How to promote the forum to the world?

vagfilm

Just a comment to illustrate the importance of increasing the number of PianoClack members: Johanibraaten also posted this question on PW and got a couple of very helpful replies, and none here… Without a larger base of members, it gets complicated to decide where to post, and we may end up posting twice, and that is twice the effort and twice the probability of giving up on one forum…

CyberGene

vagfilm
I’m open to ideas. Thought about using Google Ads but it’s meant for businesses and I’m not sure if it will be cheap and helpful at all.

vagfilm

CG: you started this forum as a breath of fresh air… Open minded, open posting, with no plans for the future. I think that adding ads at this stage goes against that very first idea. The growth depends on the perseverance of the current members, small efforts to invite others, and that PianoClack threads get indexed at Google.

p.s. Adding catchy thread titles using the magical word "problem" in the thread title such as "problem with dead keys in piano X", does not hurt 😊... It's a foolproof way to attract hits in google searches since most searches seem to be about problems…

Del Vento

vagfilm I think that adding ads at this stage goes against that very first idea.

I don't want to put words in @CyberGene mouth, but I believe he means ads in google to attract people here, rather than ads here to monetize the website. This is confirmed by what he said after about SEO.

In my opinion, this is moot point. Suppose that we make such an ad or SEO work and it works. What happens? Well, obviously that people come here. What people? Expert already are on PW, PS and my.PTG.org -- they go to those website, don't search google for Piano Forums or whatever (did you when you were somewhat satisfied with PW?)

So not experts: we get flooded with newbies, which is fine, as long as we can deal with them. IMHO we can't. Take for example my two threads on digital pianos below $500 and below$ 1000 (sorry can't use twice the USD symbol in a sentence without messing up the spacing). Decent, but limited responses to the former, zero to the latter. Bueller? Bueller? If we can't even chat among ourselves, how can we hope to support an hypothetical large number of others?

In conclusion, my suggestion is just to let this site grow and live its life. Ping the occasional acquaintance (the friends are already all here) in PW and PS, obviously with a PM. Especially if they asked something on PW and did not get a good answer while we have a thread on that topic here (and hence it's important to have such threads grow here). I think we can lure technicians which are a hot-headed bunch (and I say that affectionately, not with disrespect). Here they could perhaps argue more freely than in PW or my.PTG.org and provide a good number of experts. I pinged a few of my acquaintances of that category, not sure anybody registered though.

More than ads or Google cr** I think we should think of the human factor that made us come here, and how to spread that more broadly. Just my $0.02 obviously. And speaking of money, I'll be happy to chip in, if (as a group) we decide to ignore what I just wrote and go to the paid route..

In any case, I don't think we can stop thanking @CyberGene for setting this up.

CyberGene

I’ve registered and provided a dynamic sitemap and SEO for PianoClack also in Bing and Yahoo. They are much faster in it.

AFAIK Google consider a site trustworthy if is linked from other sites. This is something you can all do like posting links to the forum in other websites.

QuasiUnaFantasia

CyberGene This is something you can all do like posting links to the forum in other websites.

I know an easy way: we can put it into our PW signatures! No, wait …

CyberGene

Let's discuss together the SEO of this forum, which is basically the list of keywords that describe the forum since this is stated as a very important step for Google and other search engines. I've installed a SEO extension that maintains it and provided the following keywords without giving it a lot of thought but maybe that's important?

Here's the current list:
pianos, digital pianos, acoustic pianos, virtual pianos, VST, talk, off-topic, offtopic, forum, DIY, MIDI, controller

Anyone familiar with SEO? Do we have to provide much more keywords? Less? What would work best? Suggestions for keywords?

P.S. Here's something I'm reading at this very moment: https://backlinko.com/hub/seo/best-practices

Deleted

CyberGene Let's discuss together the SEO of this forum, which is basically the list of keywords that describe the forum since this is stated as a very important step for Google and other search engines.

Just a heads up: Modern search engines completely ignore your list of keywords, because their algorithm is better at determining what a certain page is about - including detecting keyword spam pages and removing them from the search results.

CyberGene

Yeah, I was thinking about putting a link to PC in my PW signature too 🤣

spanishbuddha

'review' is a magic term for me associated with most tech, could also consider adding the major brand names, maybe some current models to the list including acoustics?

CyberGene

Looking at the keywords I'm wondering if plural, as in "digital pianos", is the right way or I should use singular, maybe I can put both.

QuasiUnaFantasia

Is it simply a question of the more, the merrier, as far as keywords go, or are there drawbacks in having many of these?

