WordPress 3.0 was released today. I’m going to upgrade now.
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Today I wanted to share a few pieces of software, plugins and tools that really help for building a successful automotive related forum. This is NOT a guide to promoting your forum, or how to build up your community, but rather the software foundation you need to keep your members coming back for more and keep your vendors happy. This is not even a “best installation practices guide”, though I’ll probably write about that later as well.
Here is the best automotive forum software:
1. vBulletin Forum Software
vBulletin is the best forum software I’ve found so far. I’ve used it for the last 6 years with great success. vBulletin recently released the 4.0 version of their software, which can also come bundled with an optional “Publisher Suite” which includes member blogs, and a front end CMS. However, for most automotive related forums, I recommend just purchasing the forum software itself and not upgrading to the publisher suite.
When you purchase vBulletin, you will have the option of downloading and installing the old 3.8.5 version of their software, or the new 4.0 version of their software. Many still consider the older 3.8.5 version of the software to have more of a “forum” look. And for automotive sites, it’s still rugged enough to attract those kind of people. However, the new 4.0 is still really nice, and can be made to look just as rugged as a 3.8.5 forum. For the beginner, I still think the 3.8.5 is easier to setup out of the box.
2. vBSEO – SEO software for vBulletin
I am totally convinced that no forum should be without vBSEO. vBSEO turns vBulletin into a Search Engine Friendly content generating machine. If you want to get indexed quicker, get better search engine ranking, more members and make more money, then please don’t waste another second in purchasing this invaluable product. If you are posting good, unique content on your forum, this will help.
vBSEO has excellent support, is easy to install and easy to use. It makes search engine optimization a breeze. I truly believe that this has helped every one of the forums that I’ve installed it on.
3. vBadvanced CMPS
Yes, this one is free. You just have to register on their site and register the site that you are going to install it on. vBadvanced CMPS gives the home page of your site meaning. It allows you to post news, latest threads, birthdays, polls, and lots of other blocks on your home page. To see more of what it looks like, checkout MahindraTruckForum.com.
4. Garage Plus for vBulletin
Photo Galleries are boring. Car, Truck & SUV enthusiasts want to show off their rides in a sweet online garage that shows off every feature and modification they’ve ever made. Also, Garage Plus visitors to browse and sort through cars in a way that boring photo galleries cannot. Depending on the type of crowd you have on your forum, you may be able to get away with making this a paid feature on your site for “Premium Members”. Otherwise, by leaving it free this can be a feature that really helps the growth of your site and encourage new members.
5. Vendor Tools for vBulletin
Vendor Tools… had I found this plugin a long time ago, I could have made way more sales on some of my original automotive forums. Vendor Tools makes getting leads and closing sales a breeze on vBulletin. For one, Vendor Tools creates a beautifully laid out Sponsors/Advertisers page that offers banners and descriptions for each advertiser. Visitors and Members can sort through the Vendors by category, and can even look them up on the Vendor Map to see where they are located.
The part that makes this plugin a cash cow is that when potential or curious advertisers look at your advertiser page, there is a “Click here to register your company” button. This takes all of the hesitation and complication out of Vendors trying to get in touch with you. From here, Vendors can fill out all of their information and even upload their banner. When they are done, you can approve them, send them more information or send them a bill!
What makes this a great feature for the Vendor is that they can adjust or change anything on their advertiser account through their very own Vendor control panel. Also, a feature that Vendors will absolutely fall in love with is Keyword Email Notification. Lets say that you have a Tire vendor on your site. Through their Control Panel, they can set it up to email them whenever members start discussing tires. Why wouldn’t a Vendor pay for that feature?!
Anyways, those are a few of the essential pieces of software that I recommend for a successful automotive forum. In the next few weeks I hope to write about forum promotion, best setup/design practices for a forum and totally awesome stuff like that.
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I was doing a Google search to find out if hosting a domain name with cPanel’s add-on domain feature had a negative effect on SEO. I ran into a thread on Digital Point where another fellow asked basically the same question. The conversation somehow evolved into a discussion of hosting websites with the same IP and if there was a negative effect. You can see the thread by clicking here.
