Despite the growing popularity of social networks, internet forums haven’t lost any ground when it comes to getting people together and interacting, in fact, forums are more popular now than they were a few years ago as more people are online exchanging and discussing ideas.
Leveraging the most popular forums in your niche is a fantastic way to drive loads of highly targeted traffic to your website because on every post you make you can include a signature with a link to your site and believe me; people can’t help but read it! If it has a great call to action as well, lots of people will be inclined to click it and check out what you have to say on your site.
As you post more and more on the forum you will begin to create a reputation for yourself as a knowledgeable person in the industry you have chosen – regardless of whether you have any actual expertise! The simple fact that you become well known is enough to make you the guru in many people’s eyes and that equals more free traffic to your website 
There are a few guidelines you should follow if you want to take this approach to building free traffic which are:
- Choose an appropriate username: using your website name as your username is usually frowned upon by many forum users and admin’s as it’s considered a cheap form of spamming. Using your real name is usually the best option because you are branding yourself as the expert, or if you are not too keen on that then try using the niche name in your username like “golfcaddy” if you register on a golfing forum.
- Do not sell! This is the most important aspect, you are joining the community to contribute and network, not to go in and sell your product in every post. People can get quite sensitive about this so leave the selling for when they arrive at your website. Don’t even name drop your website because this can irk people as well.
- Don’t reply to every single forum topic because again it looks quite unnatural – especially if you are promoting your site in the signature. Answer a few posts a day, every day.
- Don’t write ‘me too’ posts: Your replies should be compelling and informative, writing things such as “I’d love to know as well” or “I was thinking the same thing” doesn’t help to brand you as a guru in your field Similarly, and this is a real problem on Internet Marketing related forums, having a link in your signature claiming to teach someone everything they need to know about bowling techniques and then asking how you can score more strikes is not a clever thing to do!
At the end of the day you are going in to a forum to try and get people to come to your website and I know it sounds counter intuitive when I say don’t sell and don’t ask people to go to your website, but once you are seen to be helping people and contributing to the community you will eventually find that people will start recommending your website or product themselves! (Assuming you are providing good, useful content of course!).
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About Warren
I enjoyed reading your blog. Keep it that way.