CyberGene

I don't know how Google uses those. They appear in a meta tag in the beginning of the HTML page and that's it. I found an article that says one shouldn't use more than 5 keywords for a webpage. However, if it's for an entire blog, then they can be much more than that. I guess we fall into the latter case since it's a forum and we can discuss absolutely anything. I also think that I may remove the "offtopic" ones since nobody searches for forums with off-topic on Google 🤣 As a matter of fact these terms have negative connotations for most people. On some forums they even ban you 😉

CyberGene

Holy mother of..., I forgot to put "pivot length" in the keywords!!! I knew it...

burkey

CyberGene Holy mother of..., I forgot to put "pivot length" in the keywords!!! I knew it...

You read my mind!

CyberGene

What do you think of this:
piano, hammer, action, keyboard, samples, digital, acoustic, grand, upright, virtual, hybrid, stage, slab, sampled, modeled, synth, entry level, VST, ASIO, MIDI, speakers, monitors, headphones, review, comparison, opinion, discuss, forum, DIY, controller, Yamaha, Steinway, Kawai, Roland, Casio, Pianoteq, Garritan, VSL, CFX, P515, Clavinova, N1X, NV10, CA, GH, GHS, NWX, escapement, pivot, length, half-pedal, Fatar, regulation, technician, Bach, Chopin, amateur, pianist, beginner, play, competition, classical, jazz, study, learn, teacher, lessons

P.S. Adding more to that list constantly, refresh it 🙂

burkey

CyberGene Yamaha, Steinway, Kawai, Roland, Casio,

Korg, Nord, Dexibell, Kurzweil

Blüthner, Bösendorfer, C. Bechstein, Fazioli, Stuart and Sons, August Förster, Shulze Pollmann, Ritmüller

burkey

CyberGene Bach, Chopin

Beethoven, Mozart, Vivaldi, Pachelbel, Tchaikovsky, Handel

QuasiUnaFantasia

You might add "PianoWorld" 🤣

And of course "Pete14". 😀

More seriously though, how about the names of the various brands, like spanishbuddha suggested (including Garritan, Ivory, etc.), and the names of composers, the words "amateur pianist", "play piano", "piano beginner", "learn piano", "discus piano", and "pivot length". EDIT: you beat me to it CG! 😄

MacMacMac

I don't think we need to "deal with" newbies … nor with anyone else.

People can come, can chat, can ask questions, can provide answers. I don't see a problem.

This can be just like any other board. (Almost like any other. The exception is that this board is banless.)

David B

MacMacMac The exception is that this board is banless

That word "banless" reminds me of the word stainless. In the firearms industry consumers sometime mistake the word stainless to mean can't stain/rust. However, people eventually realize stainless means it's less likely to stain/rust compared to carbon steel.

The standards are definitely much more relaxed here, but Gene does have some rules so it is conceivable for someone to get banned, but it would be a lot "less" likely to happen here compared to PW.

God Bless,
David

Del Vento

MacMacMac I don't think we need to "deal with" newbies … nor with anyone else.

My poor choice of words….

spanishbuddha My view is that at the moment the majority of thread topics are unappealing to pianists, keyboardists, musicians looking for help with piano shaped or keyboard instruments or playing.

That is exactly what I intended to mean.

I think the best strategy (in this order of importance) is:

post relevant content
individually reach out to people who may be interested
forget about SEO, keywords, ads and the like

Drew-r

David B

It’s easy to imagine that it is only a matter of time before one or more hotshot forum gunslingers show up to try & test the limits of “banless”….. to be dealt with if and as it happens i suppose.

Maybe there can be a special holding room “ posting purgatory” - they are still here, not banned - where such people can post whatever they want, unaware that nobody else has routine access to see/read their venomous klacking except for other people also occupying this special thinktank.

PS. I know, Mac, this special place its called “ where is the ignore button?” 🙂

nicknameTaken

Instead of focusing on the way of how to promote the forum, why not ask why you joined in the first place?

I was simply curious and wanted a better usable forum. That's it.
Though this forum lacks where the "pianoworld" forum has a better Accessibility in regards to Keyboard navigation.
This forum is impossible to use with a keyboard.
The Tab chain from the "New reply" text box, starting from the Username field in the top right, is too big.

Probably 20+ or more, depending on the thread length etc.
Of course, you can hold the tab key, but its taking a lot of time.
Seems that the designer of this forum software didn't unplug the mouse for a day to see if its usable or not.

CyberGene

nicknameTaken

There has to be a sacrifice somewhere. I wanted a fully modern platform that resembles social networks in design and usage and is mobile friendly. This makes it more difficult to use the forum only with a keyboard though, I imagine.