I’m only spending about 10 minutes a day on discussion forums, but from this little effort, I have successfully managed to drive traffic from forums every single day to my blog.
It’s all because I have a plan, and I stick to it. It’s about adding quality content, but it’s also about 10 different things.
I’m active
In order to get traffic from discussion forums you should be present and publish something at least a few times a week. The more active you are, the more traffic you’ll get. I publish something 3 times a day, every single day.
I use the signature
I have a link in my signature. The most traffic to my blog (from discussion forums) comes from people clicking on this link. I always add a link to a blog post related to the discussion forum.
I start new threads
It’s important that you connect with other people and join the discussions, but it’s even more important to start new threads. Every time I start a new thread it receives more than 10 comments, and I get even more traffic, because a new popular thread makes me even more visible.
I use old threads
Old threads can contain 20 comments and more. When you join an old discussion, all of the subscribers to this thread will be notified that there’s a new message to the thread (if they haven’t unsubscribed). And the thread will jump to the top of the list of threads, and even more, people will see it and join the discussion.
However do read the forum rules. Some forum doesn’t like members bumping up the thread to game the system for their benefits.
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I have added my blog feed
In my profile I have added my blog feed, this way, just below my username and on all the messages I have published on the discussion forum there’s always a link (and the title) to my latest blog post.
I’m always brief
I usually don’t read long messages, and I believe that most people are looking for a short, straight to the point answer (and question). Hence, I’m brief, I try never to write more than a few sentences in every comment I publish. But I always do my best to add quality content.
I’m always positive
No matter what people write, I’m always positive. I do my best to answer any question. Nothing good comes from being arrogant or negative. It’s important to understand that there will always be people who are completely new to the topics, and people who have many years of experience.
It’s all about helping
Every time I publish a comment I always want to help, that’s the reason I’m there in the first place. I usually never publish any link to my own blog posts (I already have two links present, one to my latest blog post, and one in my signature). It’s important not to self promote (people don’t like it, and they won’t read what you have to say).
I do my best to follow up
When I add a comment or start a thread, I stay subscribed to the thread and read most of the new comments. If I can add more value to the thread, I do it.
Add value to my profile
I have added information about myself, like information about who I am, where I’m from, and what my hobbies are. I have also added a picture of myself (an avatar, it’s visible next to all my messages). People want to know who they’re communicating with. Be yourself, make it personal (not a character).
That’s 10 ways I use to drive traffic from forums to my blog. Now, let me ask you this; are you using discussion forums? And if you are, how are you using them?
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Hi Jens,
this is a great post on how to drive traffic from forums. The most important thing is that people are active in a niche related forum.
When it is then done right – and in the way how your 10 things suggest – it can bring tons of traffic to someone’s website.
But besides the traffic one can receive, it also helps a lot in building up credibility and authority in their niche.
Cheers,
Torsten
Its my first time here…
And about forums, i spend a lot of time in forums everyday, like any one else, for site promotion…
Most of the forums, almost 90% of those i came across, offer only no follow links and s0 there is nothing in using your keywords in signature(many people do that)..
Make your signature link attractive, catching and descriptive.. (This make viewers can’t stop reading that). Be sure that you don’t cheat on signatures, use relevant links only that matches the anchor text, otherwise you are losing credibility.
right niche forum is really important, or else you will get only one time visitors to your blog…
I used to visit forums all the time, but didn’t have much time to do it once I started my blog. I plan to join a couple and try your tips to get traffic to my blog.
Thanks,
Jim
great post harsh
you are saying right forums is great for getting links and traffic. i use http://www.warriorforum.com/ for generating back links and traffic.
Hello,
Nice tips you got here but you did not mention what forums or site is best. I have heard of warrior forums but haven’t check it yet. Thanks for sharing.
Forum definitely gains traffic to your site.
Your blog post adds support to the comments you made on the thread which also defines a backlink to your site.
Hi jen..My question is what type of anchor text is to put in sinature link means
our website anchor text or keyword?and mostly people do they only create signature link in forums and dont post anything….is it Right way to have backlink?
I started by blogging career from forums. I learned and gain a lot of knowledge from here. Specially Digital Point is a big one. For traffic generation forums are great platforms.
i do find all the points very useful , actually i have been reading about this topic a lot , but what i loved the most about this one exactly is that you only wrote the most important points anyone will have to follow or to read and know about , i do agree with following and sharing and helping as well !! thank you for the post 🙂
Thank you for the awesome feedback 🙂
spacial thanks and thanks you
I started by blogging career from forums. I learned and gain a lot of knowledge from here. Specially Digital Point is a big one. For traffic generation forums are great platforms.
forums are the best way to drive traffic to your blog and provides a backlink to your blog. if i’m right
preety useful in terms of seo??
