A question for the guys running forums with static content as well.

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rusty105

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I am working on a forum (working with) that is smaller but would like to rank higher and attract more members. One of the ways we thought would be a good idea was to have a library of curated 'How-To' articles related to our niche. We have plenty of knowledgeable authors, so that is not an issue. The issue we have is finding the appropriate way to present these articles to the users. Ideally each article would have a forum thread for Q&As regarding the article. And trying to maximize the SEO benefits.

Any suggestions?

Rusty
 
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I have something like that on my forum: I use a dedicated subforum (article type) as a knowledge base more or less since my forum exists (~4 years). It contains a hand full of very deep going articles about my niche and indeed it helped with Google and Bing - some of those were within the most visited pages via Google for years. Others did not show that effect, so it is somewhat unpredictable. I do have one regular forum thread that continuously ranks in the top 10 at google search console for years that is more of an accident b/c the content does not really fit to the forum's niche. So really good knowledge articles may help, if your niche is small enough and your content is exclusive enough, good enough and something people really search for.

My intention when writing those articles had not been Google ranking but to create a knowledge base for the forum members. The initial idea was to use Resource Manager for that in a wiki-like approach, but this turned out to be a really horrible idea and simply did not work.

When you are eager for Google ranking the question is what you want to achieve. If you run on paid ads, additional visitors may be beneficial, else they tend to be hit and run, so of not too much value. A fraction converts into registered members, so it is not all too bad.

But: Times have changed. When you expose the knowledge of your forum freely today it will simply be sucked up by AI, used within their models and no one needs to visit your forum any more. Preparing it in form of a knowledge base makes it even easier. Consequently, I've now limited the visibility of the knowledge base forum for guests to just the thread titles. As Google has indexed the pages in the past already this does not harm the Google ranking until now, bots are locked out and visitors interested in the topic have to register.

What you also should have in mind: A knowledge base needs maintenance. Therefor Article forums are somewhat suboptimal if you don't use something like a group edit add on. Else, all the work to keep the articles up to date will stick with the person who wrote the article initially or an administrator and this can become annoying very quickly. the more, the more articles you have and the more changes within the topic of the article over time.

Having searched for a proper wiki solution for XF w/o success and wanting to avoid an external wiki but still wanting to get rid of the structural issues with the current knowledge base I will probably migrate to Bob's Knowledge Base add on.

In the end some very good articles can help you with ranking, but it needs a bit of luck. Overall I have the impression it is the general quality of the forum content that counts more (while forums seem not to rank very good at google generally). SEO is not an easy business (rather the opposite), there are many false priests and it has become a pretty dead horse anyway.
 
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If you want articles for SEO... tough ask. It is still one of the most widely advised options in SEO, as people want to sell their services, BUT, unless you're specifically chasing long tail related terms, you will struggle.

Also, anything you want to do in targeting SEO, then DO NOT allow comments on it. You write the page, you establish your keyword for the page, you put it through AI to specifically only make modifications for semantics, synonyms, and to add targeted long tail terms into the page.

Then you send that puppy live and never let anyone comment on it.

All the BS you read nowadays about SEO, is all taken from decades ago. Its not new, they're trying to sell themselves or something to people, all on a lie today. Getting links won't help you today. One natural, highly targeted link, can do more than 5000 crappy ones. Google has seen through all that rubbish, let alone getting your website out of localisation. Whole different problem set today, pretty much requiring local domains in every country you want to target.

OR... you buy ads, which is what everyone does, especially the global players, because there is no way they are getting their .com to rank globally today, other than a direct brand search. If I Google, soft drink, or, fizzy drink, Coke and Pepsi aren't on the front page, nor second, third, fourth, fifth, etc. Their brand will be present, with all the other brands, by local retailing advertising those drinks.
 
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