Moms Online Business Coach

Forum Marketing is a strategy to increase website traffic is one that is talked about by newbies and experts alike, while connecting with like minded people in your niche.

The problem lies, in knowing how to effectively leverage this technique since time in forums, social networks and various other types of online communities can literally “suck the life” out of your day and your productivity.

Secret 1:
Put thought into how you want to be perceived.

Do you want your name and business to be associated with your broken appliance stories, or as a valuable business to remember?

Secret 2:
Have clear goals.

Having a clear idea of how you want to be perceived will help you set your goals for the forum. Instead of answering 25 posts with “yeah, me too” pick out what posts you can add value to and craft an intellegent helpful and detailed reply.

If your end goal is to have people come back to your website post enough information so that other readers will see you know what you are talking about and want to read more.

Secret 3:
Know your call to action.

Like your newsletters, websites, blog postings, articles, forum marketing is no different. Have a call to action at the end of your post.

Do you want them to return to your blog to read part 2 of your answer post? Try an ending like “If you find this information helpful, I have a post listed here that covers more details http://url”

Secret 4:Make your signature line work for you.

When you create a profile in the forum you will be given the opportunity to add a profile signature that will be posted with each of your replies.

Enter a little bit of link bait there, an affiliate link, a link to a free report or a banner image.

Remember that forums are indexed by search engines, use a “keyword” that anchors your text which sends people to the website or a special landing page.

Your anchor text links, depending on the forum rules, will act as backlinks pointing to your site from various other sites, the more likely it is your site will rank higher for that search phrase.

The more anchor text links pointing to your site from various other sites, the more likely it is your site will rank higher for that search phrase. Do not try to add them all at once, 30-40 per week are fine, you start adding 100 a week and you will most likely get flagged by the search engines.

The html code (that’s what all the <> marks are) for your links is very simple but if you have problems come back and post a question and we are more then happy to help out.

I suggest you copy and paste the code into notepad and save on your desktop for easy reference. Do not use code pasted from a word editor like Microsoft Word. These type of editors will add characters that throw off your code.

Add Image To Your Forum Signature

[*url=http://www.yourlandingpageURL.com][img] http://www.whereyourimageis.com[*/img][*/url] – without the *s

If you host your own images, don’t forget to use the right directory path for your image. It may look something like http://yourwebsite.com/images/bannerxyz.jpg

If you use free webhosting most do not host images, you will need to use a third party image host.

If you don’t have an image, you can create your own image using photoshop, paint, or a free banner maker site.

Add Text Link To Your Forum Signature

[*url]http://www.yourwebsite.com[*/url] …..but take out the *

Warning: Do not use execessive BOLD or big/gaudy signatures most people are actually turned off by big signatures. Keep it simple and professional and let your call to action take front and center attention.

One of my favorite signature links for forums is promoting your blog with your feedburner feed signature. This will promote your blog, showing the latest and greatest information.

Secret 5:

Be Your Authentic Self

People have very good instincts and if you are only at the forum pushing and promoting yourself you will throw all your forum marketing efforts in the toilet and ruin your reputation before you start.

Be authentic to your personality, be genuine in your efforts to help others and be honest- if you are going to recommend a product- tell them it’s your affiliate link. I am much more likely to believe and USE someones affiliate link when they are open and most of the time I’ll even ASK for their affiliate link if I believe their recommendation is honest.

More Traffic Tactics

There are businesses that make thousands of dollars from their forum presence, if you spend time in forums and still are not having an increase website traffic or earning money from your time then I highly suggest you check out the MBC Beginners Guide To Traffic Tactics ebook. This ebook will go into more details of forum marketing plus many more website traffic generation strategies that can work for you!

http://moms-business-coach.com/recommends/forumtraffic