99.99% of content on most forums is horrible
 

Content is king, right? Then why, as forum owners, do we not create quality content? We spend weeks working on the SEO of our forums or buy neat software like vBSEO, but for what? So the search engines can find our CRAP easier? Your forum might be well optimized, but there are thousands of well paid and VERY smart engineers at Google making sure that the crap our forums produce stay at the bottom of the search results.

I'm guilty of this myself and came to the realization last night. I own a Big-Board and was looking for quality content other people around the internet might be interesed in reading. I quickly came to understand that my forum produces maybe one quality thread per week.

As forum owners, we need to get back to the basics. We must start producing quality content.

Definitely. I spend a large amount of my time editing thread titles to make them more clear and "SEO-able", splitting/merging/moving threads, etc to keep the content as "high-quality" as possible.

Not to mention the "high quality" threads I contribute myself.

The first goal for any forum owner should be to generate valuable content - this will ultimately bring in members who will ultimately begin to generate valuable content for the community themselves. Don't worry about SEO until you have the great content - it's a waste of time!

Yeah? Let's see a couple. Free link right here :D

Here's an exercise for everyone reading this thread. Find two threads on your forum that have been posted in the last three days that you consider to be high quality. Link them here.

I think it is going to be a wakeup call for many...

Well, I consider a thread "high quality" if it results in people coming to the site and/or registering based on a search engine search result.

For example, our technical article threads on CBRXX.com bring in a lot: http://www.cbrxx.com/honda-cbr-xx-technical-articles/

My "Big-Board" site that I recently sold got a lot of hits from the articles also: http://www.fireblades.org/forums/articles/

Define "high quality".

Honestly? Most of those are crap. Why do I say that?

Put yourself in the shoes of a Google engineer. Your sole job is to ensure that the best content for a particular search term gets to the top of the search rankings. If you fail, you're back working phone tech support for a shipping company. You're that engineer and when you search for "honda cbr performance bikes" this comes up as the first result:

http://www.cbrxx.com/honda-cbr-xx-te...er-1996-a.html

Are you going to pat yourself on the back or hope your boss doesn't search for the same thing?

You then search for "how to shorten stock cbr 1100 rear signals" and this comes up:

http://www.cbrxx.com/honda-cbr-xx-te...r-signals.html

1. The images don't show inline.
2. The images can't be seen unless you register.

Do you pat yourself on the back?

PLEASE understand i'm not picking on you. I'm guilty of this myself. My forums suck.

I'm telling you that they bring in search engine hits, which bring in revenue through ad clicks, and also bring in new members since they have to register to view images. So in that respect, yes I am patting myself on the back. CBRXX.com has only been up a few months and already beats out a competing site on many keywords; and that site has been up for over 6 years.

If it brings people to my site and they find what they need, I'm happy.

In the end, that's for you to define. But what do I define as high quality?

1. Content that SHOULD be the in the top three results in Google for a particular query.

2. A thread that people derive some sort of strong benefit from reading. Maybe it makes them laugh heartily, educates them, or makes them think.

3. A thread that, if posted here, would not be able to be completely picked apart by people.

4. A thread that, if read by guests to your forum, makes them think, "Cool, I am going to join this forum."

Here are some popular search terms for my particular niche:

1100xx luggage
1100xx bags
1100xx givi

cbr1100xx luggage (6th place)
cbr1100xx bags
cbr1100xx givi (5th place)

(And I'm actually in the market for a mod to allow guests to see thumbnails, and not full size images. That would allow the pages to be more functional, but still require registration to see the full size images or to post their questions/comments.)

David you are free to come and post some quality content threads on my site any time. ;)

This is why it's a good idea to not allow posts like "thanks" and such. Those are all duplicate content when the SE's view the single post and really, they are lame.

That being said, it's tuff to come up with quality content that is unique on a daily basis. For some people it's a living, for others it's just a hobby. And in the forum business, the hobbyist is the dominent trait.

I have no doubt that they bring in hits. I have no doubt that your forum does well and congratulate you for that.

But look at it from an outsiders point of view who could care less about your revenue, number of signups, or anything like that. Are those threads going to impress them? Are they going to leave thinking, "That was a great read."

And I've always felt that tricking or forcing someone to signup only hurts you in the long run. We should have people signing up in droves because of the quality of content and interaction. This is part of the reason that wikipedia is becoming so prevalent in the SERPs for a given term. It is invariably QUALITY content. It's why forums like SomethingAwful can charge people to join and they do so in droves. Because the content and interaction is amazing.

*edit*I think that would be a good compromise.

Again, please don't think I'm picking on you or I am trying to put anyone down here. I'm as guilty (if not more guilty) as anyone here. I simply came to the realization that most forums have little to no quality content worth sharing. I'm sure most people already realized this long ago, but I'm a little slower than most. Only difference for me is I really want to see forums succeed and have a big mouth :)

Using the example search keywords I posted above, my answer is yes. If they are interested in luggage for the XX, then they will find the information they need.

