Now that we're all here! (mostly) - Growing the forum.

[WashingtonBay]

Now that we're all here! (mostly) - Growing the forum :)

First of all, we're really pleased that you have all come over and made yourselves right at home. I'm impressed that we've had, in just a little over a week, 571 threads and 11,621 posts, by 245 active members! That's not bad for the first week of any forum!

So now what? Eager new forum hosts want to know: How do we keep this site dynamic and interesting and growing for the long haul?

We have some ideas, and I'm eager to hear yours. Because we need to be active in working on that all the time, or forums wane and die. We've seen that happen.



Keep the software up-to-date, keep up with moderating and tech support issues. - That part we can do. And so far, we're able to do it ourselves. Over time, perhaps we'll ask for some help in moderating :trout:, but so far it hasn't been an issue. Thanks for that!



Keep attracting new people. New people means new issues and new questions and new perspectives. So far, we've had one source for new members, our old home. We've pretty much gotten everyone we're going to get from there, unless of course we continue to pick up the people who find us through browsing there first and finding they can't register. :rolleyes:

So how else will we attract new members? Well, word of mouth is good! Many of us belong to at least a few other forums, and while most forums frown on posting links asking for people to join (please don't do that where it's unwelcome!) Where we have friends we know well and can discreetly or privately invite good people to the forum, please do. We'll appreciate all your referrals. Might even give you a cookie. :)



Improving our Google ranking. This is something we're working on, and we've come a long ways for a site that didn't even exist a week ago. Already, when you google "Horse Forum" or "Horse Forums" we've moved from Page 10 to page 7 of the organic results in just the last few days. That's progress! :clap: We're trying to get to page 1 :) Maybe we can't compete with the commercial sites, but maybe we can. Hubby knows more about the subject of search engine ranking and how it works than I do... maybe he'll share more when he gets here.

NOTE: We've also purchased some paid Sponsored google links for baywindfarm.com ourselves that will come up on Page 1 when people search for "Horse Forum" or "Horse Forums". If you do those searches, you may see them. You guys, please don't click them! They cost us money when people do, up to our daily limit, after which they won't run them any more that day. Hopefully they'll help people find us who don't know about us yet. But you guys don't need them, don't use 'em. :nono::)


Posting good articles with good titles and good content. This is also directly related to the ranking above, when people are googling for answers to questions they have on feeding, training, riding, horse health issues, etc, we want good articles and content from here to be found that will bring people to our forum. We have google crawlers here almost all the time, indexing pages, lets give them some good content to file. I intend to post some articles myself, starting with copying some of the things I've written over at h.com on lunging, on tying a horse safely, on training philosophy. The ones worth reposting anyway ;).

I invite you all to do the same, if you've posted some good research or experience or instruction in the past that you're proud of, repost it again. Maybe we've talked about it before, but maybe some of us weren't around the first time and can learn from it, maybe we missed it! Maybe we'll enjoy talking about it again. At any rate, we can bring some of our history with us, and in the process, help build our own library archives. Who knows... they may disappear from over there and be lost if we don't.

What's a good title? Something that tells the reader what the post is about. "Need help with lunging!" or "How to teach a horse to lunge?" is better than "Need Help!" or "How do I..." or "Trouble with Dobbin". Give people more information in your titles, not less. :)



Keep having fun! I knew there was something special about this group that had held it together and kept "our" forum going over there despite the lack of care and feeding from the admins. I'm really glad that the important elements of that dynamic appear to have moved with us... we're chatty, we're busy, we feel like a family still even with a new house and new furniture, and I'm really pleased. I'm not saying we're all best of friends, no family is. And I know we're in a honeymoon period where we're all on our best behavior, but lets just try to hold on to that feeling as long as we can. Lets not dwell too much on the negativity and drama, but keep posting your daily, fun, informative and friendly conversation that makes people want to come to this forum and stay.

Your thoughts and ideas???? :) Please share and discuss!

[TheBadLands]

I am going to post a link on my website

[WashingtonBay]

That helps! :) Thanks!