The main poster in that forum brought about some good arguments for not worrying about hosting websites on the same server with the same IP address. One of the main reasons is that even if you are doing shared hosting, you have a great chance of being on the same server with the same IP address anyways. If it is a ding on your SEO, it can’t be a very big one because most people only use hostgator or Godaddy hosting anyways.
Just another reason to not worry about latest SEO craze that will only cost you time, money and worry. Your focus should be on good quality content that will keep the users coming back for more and get you great inbound links. Just my opinion.
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My company, CDADEV, LLC recently had the privilege of doing a design for Atlas Auto Service. Atlas Auto Service on Appleway in Coeur d’Alene has been my auto mechanic for the last 6-7 years. They are awesome to work with and they really know diesel’s, which is important since I have a 2002 Dodge Cummins diesel pickup. I recommend them all the time. Anyways, here is the design we did for them: http://atlasautoservice.com. Please let me know what you think! Also, you may want to take advantage of their 20% off coupon!
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Recently I received an email from DNForum.com announcing their brand new service, ContentMiniSites.com. I almost deleted it but the name struck my curiosity. After further investigation, I found out that ContentMiniSites.com builds content and keyword rich websites for your individual domain names. The way it works is you tell them the domain name and topic that you want them to build a site for, they do all of the keyword research, build you a custom header, enter keyword rich article categories and fill your site with 100-200 pages of content. They even put together a sitemap for you to submit to Google! You then enter your adsense ID and start collecting the ad revenue for your website. Not bad for $19-$50 a site!
The way that they are able to do it so cheap is they use e-zine articles from ezinearticles.com as the content. So, there is the issue of possible duplicate content penalization. However, maybe with that much targeted content and everything else it won’t matter much. My estimation is that the site would still perform much better than simple domain name parking that people typically run away from.
I plan on buying a package, and when I do, I will post my results and overall review of their service.
For more information, checkout ContentMiniSites.com.
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If you see some changes going on with my website, its because I am turning this site into more of a personal blog where I will be discussing internet marketing, and things that interest me. I have teamed up with a local developer in Coeur d’Alene, Brian Golly from web-mech.com, to put together a professional, customer service oriented, affordable web development firm. The name is CDA Web Development, (cdadev). As usual, we will have really affordable solutions to get your small business online and we will also be able to team up to take on larger projects as well.
Anyways, check back soon to see what I’m up to on my new blog, and please give us a call if you have any web development or marketing needs. : )
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I just received my family pack for Apple’s new OS, Snow Leopard. The installation took 45 minutes to an hour and I didn’t even have to reset my computer to start the process. After the installation, I had to restart my computer. Almost immediately I noticed that things are a bit faster. I use spaces and expose constantly, and they react way more quickly in my opinion. If you are thinking of buying Snow Leopard for new features, don’t bother. However, if you are looking for smoother, faster operation, go for it!
As a side note, I just updated to the new iTunes 9. After which, I did not have to restart my computer. It seems that lately I have had to restart my computer for every update. I hope that Apple is going back to not having to restart for every little update.
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If you have found this post, you are probably beating your brains out trying to figure out how to get your plotter to start cutting with your Mac. In this particular situation, I was using Signcut Productivity Suite. I had everything installed, but I could not get my mac to talk to my plotter. The little thing that nobody tells you is that you have to download the COM port driver here. Make sure that you download the one for the newer Intel Mac (if thats what you are using), install the driver, reset your computer and try again.
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Here is another recent design of mine for City Mini Storage. We grabbed them the name, “cdaministorage.com”. We are excited to see how this site ranks in the next few weeks.
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My associates and I are about to launch to coolest car site in the world. I recently had an idea for a more simple website design. And though I only have the time to show you the home page, I would like to know what people think. Do you prefer the original bold images, full color site? Or do you prefer the more minimalist approach? The new, more minimalist concept is not even close to looking like craigslist, but I think its less distracting, more obvious what is going on.
Please let me know your thoughts in the comments below.
Here is the new concept: CLICK HERE
Here is the old concept: CLICK HERE
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