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BRodda — Thu, 02 Feb 2006 10:34:42 GMT

There are a few forums that Bill posts to that the only way to navigate to them is by looking at his posts in the member page.

Is that on purpose or is it an oops?

Here they are:

Newsworthy links

http://forums.vcfodder.com/Forum24-1.aspx

Shameless Self Promotion

http://forums.vcfodder.com/Forum75-1.aspx

They both have breadcrumb trails that say they should be right of the main site, but no mater where I look I can't find them.

Google and VC Fodder

BRodda — Tue, 31 Jan 2006 13:16:47 GMT

Just a note to say that I've seen Google indexing the site while checking "Who's On". I went and did a Google search for BRodda (Its more common than you think, it's a Tolkien character too).

My user profile on VCFodder Forums was ranked number 9 in the natural search results. Not bad, a real nice ranting for a site less than a week old. Means the forums have some really great SEO charateristics.

Just some kudos

Forum Deadly Sins

BRodda — Thu, 19 Jan 2006 10:05:30 GMT

As I am currently working on a team to build a community site I thought I would share some thoughts on your site so far:

1) Empty hall syndrome: You started with no posts before going live. You should have grabbed as much content off of your site and converted it to posts before sending out the e-mail to your newsletter list. A great example of that would have been taking all those "Ask Dr. VC" questions and making them a post and then having the good Dr.'s replies as comments. That way people who would like to ask for clarification or make suggestions themselves could have done so. Also The Latest Fodder where you have made comments to the users in general would have been great as posts. Even "borrowing" posts from Bill's blog would have been good. People are more likely to post if they see that others have posted before them.

2) Building before they come: You have too many forums. If you had just left The Networking Scene as a single forum rather than building it out by content, country and city it would allow for better post accumulation and remove some assumptions. For example I work in Albany NY in what is call "Tech Valley". We have tons of networking events, but you have accidentally excluded any posts I might have made about events going on here because I am not in NYC. Once a forum gets to a certain critical mass then you can break it out in a more organic way when there is traffic to support it. With any forum the flatter it is to start the better.

And finally

3) Touch Points: You should have more places in you main site that lead to the forums. For example on the Ask Dr. VC page there should be a "Ask the DR. a Question" button that takes you right to the The World Famous Dr. VC Advice Forum . I can already tell you that is where you are going to get the most traffic to start; people go to forums to have questions answered by someone in the know. Having buttons at the bottom of your columns articles would also be great. That way if someone wanted to say something about what they just read they have a place to say what they have to say.

Glad to see you have a forum site, I read and reread the info on VC Fodder regularly and I look forward talking to like minded people. Good luck with the new site

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Google and VC Fodder

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