[Diane of Buck's Hollow]

I just love a new house and new furniture;)

Seriously, I am not very experienced on Forums . h.com was my first experience. I agree with you about us still being on our "honeymoon" right now. We have had a couple of topics already that really could have gotten alot of people up in arms. I think we have handled it all wonderfully..for now. I hope it continues this way.

Good Idea about the informative post. I still have alot to learn and I know we have alot of great 'horse savvy' people on the forum already.

[Remali]

I'll put my thinking cap on..... :) I just want to say you are doing a great job here with the forum WBs!

I've been telling all my horsey friends about it!

[palomino]

OMG! I didnt think of a link from my site! Im going to do that too!

[WashingtonBay]

Thanks! :)

[WashingtonBay]

Important update I added above that I want to make sure people see.

NOTE: We've also purchased some paid Sponsored google links for baywindfarm.com ourselves that will come up on Page 1 when people search for "Horse Forum" or "Horse Forums". If you do those searches, you may see them. You guys, please don't click them! They cost us money when people do, up to our daily limit, after which they won't run them any more that day. Hopefully they'll help people find us who don't know about us yet. But you guys don't need them, don't use 'em. :nono::)

[Country Girl 43]

I will see if I can post a link on our local forum. they may or may not allow it, but heck...it's worth a try and they are a good group of people.

[sugarsgirl]

Just a thought, but do you guys remember the save your money post that luv2show posted on h.com not that long ago? I think someone should make another post about that, and then mabey re-post the ideas on that thread, and then we can keep adding new ideas when we think of them. That thread helped out a lot, and we all really liked it. I think I'll go do that right now, so hold on! lol :)

[WashingtonBay]

Thanks sugars... :) Good idea!

[sugarsgirl]

Alrighty, I made it :)
I didn't know wether to put it in Horse General Interest, or Horse keeping, so I just stuck it in Horse General Interest, I hope thats okay?

[WashingtonBay]

I think that's fine :)

[WashingtonBoy]

To date we've had over 6,800 visits and 206,000 pageviews from 1,200 unique visitors. :eek: That's pretty phenomenal for a new start-up site!

There's a lot that goes into getting good search engine placement, much of it behind the scenes. In addition to the paid Google links that WashingtonBay mentioned, there are a few design tweaks I've made, and some add-ons I've installed that help with this. Much of my free time is spent looking through data reports and looking for places to focus further improvement. And of course, "content is king," as the feller says. Keep on posting that content!

Regarding the smilies... noted!

I'd post more, but I need some dinner first. :cool:

[palomino]

I put the forum on my links page- so now everyone has to go to my site and check it out LOL!

[WashingtonBay]

Good! I did, and I thank you! :)

[TheBadLands]

visit my site!!!! You got a big banner and on my news blog...a holla back yo! lol

[Gypsy Rose]

I was going to put up a thread on another forum about senior horse digestion- getting too late tonight, but I can see what I can come up with tomorrow-maybe work some more in the senior horse care area- what do you think?

[WashingtonBay]

Thanks Gypsy! Pallevesta.... I'll go check it out right now.... thanks! :)

[WashingtonBay]

Palle - I went and looked! Thanks for the nice write up! There's no link back in the blog entry part... or it didn't work. The clickable banner on your home page works. :)

[TheBadLands]

oops! I fixed it :)

[WashingtonBay]

:)

[cloedoll]

Sounds like a good list to me! I'm thinking...

[Gypsy Rose]

WB, I'll see what I come up with tomorrow- might tie in well with the "when do you consider your horse a senior" thread. You've got a lot of experience with Bay, too, and there are many others on this forum with seniors- I just need to get the ball rolling, lol

[SedonaThunder]

Posting good articles with good titles and good content. This is also directly related to the ranking above, when people are googling for answers to questions they have on feeding, training, riding, horse health issues, etc, we want good articles and content from here to be found that will bring people to our forum. We have google crawlers here almost all the time, indexing pages, lets give them some good content to file. I intend to post some articles myself, starting with copying some of the things I've written over at h.com on lunging, on tying a horse safely, on training philosophy.

I actually got an email from someone who saw my pics of enteroliths over on h.com... wouldn't know how to bring that back up over here though.

[vicklynn]

Important update I added above that I want to make sure people see.

