Optimizing my vbulletin niche site for Google.....

After hours of reading, I've come to the conclusion that it's a lot harder to optimize a forum only website than just a regular one.

I know a major factor is attaining backlinks BUT with my particular site, it's hard to find sites to exchange links with that wouldnt be considered a competitor (I run a college football forum covering all conf. and teams).

The only legitimate spot Ive found to buy links are places like ESPN.com and CNNSI.com, but the minimum is $100 a month and thats not even guaranteeing a lot of page time.

One positive I did manage to do, is changing to a relevant title and forum names that should grab some views.

i did purchase a membership @ LinkMarket, but only time will tell if that helps :/

Any ideas on where to start or what to do to get fully optimized for Google? Im to the point of dropping $150 on the vBSEO software I saw the other day.

What do you get for your money with with vbseo pack ? and are you sure there isnt something very similar available as a free vbseo modification ? have you had a good read through the vb users forum looking at all the available mods ?

Forum seo is very difficult (But then again isnt all seo ??). As many of the seo experts (that doesnt include me) here will tell you the main things are "Content" and "links" and the same runs true for forums.

One thing you need to do is ensure your topic titles appear in the page title and then make sure your topic titles are relevant to the topic. For example forum posters have no concept of seo. A typical title may be "Todays Match" but that title contains no keywords of relevance nothing that anyone is likely to search for will only appear in a google search if someone types in "Todays Match". So you need to be on hand to change it before google reads it.

Also with forums, I think its highly likely that you trigger something in google algo once you reach a certain level of activity. The more visits the forum gets in a day the more often google will call and the more hits you get the more pages google will list for you.

THe way forward would be relevant titles, good content, Lots of links and make the forum look busy. If your struggling for content and posters with a few posters in lots of individual boards then consider merging similar boards into one untill you have enough contributers to justify lots of boards.

Consider finding a forum admin forum to join too, you will find good info there.