I have discussed many things at length here on the blog, but one of the best forms of internetmarketing that I have not gone into much depth about is forum marketing.

I’ll go on record and say right now that is one of the easiest, and most profitable way to drive targeted traffic to your website! Why is it so profitable? Because it doesn’t cost you a single dime to start doing, and is extremely easy to implement.

Generally speaking, this form of marketing is an alternate marketing technique that very few marketers really take advantage.

For one reason or another they feel that they can get better results from other techniques, and that may be the case for some individual niches—but in a nutshell there are very few niches that cannot benefit from this form of marketing.

Before you begin forum marketing is it important to note that you should have a long term plan in place, even though you will see results in the short term.

For you to see success with these methods you must have the desire to start taking part in communities and message boards that are related to your niche or topic. This is why most marketers will tell you that if you truly want to see success you should market products that you are interested in.

If you want this form of marketing to work for you then you will need to be able to stand up and become a community player on the forums.

This does not mean finding a niche related message board and creating new threads all day long.

I would actually discourage you from doing such a practice as it will not only look strange, but it will seem like you are trying to get attention. This is not the kind of attention you are looking for!

In the following three step guide I am going to tell you how to find a high traffic related forum, how to begin posting, and finally when to include your website in the signature section of your avatar.

1. Finding Related Message Boards

One of the easiest ways to find forums that will be related to your niche is to head on over to big-boards.com.

This is a great resource as it will show you the most popular message boards in a numbered ranking system. Furthermore you will be able to see how many users and posts a message boards has. Do not worry about links being dofollow or nofollow, as we are not doing this for any SEO benefit, but as a traffic generation technique.

Once you have found a bustling forum that is related to your sites niche, it is time to start scouting out the threads there. Are they asking questions?

What is the topic being discussed? Is it controversial? Can you add anything to the discussion? If you answered YES to the last question then sign up and start posting.

Find a welcome thread and make your first post. Be genuine and talk about how excited you are to be part of the new community. You will want to find five or six message boards that are related to your niche, and the busier they are the better.

2. How to post

This is maybe the most important step after finding a forum you want to start promoting at. Do NOT ever, for any reason link your website in your post.

You will add your link to your sig file and only your sig file, at a later date on top of that! I encourage you to start reading other threads so you can get a feel for the language of the board. Some forums have users that literally only talk with abbreviations, and you will learn those as time goes on.

Once you get comfortable start answering people’s questions when you can, and making comments where you can’t.

Talk about how you feel and just be yourself! Do this for several weeks and you will quickly develop a reputation as being a friendly and helpful person. Don’t worry about promoting your website in the sig link yet, as you just want to build up your rapport on the website.

Have you ever seen a message board member with 10 posts and a link to their website? Sure you have, but how many times did you click their link?

Once you have gained some attention answering other threads, and posting comments go all out and post a new thread every other day, or daily depending on how busy the forum is. Some places will have new threads disappearing in a day, while others will take longer.

You never want a bunch of threads started by you on the front page, as that just draws the kind of attention you don’t want. After about three weeks you will then place your link in your sig line.

3. Sig Links

These links are sales tools NOT search engine optimization tools. I am sure you have heard of the phrase, write for people, not search engines and this couldn’t more truer than when it comes to sig links.

You will want your sig to look clean, spelled with correct grammar and straight to the point. Don’t use buzz words, that’s marketing the big boys use and most people on forums could really care less about that kind of thing.

So if you run a weight loss website, don’t go in guns a blazing with you sig link talking about how much weight you can lose in 7 days.

Everyone on the message board will see through the marketing speak and most likely flag your link to a moderator, again attracting the kind of attention you don’t want! How about:

I Finally Decide I Didn’t Want To Be Overweight Anymore.

You are making a statement, not posting a question. However it is a statement shrouded in mystery, giving someone who is reading it the curiosity to click through and see what you have to say.

Couple that curiosity and an already interested audience (were posting on niche-related forums remember) and you have a come to a situation that doesn’t get any better.

Forum marketing is a really powerful tool that any marketer should be utilizing to drive targeted traffic. The best part about these techniques is that they can all be done for free, and you might actually gain a few online friends from the experience.

You need to delegate your time and not spend too long at one particular forum, unless it is a dominator in your niche.

For example if you get 30 visits a day from one forum, while three others only send you 30 combined you should still post on the less popular boards, but focus your energy on developing the best reputation you can on the board that sends the most traffic.

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