NOTE: We've also purchased some paid Sponsored google links for baywindfarm.com ourselves that will come up on Page 1 when people search for "Horse Forum" or "Horse Forums". If you do those searches, you may see them. You guys, please don't click them! They cost us money when people do, up to our daily limit, after which they won't run them any more that day. Hopefully they'll help people find us who don't know about us yet. But you guys don't need them, don't use 'em. :nono::)

As much as I like us seeing that. My concern is someone purposely clicking on that link and clicking and clicking, just to cost you money,

[WashingtonBay]

Possible, but there's a limit. They can wear themselves out and cost us about a dollar. :rolleyes: They aren't going to break the bank.

[WashingtonBay]

I actually got an email from someone who saw my pics of enteroliths over on h.com... wouldn't know how to bring that back up over here though.

If you can get into the edit over there, Copy and paste it here. You've got the pictures rehosted here, I saw them. :) You can replace those.

On edit - on second thought, since that was being reported kind of real time and it's over now, maybe it would be better if you wrote an informative thread about what caused them and why, with the picture. :)

[vicklynn]

Good WB, Im glad of that.

[WashingtonBoy]

Google is very well aware of the potential of that, and has sophisticated methods of identifying and eliminating such 'click fraud'.

There are many things we do to detect invalid clicks, including looking at duplicate IP addresses, user session information, network information, geo-targeting and browser information. These are all important signals for detecting invalid clicks.

The technology we use to detect invalid clicks is highly sophisticated and was developed by some of the world's leading experts -- PhDs in artificial intelligence, machine learning, and statistics. We’re reluctant to share more about our technology and methods, however, because doing so would make it easier for fraudsters to try to defeat our systems.

[WashingtonBay]

Good WB, Im glad of that.

I'm glad you're lookin' out for us :D

[rocknK]

WashBoy, do the internet police come out & start twisting clicking fingers??

[WashingtonBoy]

They whack the knuckles with a big old ruler! :doh:

[AUEquine]

Important update I added above that I want to make sure people see.

NOTE: We've also purchased some paid Sponsored google links for baywindfarm.com ourselves that will come up on Page 1 when people search for "Horse Forum" or "Horse Forums". If you do those searches, you may see them. You guys, please don't click them! They cost us money when people do, up to our daily limit, after which they won't run them any more that day. Hopefully they'll help people find us who don't know about us yet. But you guys don't need them, don't use 'em. :nono::)


Ok, so since I can't save favorites on my work computers, I just google "baywind farm forum". Of course this site pops up first... am I helping or hurting you by doing this? It's hard for me to remember the whole address, but if this is hurting you I will!

[walkinthewalk]

This forum really has come out of the gate (or gait) lengths ahead of other private forums and also some commercial forums, as far as I'm concerned.

It is aesthetically pleasing but not so garbled up with eye junk that you can't focus on reading.

It is also one of the easier boards to skate" around in and figure out - again from my perspective.

I don't have a web site, and even though I am the Adminstrator on my local board, I might hurt the feelings of the Board Owner if I say "hey here's a new forum to go visit".

What I generally do is to post a link to a noteworthy health article if I see one on another forum. That won't be difficult here because there is some really good information coming off this board. That way, the person going to the link can decide if they want to see what else the board has to offer.

While I read and post in several sections, my main interest is the Health section.

Someone mentioned Senior horse care. That is up my alley. The horse in my avatar just turned 21 and is metabolic, and I have another horse that I rescued 15 years ago who is now 22-1/2 and has a whole 'nuther set of health issues he deals with.

I'm glad the WB's have started this thread because I have been wanting to say THANKS!! for developing a forum of such high quality without the usual glitches:clap:

The pre-thinking that you folks were doing beforehand really paid off:cowboy:

[Syble413]

WB, I have a suggestion for an informative thread on Rhodococcus Equi that may be interesting for some. Do you remember the ordeal we went through with Lacey? (many vet office visits, stifle surgery etc...) I posted many threads about her on horse.com but they are too full of emotion to be an educational thread here.
Rhodococcus is a bacteria that is found in the soil of many farms(& there are many other bacterias in the soil that can affect horses) & can lay dormant for years. Before all this happened to us, it never crossed my mind to have the soil tested for anything.