It depends, you will get backlinks, but some forums might be nofollow (then it won’t help your pagerank), but as far as I know DigitalPoint is dofollow.
JENS, all the links in the DigitalPoint forum is no-follow. Other important point worth mentioning here is that GOOGLE has remove the pagerank policy for all the website ( ALEXA and BING ranking still exists)/
tell me one thing how to reduce the HTML size of my blogger template, it is about 125kb , this is not about your post related but if you have any idea then tell me , i already check many blogs for that, but for blogger there is nothing just all have same thing to do not use widgets, then what?
i dont want to change my blog look..
i already uses css code for shadows, round corners, repeat image in bg.
but the HTML size is problem?
Sorry, I have no clue about blogger templates. But this post might be helpful? Or maybe somebody else reading this post 🙂
http://www.mybloggertricks.com/2009/11/11-useful-tips-to-reduce-your-blog-load.html
Hey Dheeraj, First of all thanks for your question.
I visited your blog. Your blog theme is good looking. But I d’nt found your blog slow. Your blog’s loading speed is good at my Broadband connection.
Thanks
Well. I am not agree with you Sharat. Actually website speed is considered for slow connections and Blog of Dheeraj has a heavy page size ( more than 1.5 mb ) instead of normal ( below 1 mb) so it needs to reduce the page size to load it normally on slow connections.
I have noticed that homepage size of your blog is less than 500kb so……
thanks for the information, now i know about bbcode it is really a good idea to make signature.
starting new threads and completing other thread will surely fetch more thread than any other thing…..
Right bro…..?
Yes, but only if you add valuable information to the discussion. I never continue the discussion if I don’t have more information to add. Usually, I don’t say the same thing over and over again. If some people have said exactly what I was going to say, then I might not join the discussion (thread) at all. And sometimes, if there are no new questions, just the same stuff over and over again, then I don’t continue.
But, when it comes to starting new threads, it’s the best way to drive traffic… but when you start a new thread you need to continue to add questions and thank people for their information.
Hey Jens,
I think the difficulty is trying to be consistent and trying to follow up with all the replies and comments made on forums.
I agree, that’s fairly hard. But I keep to my schedule and never add more than 3 comments a day (I leave 3 comments every single day, that’s important).
I receive an email every time there’s a new comment added to one of the threads I’m subscribed to (because I’ve left a comment on them). I read all the new comments, and I only add something new when I have more value to add to the discussion.
I use a spreadsheet to keep track of everything I do (I mark the task as done as soon as I have added three comments).
Great Post Jens.
These are awesome ways to get traffic from forums. DigitalPoint is one of my biggest traffic source.
Thanks for sharing this great Post man.
Very nice tips. Never thought of old threads, will use it!
Thanks 🙂
hi this post really informative , what the mean of signature of your, how to make one, thanks in advance.
Thanks. Signatures on forums use BBCode (bulletin board code). Take a look at wikipedia for more information:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BBCode
After you’ve signed up, visit your profile, then click on “edit signature”.
Great post JENS. It’s worth mentioning here that forums have some rules about creating signature like you have to post # no of post to make your signature in the forum.
Thank you very much for the tips.
Does forum allow one to have links in their signature? If allowed spammers might misuse it. Am i Right?
Most discussion forums allow this, but only after you’ve published a certain amount of posts (for instance 20 posts or more). Spammers might abuse this opportunity, but the things with forums is that people don’t click much on links in signatures unless you provide quality content (add some value to the discussion). So, I don’t believe that spammers are a big problem.
Over past few week, I have been using the Forums and spending time in answering.
I accept all the 10 points. However each forum is having its own protocols. So,
is it better to be active at one or more Forums?
I’m only active on 1 forum (digital point), and it’s because it takes too much time to be active on several and get all the benefits.
Hi Jens, I had same question but you already answered it. By the way, what do you think about paid forums. Several forums charge for a premium membership. Is it worth spending time on them? Can they send good traffic?
Thanks.
The problem with paid forums is that you probably won’t be getting a lot of traffic, because they usually don’t have as many members as free forums. But, the quality of the traffic might be a lot higher.
I’m also a member of Third Tribe Marketing (but I’m almost never present at the discussion forums). In my experience, the quality of the traffic from the Third Tribe forums are a lot better than from Digital Point, but it depends on what I’m looking for. At paid forums, people usually have a business and a way of earning money already, if you’re looking for a way to network with that kind of people, then it’s great. If you’re looking for people who are new to what you’re doing, then go with an open forum.
And, I’m not really sure about this, but with a paid forum you won’t get help from the search engines because the discussions are hidden. It depends on your niche, and your goal (and how much money you can spend), and the time you can use. To me, one open forum with a lot of members is all I can handle 🙂