Staring a new site and not very optimistic

[Postmaster]

I just bought SADpeople .org (no point visiting, nothing there) to my surprise it's has never been registered before. I've been doing a lot of research on a condition known as Seasonal Affective Disorder since one of my close friends suffers from it. It's physical condition by which causes a chemical imbalance in the brain (the sleep and wake cycle is disturbed). As many as 5 million people in the UK suffer from this disorder and many more world wide. This phenomenon only occurs in cold countries or and cold season from lack of light and warmth and as mammals we suffer of this to a certain degree. The net needs a site like the one I'm going to develop but I feel very pessimistic about it getting anywhere due to the state of Google. I thought I'd give it a shot.. It’s basically going to be a site that evolves round the forum with a few articles, and then just use my general knowledge of promotion and SEO to get traffic. Does anyone have any tips for me? Does anyone think I should use a vBulletin forum? Or wait for the new release of phpbb? Would I need a disclaimer, especially with the nature of the site?

[Angelis]

Originally Posted by Postmaster

I just bought SADpeople .org (no point visiting, nothing there)

Until you get my picture up there that is.

Good luck with it anyway.

[Brian Turner]

Good luck with the site, Postmaster.

Personal suggestions are to spend the first 6-8 months focussed on developing content, rather than links - maybe register the site with a handful of directories, but don't go out of your way to link to it.

When you're satisfied you have strong content, then look to promote it with other sites - look for those that cover the topic, and simply point out that you exist. *Don't* ask for a link exchange or barter for links - simply point out that you see your site as a useful non-commercial resource that is happy to raise the profile of the condition.

Also - don't use phpbb - use vBulletin. It's a safer more reliable system.

My personal opinion...

[Postmaster]

Thanks for the advice guys. So basically it’s good to get some links so that at least the search engines can find the site. I wouldn't be too bothered about promoting the site since I'm even thinking of donating any income to any charity in the first place, I suppose this will be an experiment to see if Google takes more notice of non SEOed sites. I crave a vBulletin forum but I think I might start off with the new version of phpbb that is soon going to be released, then possibly change to vBulletin in the future? To see if there will be any interest in the site.

[Brian Turner]

Well...there's nothing wrong with starting with one type of forum software and changing later - but IMO it's simply creating work for yourself down the road. You would also need to modify the phpbb code yourself as it is not search engine friendly by default - but vBulletin is.

Of course, perhaps a vBulletin might be better for another type of site?

Certainly links to help search engines find the site is a good idea - that's precisely what I mean - but with Google sandboxing going on, it's hard to justify the expense of promoting new sites in the face of sandboxing effects.

[WSC-Will]

Originally Posted by Postmaster

I feel very pessimistic about it

No need to be SAD about it!

Just looking here and with 14317 searches for "seasonal affective disorder" in January and only 401,000 competing sites in Google, I think the future is a lot brighter (bit of a pun inteded) than you might think.

As for forum software, I'd have to recommend vBulletin and as for a disclaimer I'd say a definite "yes" even if you were medically qualified to offer advice.

[Brian Turner]

Niche interests/markets are definitely worth developing, in my opinion.

[Solicitors Mortgages]

nice one postmaster.
You can make a fortune selling UV light boxes.
Send me over about a dozen.


You haven't got the site up yet???
6 weeks+ ..you should have 100 pages up by now