Lead the way! I'd make a great sheep. I follow quality content. As an example, I was REALLY impresed with Brent at www.vBulletinZone.com when he first started it. He produced some QUALITY content and I had fun interacting there. It's tapered off a bit, but I'm still hopeful.

Agreed. Replies should only be made if they add value to the thread.

Absolutely, it's HARD. But as a forum owner, if we strive to create even two HIGH quality threads on a weekly basis, then the dividends over time will make everything worth it. If a forum owner can't take a a few hours a week to write two high quality threads, then they either have no business running the forum or arent that interested in the topic.

Understood. Tone is almost impossible to detect when reading things online. And the same goes for me, my replies have not been stated in harsh tone, or have not meant to be anyway. ;)

None of those results you posted are threads though and as an outsider, if I search for something and then have to click through various threads before I find what I'm looking for, I get annoyed.

And there are less than 20,000 results for each meaning that they are highly UNCOMPETITIVE keywords. My bet is if someone wrote a quality thread/article for each of those keywords that they would outrank you.

As forum owners, we should be able to line up thread after thread after thread where we say, "Look, this is quality content." And I just don't think most can do that, me included.

Cool, thanks :) My tone is meant to be helpful/evangelical :) I'm passionate about forums to the point of it probably being unhealthy. And I think a lot of us have forgotten the basics. We've gotten so caught up on SEO and fancy mods and styles. Let me use an analogy. Would you regularly go to someone's house that is easy to find and looks great if you knew that when you and the people in the house sat down together, you'd just stare at each other and once in awhile say, "Sup dude?"

That's the main reason I sold FireBlades.org. It's a HUGELY popular site, and makes a large amount of money, but I no longer felt connected to such a broad-topic site. So I felt it was time to move on to more focused topics in which I'm interested.

Some thoughts:

• Quality Content + Usability = Success
  Quality content alone will not help a site grow. Quality content can help draw people to the site; but, the overall experience is the key to acquiring and keeping quality members.
• What you describe as crap others may describe as quality.
• Your forum's style (layout/design) can have a (positive or negative) affect on seo and growth. Based on what I have seen so far, 99% of current custom vbulletin styles have a negative affect on seo and usability.

A quality member is defined as:

• someone who registers and participate (not leave after a few weeks use)
• someone who participates frequently (active)
• someone who brings in more members
• produces quality responses, articles, etc

Here's some keywords and it's google rank: (look for vb.org)

• Cache Templates - #1 out of 1,490,000
• Template-Based System - #1 out of 843,000
• Create Custom Pages - #1 (generic) out of 28,200,000 unexpected
• Custom Pages - #10 out of 99,200,000
• Development Cycle - #37 (generic) out of 91,100,000

This one was also a surprise:

• USERCP Interface, USERCP, vbulletin USERCP, vbulletin interface - on 1st page

Woops, looking at these Google results tells me there's a few things I can improve on. :D FYI: Search Results could be better (throughout the site); but I ... never mind.


My point is .. if you are really worried about growth, you should spend more time on developing a site plan and style that is both user and seo friendly.

Usability = overall experience

does this thread count as quality content?

An interesting discussion for some? Sure. Quality content? A couple posts were pretty good. Worth submitting to Digg or Synergy for the world to see? No.

well i enjoyed reading, inspired me to write a topic, and submit it to the synergy queue

Haha that's an interesting question for real! :D

Why do you think you are creating those content/threads for? Isn't that for the world to see it and get information?

Or better yet, why exactly do you have your site created? Isn't that because to show the whole world about it and what kind of information you've got?

I think this thread is pointless and there's nothing to discuss about it.

Yea, my content is lackig my self.

Not (imo) by the definition posted earlier. What's more, the title has no basis in fact.

"Quality" is in the eye of the reader, not necessarily the site admin, or a visitor who is not in my target market (who thinks the content is 'horrible').

Just because something isn't RELEVANT to a visitor, doen't mean it isn't of QUALITY.

hmmm - one thing about running a writing site is that the content is always "original" ---- quality I suppose is in the eye of the beholder.... Speaking of which great joke I just posted :) ------> https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showthrea...57#post1182457

Jacquii.

David,

Ur actually the best VB forum owner that asks the right questions and do the work.
I have thought about like that before. Thanks for the thread.

We want people posting quality content, I think.

But it's not just about content is it? What about creating a community?

I think the content on my site is Very good quality.. I delete all post and threads that are just BS and SPAM..
I myself post 1 - 2 quality threads a week, as well as many post answering questions ;)
Plus we have some helpful members helping and posting too..
I'd say my ratio of content is good :)

but you have to let your members have fun on your forum too.. Sometimes a "poor" post is made as far as content is concerned.. If you just want quality content, MAKE A BLOG ! :D

You have to have some fun on forums too, thats why the interaction is so enjoyable on the forums.

That's why you should make your forum an extension of your existing site.

An individual can only go so far. Sure, we can create interesting threads, but what's the point if no one else wants to discuss them?