION (ie., SEO) vs. CONTENT OPTIMIZATION (coverting the traffic once you get them to your site) across differing sources of traffic.

When I write a site I normally look at what keywords I have a REALISTIC chance of getting from the big 3 engines for that site. These are mid to lower level keywords that deliver sustained traffic. RECONCILIATION becomes an issue when the keywords you didn't use for SE are keywords (well part of ad copy really) that draw a LOT of traffic from other (non-SE related) sources. However, when they go to your SEO'd site (for other keywords), the text, the call to action, the configuration of the sales psychology for the site (both in terms of content and link structure) is geared towards SE-favored keywords instead of the other traffic source.

A clunky approach (which I'm using) is to use differing domains. One domain/site is just for SE traffic, the other is traffic source specific. I'm working on automating the solution (with manual inputs from outsourced labor :)) to this issue.

The most common approach, I believe is, to just have the SE-geared site try to convert non-SE traffic. Kinda wasteful, don't you think?

I'll post my results on http://www.justtraffic.blogspot.com :)

I used to read your site all the time, but then updates dwindled off... Are you going to start posting in it more often? :winkwink:

That is a nice blog. Bookmarked.

Nice, bookmarked

sweet blog as usual

Thanks for posting that link.

So far I’ve just been creating as much original text with in a theme as possible with out much regard for keyword optimization. I’m posting on weblogs so it's a bit different than a website. I think the nature of blogs opens them up to unpredictable search engine traffic not only to the front page but the archives in the future.

I think you can create good sales text on a blogs sidebar.


I don’t understand how text on your site draws visitors from forums. Are you talking about anchor text on the forums themselves?

Fucking awesome blog. I am subscribed to it. I just wish it was updated more often.

Indeed :thumbsup

Gene - this is why God invented cloaking ;)

hit me up on icq if you want some info and I'll get back to you on monday, on the road at the moment

Nice blog, bookmarked! :thumbsup

you have very interesting information blog....

You're thinking of using forums for SEO. Some people do that, using anchor text in sigs that point to their sites. What I originally referred to is something different. Basically, if you have a sig that describes your offering/product or you post ad copy on forums (through allowed means, of course, so as not to be spammy), how do you reconcile that traffic with the traffic conversion text/layout/content structure on your site. Forums > seo'd page is not as hard as some other heavy traffic sources > seo'd page.

Not much, works great for us, see my sig ..

Interesting topic...

If I understand correctly what you are basically aiming at is how do you build pages that will have good SEO for the keywords you are after but also appeal in a real world fashion to the surfer that you pull from the forum postings/sigs?

I think this is a bit of an issue if your pages are strictly formatted for SEO no matter where your traffic comes from..in the end isn't the point of having good SEO ranking to draw targeted traffic that you want to sell?

in my experience you have to walk that fine line with your text to make it appealing to both SE's and the surfer.

someone mentioned cloaking..sure I guess this is an option as well..but that can also be a risky venture..

I have used the option you brought up sending different traffic to different domains/pages based on SEO and real world ad verbiage that will sell...it does seem to work, but it is more work in the end.

I always try to find the happy medium and put my efforts into a single landing page that will appeal to the widest targeted audience..is it the most perfectly optimized SEO page?..not always..but that doesn't mean its not possible to get a fair amount of SE traffic to it.

I understand you are really working from a different perspective and more focused on the SEO aspect in this particular topic while still building a page that will still sell to a human..so I guess your best option may just be to send them to different pages.

The big question is, is it a crap shoot to some extent because you never really know where a certain percentage of traffic will end up coming from? It could be SE's on both counts...thats why I try to build "real world" pages and not build 100% for the SE's.

Dunno if that really helped you any but it's my :2 cents: on the subject

Lets here some more from some seasoned SEO experts! :)

wow i was just reading your site
great resource