So...if you (or someone) can retrieve the pictures & pertinent information & think of a good title for a thread, I will contribute as much information that I can find about bacterias in the soil & the importance of soil testing before starting a breeding operation. In the meantime, I am going to try to retreive some of the pictures myself (I had to do a restore on my computer a few months ago & all my old pictures were wiped out)

Again, this is just a suggestion & I realize the WB's are busy people.....

[WashingtonBay]

I do remember it your ordeal with Lacey, and it sounds like a great thing if you'd like to write about it! :) I don't know anything about it and your experience would be valuable! I can help if you run into trouble getting the pictures you want or anything.

[WashingtonBay]

Ok, so since I can't save favorites on my work computers, I just google "baywind farm forum". Of course this site pops up first... am I helping or hurting you by doing this? It's hard for me to remember the whole address, but if this is hurting you I will!

That certainly doesn't hurt anything at all AU :)

[WashingtonBay]

This forum really has come out of the gate (or gait) lengths ahead of other private forums and also some commercial forums, as far as I'm concerned.

It is aesthetically pleasing but not so garbled up with eye junk that you can't focus on reading.

It is also one of the easier boards to skate" around in and figure out - again from my perspective.

I don't have a web site, and even though I am the Adminstrator on my local board, I might hurt the feelings of the Board Owner if I say "hey here's a new forum to go visit".

What I generally do is to post a link to a noteworthy health article if I see one on another forum. That won't be difficult here because there is some really good information coming off this board. That way, the person going to the link can decide if they want to see what else the board has to offer.

While I read and post in several sections, my main interest is the Health section.

Someone mentioned Senior horse care. That is up my alley. The horse in my avatar just turned 21 and is metabolic, and I have another horse that I rescued 15 years ago who is now 22-1/2 and has a whole 'nuther set of health issues he deals with.

I'm glad the WB's have started this thread because I have been wanting to say THANKS!! for developing a forum of such high quality without the usual glitches:clap:

The pre-thinking that you folks were doing beforehand really paid off:cowboy:

Thank you so much walkin... :) We appreciate it a lot! :)

[Syble413]

Thanks WB. I would like to get the word out about the potential hazards in the soil.....it's something that most people don't even consider as potentially hazardous to their horses. However, I still have a hard time talking about Lacey. I'll try to organize my thoughts & maybe post some information this weekend...

[WashingtonBay]

Very good! :) I understand. I look forward to seeing it.

[FoxFireEMT]

Thanks 4 the extra info Washington! I'll see what I can do to pass the word around!! :)

[Equine_Woman]

Duly noted!!! I will try and be smart!! :D

[WashingtonBay]

Bumping this up to note that in the organic results on google, we are now on page SIX when searching for "Horse Forums" and at the top of page SEVEN when searching for "Horse Forum" (very close to moving to 6!)

This is really very good for a young site, and we're climbing. We started out on page 10, were at the bottom of seven last week, and we continue to move up, thanks to all of you and your great content.

Our paid ad is still running as well, and has resulted in a few new members already that did not come from our previous home. We welcome them. :)

[mtnmollie]

I posted a link on my dressage board to my I wonder thread, and people are reading it because I did get some feedback. he he :cowboy:

[Arrow]

Hooray for Baywind Farm!

[mtnmollie]

Ok, so since I can't save favorites on my work computers, I just google "baywind farm forum". Of course this site pops up first... am I helping or hurting you by doing this? It's hard for me to remember the whole address, but if this is hurting you I will!

I put the address in an e- mail to my self. he he .

Stole the link off the other board long ago-

[Mandzanita]

I'm so glad we are movin on up with Google!! I notice new members everyday :)

[Gypsy Rose]

Wahoo! Our little forum is growing!:)

[All4Grace]

Once the winds die down again I was planning on writing up an little article on properly wrapping bandages and wraps (after being asked by a few people here to do so) So that might be helpful. :D

I have to tell ya...
I LOVE this website!
I have mentioned this forum on both my myspace and facebook accounts lol ;)

[WashingtonBay]

Very good.... thanks everyone :D