Forum Updates and Changes Announcements

[Winston]

What I mean is that the register/login buttons should be on happierabroad.com itself and not only after visiting the forum page. That would make it clear to first time visitors that there is a forum and forum participation is one of the main purposes of the site. Higher user engagement levels will increase content and be good for SEO. For example on http://www.chinaebuys.com when you visit the site it is immediately clear that the main call to action is to 'tell us what to buy for you from China'.

For the amount of traffic you get you should be getting higher user engagement levels and more forum postings.

I really don't believe that happierabroad.com can't grow to become bigger than it already is Winston. Keep working on it.

Just my 2 cents Winston.

You mean put a register/login link on the home page? I never seen any site that does that. Unless the site's job is to direct people to the forum or the site is primarily designed to host the forum. But don't you see on the home page, that I have many links to the forum and a box that shows the latest 10 topics in the forum? That's how I promote the forum on the home page. Besides, the home page is too packed the way it is. I'm planning to change it to a wordpress theme anyway.

We do have a lot of traffic but the problem is that too few people come back or register. It's hard to keep retention here. Probably because this site is mostly for misfits and people outside the box, so we don't attract the mainstream.

[Winston]

Wow I finally got the navigation menu to work now! Check it out! It's the new blue navigation menu below the header at the top. Now it looks smooth and professional! And when you hover the mouse over the links, the buttons turn orange! Check it out. Neat huh?

I got help with this from the support staff at phpbb forum. Here is the thread where they helped me solve the problem of making this navigation bar work.

https://www.phpbb.com/community/viewtop ... 5&start=15

I can't believe such a simple code for a navigation menu could be so hard to find. For reference sake, so that I don't lose this valuable code for creating a navigation menu, I'm going to paste it below in case I need it again, or if any of you want to use it too.

Place this before the </head> tag:

Code: Select all

<style>
.menu ul {
    list-style-type: none;
    margin: 0;
    padding: 0;
    overflow: hidden;
    background-color: #4e65aa;
}

.menu li {
    float: left;
    border-right:1px solid #bbb;
}

.menu li:last-child {
    border-right: none;
}

.menu li a {
    display: block;
    color: white;
    text-align: center;
    padding: 11px 12px;
    text-decoration: none;
}

.menu li a:hover:not(.active) {
    background-color: #FF9933;
}

.menu active {
    background-color: #4e65aa;
}
</style>

Place this where you want the navigation menu to appear:

Code: Select all

<div class="menu">
<font size=2 face=Arial> 
<ul>
  <li><a href="http://www.happierabroad.com">Home</a></li>
  <li><a href="http://www.happierabroad.com/articles.php">Articles</a></li>
  <li><a href="http://blog.happierabroad.com">Blog</a></li>
  <li><a href="http://www.happierabroad.com/ebooks.php">Ebooks</a></li>
  <li><a href="http://www.happierabroad.com/Photos.htm">Photos</a></li>
  <li><a href="http://www.happierabroad.com/videos.php">Videos</a></li>
  <li><a href="http://www.happierabroad.com/podcasts.php">Podcasts</a></li>
  <li><a href="http://www.happierabroad.com/forum/index.php">Forum</a></li>
  <li><a href="http://www.happierabroad.com/MeetForeignWomen.htm">Personals</a></li>
  <li><a href="http://www.happierabroad.com/WhyForeignWomen.htm">Why Foreign Women?</a></li>
  <li><a href="http://www.happierabroad.com/secrets.php">Big Secrets!</a></li>
  <li><a href="http://www.happierabroad.com/team.php">About Us</a></li>
</ul>
</font>
</div>

[ethan_sg]

Wordpress would be a great move Winston.

You could put some of your articles on reddit too and get more active on Twitter lol.

What I mean is that the register/login buttons should be on happierabroad.com itself and not only after visiting the forum page. That would make it clear to first time visitors that there is a forum and forum participation is one of the main purposes of the site. Higher user engagement levels will increase content and be good for SEO. For example on http://www.chinaebuys.com when you visit the site it is immediately clear that the main call to action is to 'tell us what to buy for you from China'.

For the amount of traffic you get you should be getting higher user engagement levels and more forum postings.

I really don't believe that happierabroad.com can't grow to become bigger than it already is Winston. Keep working on it.

Just my 2 cents Winston.

