Forums can be a great tool in promoting your link to your niche group. However, most people do not do it right. With a focus on promoting links, most webmasters have bordered on spam while contributing to forums. Here are some tips to remember while you are looking at a forum to promote your links
Quality vs. Quantity
Whenever you are logging into a forum, remind yourself of the magic mantra Give more take less. Remember to contribute more in value to the other members’ needs. This builds a great deal of trust. A member who looks the most ˜selfless’ is the one who can reap the maximum benefit out of online forums. How? By building trust within the forum, you are giving a signal to moderators of the forum that you are not here to spam. With that, an occasional linking to your website inside the discussion shall not only be condoned but you will also be thanked for providing them with ˜valuable’ information.
PM Talk With the Influential
You wouldn’t want your promotions to stay within the forum, right? In that case, find the authority members “ not in terms of forum contribution, but measured by the authority of their owned websites. These are members who can help you leap to the next level. Make it a point to contribute to all discussions that they contribute in, PM them with your point of view and get to know the individual. After a few contacts, your request for a link back or even a review of your website is sure to be accepted readily!
Flame Bait
Everyone of us have used forum signatures. Everyone knows that it can bring traffic, but why aren’t enough people clicking? That is because we have not provoked them enough to get curious enough to click and check us out. The best way to do this is through flame baits. Every niche has its own controversial topics that can invoke heated discussions and passionate debaters. Periodically start a topic on one of these topics and let the flame grow. So many people debating back and forth will get curious onlookers click on your link to check your own site.
These are just a few among a thousand different ways to promote your website via forums. But they are sure to get you valuable exposure you wouldn’t want to miss.
Do you have any of your tips to share? If yes we would love to hear your tips?
Article by Anand Srinivasan
Anand has written 1 articles.
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{ 25 comments… read them below or add one }
Nice post, however, your forum profile is tThe first thing you should do when joining a forum is fill out the forum member profile completely including your interests, your business information, and your website address where if allowed.
Thats True, because it adds more value to your profile and at least that profile will come out of the league of spammer. Thanks for your insight and welcome to shoutmeloud.
Very true..If you can get people interested and curious, this is the place they are going to visit, and they may find our website from here..
forum is indeed a much better way to connect readers and bloggers than commenting on website coz in comments offbeat ideas are not very well seen , while in forums , they result in a new thread , but forum in blog is very rare , but good idea !
Thats very true and even Google is promoting and encouraging forums. regarding blog and forum integration, its kinds tough to manage both at the same time, I have been thinking of integrating shoutmeloud with a forum but due to lack of time it is still under my to-do list.
I like your points .
What you have to do is building up a name for yourself as an expert in your field by helping other people with their problems and if you really care about your Target market, you have to win their trust, that means targeted visitors who believe you.
Thats so true Avi, and forum is the best and easy way to reach thousands of readers, but its hard to find useful and active forums. Though I have created list of some useful forums.
http://www.shoutmeloud.com/the-list-of-dofollow-forums-for-bloggers-to-increase-backlinks.html
True Avi..The problem I see in most newbie bloggers is that they are looking for results quick and they can’t hold too long before promoting their websites, which is seen by others (and actually is) spam. It’s both eviction from the forum as well as bad reputation…
Some great tips there on forum promotion. The same could be applied for comments. I must say that the people who regularly comment do add excellent insight. But the people who pop in every once in a while typically would only add a quick statement like “Good article. A+!”
Such people are usually spammers who wants to increase their post count and signature visibility, though some of the active community forum like DP and problogger have strict rule for such forums.
Very useful information for blog promotion thru involvement in forums. forums are really great place for branding as you can simply achieve there by helping others with relevant answers. Thanks Harsh for this tips post.
Thanks for your comment Snajeev, just a little input this is a guest post by Anand.. So credit goes to him for this useful article.
Thanks Harsh
Glad that you liked the post, Sanjeev.
Hi Harsh,
Really impressive article by Anand.
Forums can drive extra traffic to the blog but if signature panel is blank then nothing.Even some forums comes with great feature like blogger can publish the recent post url from the RSS feed.
Thats true Surender. A good forum give all the benefit to the poster to promote their blog and services, though very few people know how to make most out of it.
I have observed this especially of DigitalPoint. Helps me with decent traffic..Thanks for the comment, Surendar..
One more excellent post! Many take aways.
I am a new blogger & learning the tricks of the trade from established bloggers like you.
Wow! These Tips are Very Helpful.. I have never done promotion through forums! let me do now!
100 marks to anand I should say!!
Awesome article mate!!
I guess, I should take a hard look at my New Forums site and see if I’m adding value to all the users. It is too new just 3 days old, and it would be great if I can manage to make significant changes to the forums so that, real people with blood and bones visit my forums to participate, rather than spiders and spam robots.
And by commenting in the right forums, you might get new subscribers if your blog is on the same niche as the forums’
Thanks Basant, Chethan, India365 and Michael for commenting. Glad that you guys liked the post…
Nice post!.
I must admit that i have never tried to promote my blog in forums. May be i should do that.
If you say about build backlink from forum then digital point, v7 are some nice forum site where you can build lots of backlink.
I am so new to all this and I appreciate the information.
thanx for information… till now i am only member of 2 forums and i am not active.. i should start it soon…. thanx for the post..
regards,