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MikeEagle12 · 07-29-2006, 03:57 PM

http://www.bikecoalition.com/

Well after seeing and reading numerous critiques and stories of people here making websites/forums I finally decided It was time to create my own. I've been designing the overall layout and writing a business plan over the last 4 weeks and two days ago finally put it up. Now keep in mind, I plan on doing a lot more with the website. To start off, I plan on it being simply a forum, but will eventually build onto it. I basically just wanted to get your opinion of the forum. I was having a lot of trouble picking a color scheme that wouldn’t be distracting but at the same time not be boring. Could definitely use some suggestions. I also would like to change the banner, so any suggestion would be gladely accepted, (I need them lol).

Yesterday, I spent most of the day submitting the website to directories and plan on submitting to search engines today. Anyone have a list of search engines or know where I can find one? Being linked to the actual submit url would be appreciated.

I guess the main reason I posted this hear is just to get some outside opinions. If you can provide me any tips or knowledge you’ve learned over the years that might help me I would appreciate it.

Look forward to your response,

Mike

MikeEagle12 · 07-29-2006, 04:31 PM

what if I was to use a service like http://www.submitexpress.com/ where for 24 dollars they submit your Website to hundreds of search engines, directories and links pages. It sounds great an all, especially to a noob like me, but can't this have some negative effects especially for your google placement and page rank? Is it better to just submit your website to the search engines personally?

abeautifulbrown · 07-29-2006, 05:43 PM

I think the colors are fine. The only thing I'd tinker with would be the graphic at the top- make the name a little easier to see. Good luck!

F360 · 07-29-2006, 05:50 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by MikeEagle12

what if I was to use a service like http://www.submitexpress.com/ where for 24 dollars they submit your Website to hundreds of search engines, directories and links pages. It sounds great an all, especially to a noob like me, but can't this have some negative effects especially for your google placement and page rank? Is it better to just submit your website to the search engines personally?

If you use this, don't use your main email address, as the email address you enter will be shared with everyone.

Morpheus · 07-29-2006, 06:18 PM

I think there may be too many topics in general, but you know best.

abeautifulbrown · 07-29-2006, 08:51 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Morpheus

I think there may be too many topics in general, but you know best.

I think it depends on the kind of community and the starter crowd. I usually start off with minimal topics because with so many, it would take a lot of posts to make it look busy to new users- an dyou know when you go to a board and no one really posts, you don't usually join. BUT if there's a large group of people who understand the reasoning behind the categories, etc it's all a go.

MikeEagle12 · 07-29-2006, 10:30 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by abeautifulbrown

I think the colors are fine. The only thing I'd tinker with would be the graphic at the top- make the name a little easier to see. Good luck!

I'll start tinkering around with it tomorrow. I never have been satisfied with the banner. I think once more people start using the forum I"ll hold a contest to design the banner.

Any more suggestions guys? Also still wondering about the forum submitting process the company provides. Does anyone know if this will effect it in a bad way concerning google or page rank?

DaVinci · 07-29-2006, 10:39 PM

Mike - Nice to see you here!! Yeah - nice job with the forum and in such short time. Biking is a hot subject. Very passionate people them bicyclists. Now go and find them - Search for Crital MAss San Francisco. There you have some 10K bicycle NUTS...

MikeEagle12 · 07-29-2006, 11:58 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by DaVinci

Mike - Nice to see you here!! Yeah - nice job with the forum and in such short time. Biking is a hot subject. Very passionate people them bicyclists. Now go and find them - Search for Crital MAss San Francisco. There you have some 10K bicycle NUTS...

well do, I'll make a thread about it on the forum. Then try and find some of those guys.

wait..... hey I know you :P

MikeEagle12 · 07-31-2006, 04:19 PM

Well my bike forum is off to a pretty good start. I noticed that my site shows up in google on the first page if you type bikecoalition in the search. However the description was surprising. When I submitted it to google a few days ago I provided a description that I thought would be included under the search. But it seems it is just picking up the first few sentences of the forum. Those being.

Forum, Topics, Posts, Last Updated. General • Announcements Get up to date news and information about the bikecrowd community. Please discuss bikecrowd site ...

My question is, why isn't it using the description I provided while submitting or the meta tags I have. If this is how it works, how long does it take for the search engine to index it again. I noticed I said bikecrowd instead of coalition and just changed it.

abeautifulbrown · 07-31-2006, 11:05 PM

You need meta tags- then it will take the description from them.

Put this in the head tags of your header

Code:

<META name="description" content="a description of your page">