How do you promote your vBulletin custom pages?

I'm in the process of creating one of many custom pages for my new forum. But, I was wondering how everyone here promotes their custom pages. Do you add a table as a 'directory' and put links there along with some enticing keywords as text links? Do you use flashy scrolling code? Give me some ideas because I'd like to start to get these in the planning stages and just want to make sure that I do a good job of communicating that these custom pages exist.

 

Good question. Id love to hear the replies.

 

I'm interested to see the responses too BD. I was contemplating putting a small navigation section in the sidebar, but I'm not sure that it would get enough attention there. Maybe something like this....

UKBL ~ Newsticker IFrame in Navbar - vBulletin.org Forum

...it'll be at the top of all pages and near the area where they sign in. :shrug:

 

My custom pages are built with wordpress. The search engine optimization features built into wordpress do a good job of promoting themselves.

And I put a link to the articles section at the top of the forum.

 

Kevin, where at the top of the forum do you put the link? Is it highlighted or special attention brought to it? Have you had good traffic from within your sites using that link or do you not monitor that?

 

Its in the navbar.

Ok, if you want to do all of that,,,, install wordpress to a subdomain or a subfolder under your forum.

Install an RSS feed that will display your recent blog post next to your username. I use this modification on my vbulletin forum - 3.6 Working Recent Blog Mod ( Uses Carp Free ) - vBulletin.org Forum

So there ya go. When you make a post to your non-vbulletin page, a link to it will appear next to your name in every post you make.

Google will also pick up the link and the keywords in the RSS recent blog post link. Its a good way to target certain keywords for your non-vbulletin pages.

I use that recent blog post modification on my forum, but I'am using it to feed from blog that is on another domain name.

 

Are you talking about custom pages such as vbulletin.org/info.php or are you talking about wordpress and such?

 

Mikey, either way it's a page 'outside' of the core vB. But, originally I was referring to a .php page that I create using the templates (see first post for the article I referenced) system within vB.

But, promotion is promotion and I was just wondering how everyone gets the word out on their new pages or 'featured' pages on their sites.

 

A 'new' link on the nav bar can get people wondering. o.o

 

If your planning on having a lot of pages, say more then 5, creating them one at a time is not the way to go.

Install some kind of content management system and go from there. If your gonna do something, make sure its flexible, easy to change, easy to update, and easy to backup.

My wordpress install is using the same database as my vbulletin forum. That way I just backup one database and its done.

I could easily import 160 post from one of my other blogs and add instant content to the new section.

Creating static pages, one at a time, is so 1990ish, its so 20th century. Get with the times.

 

LOL....I only envision needing a few 'custom' pages for my forum. So, I'm okay with going "old school" on it

My thread topic is more of how to cross-promote those pages on your vB forumhome or showthread pages, etc. Just lookin' for ideas.

 

I just keep posting up reminders occasionally. But I have no illusion that the majority will visit.

You could always put up a dismissible notice periodically with new things on the page, and of course a hot link to the page. Monthly? It would be a poor mans monthly newsletter without the hassles of sending out the emails.

 

Make all your pages in like a dropdown menu....In the navbar.

 

AK Worm, I was thinking of the 'forum jump' sort of setup for those type of pages. So, that's along the lines of one of the ways that I was thinking of promoting the sites.

Abomination, I use notices for promoting from time to time, good suggestion.

 

ArnyVee hey is the custom page mod I made you. Is it still working ok for your custom pages or did you move onto something else?

 

Xhris, I'm basically making some real easy pages using the tutorial/article on vB.org for the site that I'm building now ... Forum Dedicated to the Magic Kingdom at the Walt Disney World Resort ....

But, I'm still using the custom pages that you helped me with over at Glam Rock Talk - The GRT Band Homepage