Traffic Generation -marketing

Traffic Generation - Forum marketing

Forum Marketing has been around as long as forums have existed. Forums are known by a variety of names: bulletin boards and message boards are common names. A forum is essentially where people with an interest in a specific topic post messages, where other people who are members of that forum can reply to them. It’s a great way to share and learn information about a topic of interest.

Forum marketing is a great way to drive traffic to your site. Now, before you run to the nearest forum that relates to your topic and post a message about your wonderful website, you need to know that the quality forums (the forums that you want to participate in) are not going to allow you to do that. So, how can you advertise your AdSense site in the forums, without advertising?
You use a signature file. This is allowed in most forums. A signature file is essentially text that has your name, your website address, and maybe a small slogan. It looks like this:

First and Last Name http://www.yourwebsite.com
Everything You Wanted To Know About Your Topic – And Then Some. You use your signature file at the bottom of all of your posts. Some forums allow you to set up your signature file in your profile, and every time you make a post, it will automatically be inserted at the bottom. Now, there are several ways that you can use the forums. First, you can seek out posts that you can reply to.
Second, you can post questions that others reply to. You can also just post pertinent information.

To find forums that relate to your topic, go to any search engine, and type in your topic discussion. If your topic is fishing, you would type in fishing discussion. You will get a huge number of results.
You want to pick out about five forums to actively participate in. Ideally, you will make at least one post per day in each forum that you participate in, so choose a number of forums that you have time to post in each day. When looking at the forums, you want forums where there are a large number of members – 500 to 1000 are good. You also want one that is active. Look at the dates of the most recent posts. Were they today or yesterday? If not, the forum isn’t active enough for your purposes.

You want to avoid forums where all of the posts are advertisements, where http://www.freeadvertisingforum.com/ is the perfect example. They may have a huge number of members, and it may be active, but nobody is reading the posts. Instead, they are just posting advertisements.

Make sure that your posts are relevant and stay on topic. Failing to do so can get you banned from the forum, and it can also quickly ruin your reputation within your niche. When you make a post, make sure that it is grammatically correct, and that everything is spelled correctly. Never, ever ‘flame’ people in the forums. When you flame someone, you are essentially starting a fight. This won’t be tolerated. It is, however, okay to disagree with someone in the forums, as long as it is done in a civil and polite way. Always remember your purpose – to drive traffic to your website. When you see a post that relates to specific information on your site, you can drive people to that page within your post. This is not advertising, because you aren’t selling anything.

There is another way to use forums to your advantage. Set up a forum on your own website. You can publish your AdSense ads there, and you can build up a following. These people will visit your forum on a regular basis, because they are interested in the topic, and they want to communicate with others who are interested in the topic.