You mean put a register/login link on the home page? I never seen any site that does that. Unless the site's job is to direct people to the forum or the site is primarily designed to host the forum. But don't you see on the home page, that I have many links to the forum and a box that shows the latest 10 topics in the forum? That's how I promote the forum on the home page. Besides, the home page is too packed the way it is. I'm planning to change it to a wordpress theme anyway.

We do have a lot of traffic but the problem is that too few people come back or register. It's hard to keep retention here. Probably because this site is mostly for misfits and people outside the box, so we don't attract the mainstream.

[Winston]

Update:

I added an Advanced Search link in the top right of the forum, under the Google search field. If you click it, it will take you to a search page with more advanced settings so you can filter more specifics. Try it out. Click the link "Advanced Search" in the top right under the search field.

[gnosis]

Update:

I added an Advanced Search link in the top right of the forum, under the Google search field. If you click it, it will take you to a search page with more advanced settings so you can filter more specifics. Try it out. Click the link "Advanced Search" in the top right under the search field.

Awesome.

[Winston]

Update:

Since there were too many ads displaying in this forum at the same time, which was looking too crowded, I decided to rotate all the secondary ads in the middle of the forum, after the first post in each thread, under the AFA women's photo ads. That way, I can fit them all in while reducing and compacting the forum ads, by rotating them and showing a different one with each page refresh. This way, the forum will look neater and cleaner and load faster too. Sorry that there were too many ads before. Hope you like my solution.

Also i moved the social media share buttons back under the leaderboard ad at the top.

[Winston]

New link to dark forum theme:

I put a link to the dark theme of the forum at the top, under the big banner next to the Mobile theme link. So if you guys want to use it, just click on it. Also, if you want to switch back to the light theme, there is a link at the top of the dark theme back to the light theme to. So it's easy to switch between the two.

[Winston]

Announcement:

I just resized the banners in this forum from 728x90 to 468x60 to make them fit better on a mobile device, thus making this forum more mobile friendly, according to Google's standards. So from now on, when you come here from a mobile device, you can just use the desktop version of the forum, as it should automatically resize to fit your mobile device. You don't need to use the mobile theme at the top anymore. I tested the forum on Google's Mobile Friendly Test Tool and it now shows as mobile friendly.

https://search.google.com/test/mobile-friendly

I also resized the banners on the forum topic pages too. So the whole forum should be mobile friendly now. I also did this to remove the Google penalties on this forum for not being mobile friendly, so that we can regain our good search engine ranking again after it took a hit for that. I will also see if it's possible to make the banners responsive so that it will automatically adjust to both desktop and mobile sizes.

I also gotta work on redirecting this website from http to https with SSL certificates too, to make it more secure, to remove the Google penalty for that too, which I'm working on now.

Enjoy the new mobile responsiveness of the forum. Thanks for your attention.

Sincerely,
Admin

[Winston]

Update:

I've just installed a Recent Topics section on the forum index page just below the shoutbox. You will see the latest 5 topics in it. Hope you all like it.

[Winston]

Note:

If you don't see the recent topics box below, you may have to enable it in your UCP. Go to your UCP and select Board Preferences, then Edit Display Options, and you will see how to enable it and customize it.

ucp.php?i=ucp_prefs&mode=view

Are you all able to see it? Any of you not see it?

[Winston]

Check out the new big header banner at the top of the forum. What do you all think? Do you all like it? Should we keep it or remove it?

[Winston]

Update:

I've changed the recent topics box from 5 topics to 10 topics. You can also scroll through it by clicking the page numbers above it. So to see the next 10 recent topics, 10 - 20, you would just click on page 2. Up to a maximum of 10 pages. Therefore, up to 50 recent topics can be seen in that box if you click the page numbers to scroll through it.

[Winston]

Update:

I've changed the order of topics on the main index page. I've put the Announcements and Current Events boards into their own categories. I also put the Politics/Government board into the Current Events category too. And I moved the Expat VIP board down lower since hardly anyone post there anymore.

[HappyGuy]

Update:

Enable the beach themes Winston. What's the hold up! I want to see sunshine and turtles and feel like I'm at the beach when I come here. I don't want to feel like I'm standing in the diaper aisle or at the pharmacy inside a CVS.

[Winston]

I just moved the recent topics box to the RIGHT side of the forum instead of on the top of the forum. Does it look better that way? What do you guys think? Have a look at the index page here: index.php