I am proud to annouce GIDForums with a $50 Credit used to advertising for GIDForums on Overture.com.

Those not quite familiar with Overture services, they are a very large PayPerClick company who lists your search terms on big websites such as Yahoo!, MSN and AltaVista. Big name search engines like those will be driving more traffic to the wonderful forums here this month!

I guess this is me giving back to all the hard work that JdS has put into his project here on GIDForums.

I must say that the moderator team is doing an awesome job as well. Every new member that signs up here is properly introduced, and welcomed in such a professional manner.

So here is the $50 credit! GIDForums has earned it, JdS has earned it. Use this credit to help GIDForums continue to grow.

(PM sent with username/password for the login)

Plus, you gave me banana man.

Oh Wow! I don't know what to say Bobby...

The first thing I did was pass some well deserved REP your way (I think you get promoted to the next level in an hour or so) - so yes, we can be bribed

Yes, all praise should be directed to the Team, even up until recently, each moderator at GIDForums™ added a personal WELCOME MESSAGE to their respective forums (you'd have to log out and view the Main Forum Categories to read/see these messages). So rest assured, we work quite a bit in the background...

Now - about this generous offer... THANK YOU Bobby. I don't what else to say. I am not particularly thrilled by the advertising opportunity or even the credit amount - I am thrilled that you initiated all this without even the slightest hint! I sincerely appreciate the thought, the advertising opportunity - and how you went about doing it all and ending up here to announce it! It's like Christmas all over again

Gimme a day or 2 to check out the site, then we can perhaps brain-storm this whole thing together. BTW, do I need to do this right away?

Its not a problem at all. I am happy to be able to give back and help out all at the same time.

You have 3 months or 6 months to be active with the account.

It is just like the normal deal their, using the Self Serve. Meaning, the expert assistance you would receive if you paid Overture the $199, is free.

I have set up and managed around 10 Overture accouts. All down to the specific detail. Read more about what I do with Overture, and how I will assist you in setting up the terms/price/description.

http://www.mrbobdouglas.com/marketing/#overture for more information about what I do.

Also, it might be a good idea to hear some thoughts about what keywords that should be used from the moderators here. Maybe if they could post some suggestions/descriptions, we could get a more ideal solution.



Those who want to help
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Mainly, the search terms / descriptions will need to be well thought about.

Start by looking through the forums, and which terms you believe would help bring in more users. One for instance if the 'Free Web Site Hosting'

You may take a look at who your competition is by going to http://www.content.overture.com/d/ and typing in the search term. Be sure to keep in mind how many listings are displayed on the various search engines. If you notice Yahoo! has only 2-3 on the top, and the same on the bottom, Altavista may not.

To sucessfully gain some more users, we should really focus on about 20 good terms with higher bidding, or 40 ones with a medium bid range.

In essence, we would not want to take the top listing for the term 'Web Design'. Currently the highest bidder for that is $1.xx. And there thousands of people who search for that every day.

Rather we would choose something like 'Web Design Formums' which gets a lot less hits, but also it is a better use of the money.

Be aware of the audience that is attracted on the forum here. Most people do not come here ti hire a web designer or even a php programmer, rather they come to for assistance. (Usually it is people who are looking for help, who are the kind that is a designer/programmer).

If it is alright with JdS, post your suggestion keywords below. Include a description as well.

The keyword is not limited at all, however...
The Title of the listing must remain 40 chars or below.
The description of the listing must remain 250 chars or below.
--------------------------

I wish Rob was here to help too

This could be a good way to bring up some of the 'laggards'. I don't know the impact of Google's recent updates on these forums, but a PPC strategy can definitely work for a forum by adding members, thus increasing activity and the overall value.

Great point Div. I think this will bring in more users who will continue to grow with the board. This is a place with tons of information. I think if even 1% of the web designer knew about it, they would ALL sign up and become a regular poster here. I also think that is who we should focus on grabbing.

Not the people who are coming to ask 1 question, then ponder back here after awhile to see the answer. The kind of people who continue to ask questions, who try to help out. I believe thats who our audience should focus on brining in when suggesting terms

It would be nice to hear your opinion on this JdS.

Seems that I cannot edit my post. I just wanted to update everyone- the credit has finally transfered into the GIDForums Overture Account. Now we just need to use it!

This may seem odd to you, but I am NOT the type of person who is impressed by increased activity per se. What I prefer and hope very much for the future of this forum is that there is simply better quality threads and discussions. If that means just one thread a day, so be it.

To give you an idea what I am going on about - there was this forum I used to visit everyday, in the past; Garth Farley probably knows what I am talking about... well, I can't stand to go back there anymore (eventhough there are like 100s of threads created threre everyday) because each new thread is either an ad, an offer or some website review request. I'd hate to see us go down that road.

Anyway getting back on topic, some random thoughts off stuff I have tried and tested before (briefly):

• when I target the phrase "web design forums" e.g., the forum attracts a lot more webmasters / web designers, so you get a lot more activity (in the new member introduction and websites reviewed forums) but absolutely minimal quality discussions going on. Let's face it, just how many times can you discuss <iframes> for example? That was a mistake so I tried the next best thing...
• when I target the phrase "webmaster forums" we start to attract a lot more web hosts who just want to drop links or announce their services anywhere they can - again, nothing constructive, nothing to think about off threads like these.

I like targetting the "coding & computer software and hardware" side of things, the members who join the forums looking for help with computer programming, software or hardware, generally want to help each other out. This, I like, I enjoy reading some of these posts and threads, even if I don't reply or participate in them.

The most successful forums to-date have been the Computer, Programming and Web Hosting (actually Apache) forums. I have great expectations about the web promotion / SEO forums because I think the crowd that are into this stuff simply love to discuss it to death and they do it with such passion; analysing anything and everything. Forums were made for these people!

I personally think we need to target the members who want to learn, who want to ask questions, who need help, who want to discuss and share their knowledge. Nevermind if they need help just once and then never come back or post ever again. If we've learnt anything in these last few months is that we only need one or 2 'experts' (in any given topic) and they are the ones we really want to see online and in the forums everyday, preferably every 12 hours even

Anyway, that's my opinion and 'vision' for GIDForums™ at the moment...

Bobby, thank you for the update. I will look at it again this evening... and BTW, yes, I also wish Rob was here, I know he would have sent me at least 2 PMs a minute by now if he was.

Shall we enable "Content Match™ Advertising"?

For those who do not know... Content Match™ Advertising is where you display your terms on revelant web sites. Usually appearing under something that says 'Sponsored Links" or "More Pages that Match this Content".

Yes. I believe this is one of the best ways for advertising for a forum like this. It will not only drive in traffic, but drive in traffic that we want. It will display our listing on pages that deal with the listing itself (As long as the listing page it is displayed on is in correct format, if it says it is website A and is really website B we would be listed on the wrong place. Overture usually double checks listings to make sure they advertise for the specific server, so you usually will not see bogus ads).

FAQs about Content Match Advertising

Maybe I was hoping to drag this for a while by not getting into the Content Match-thingy already? I really want to be able to 'experiment' as much as I can with this...

Perhaps this thread will be more appropriate in the A&A forum, huh? I may have to change the title though...