Im very very new to all of this search engine stuff so please forgive me if this question is very basic stuff.

I have my main page indexed on google but my main page isn't the dictionary my forum is in... so can the bots still find my forum and stuff and get stuff from it as ive done nothing to the main site really, just put an image on there.

Id like the listings to look like this:



Main site at the top then the forum in the 2nd bit.

What exactly do i need to do?

Have you built any back links to your forums/ directory ?
Do you have any links on your splash page that point to your forum or different parts of your forums ?

That's where I would start.

--------------------

Post your URL and a link to your vb.com username here to get full access.

Add our Facebook Blog, Group and LinkedIn group.. Thanks

Stay up to date by installing our Tool Bar

I have a picture link to the forum that's it. That's basically all i have on the main page, a large photoshop picture linking to the forum.

if you logout here and look in the footer, you'll see a bunch of small #'s 1,2,3,4,5,6...
In our case, it's linked to the archives, but I would do the same for you but have the links to the real forums categories.
you can make them in small font.

--------------------

Post your URL and a link to your vb.com username here to get full access.

Add our Facebook Blog, Group and LinkedIn group.. Thanks

Stay up to date by installing our Tool Bar

Oh i see, yeah I've done that now.. hopefully that should be indexed soon

I put the numbers on the front page but made the text the same colour as the background, is this known as a "black hat" trick? Could this get me banned from a search engine or is this ok?

yes, you don't want to make the font a small text or the same background font

something else that you may try is replacing the 1,2,3,4 text with an Anchor text and your guest may even use them.

--------------------

Post your URL and a link to your vb.com username here to get full access.

Add our Facebook Blog, Group and LinkedIn group.. Thanks

Stay up to date by installing our Tool Bar