4 Unusual (And Long Term) Ways to Promote Your Blog Using Forums
Long Term Methods for Effectively Promoting Your Blog on Forums

4 Unusual (And Long Term) Ways to Promote Your Blog Using Forums

by Alex · 20 comments

Every­one knows that using forum sig­na­tures is a good way to gen­er­ate some back­links. How­ever, there are other ways to use forums to your advantage.

The ideas I came up with in here are ideas that may take a lit­tle longer for you to accom­plish than the aver­age forum pro­mo­tion tac­tic. While you should always go with reg­u­lar forum post­ing, you should try and work your way towards com­plet­ing these strate­gies as they have very ben­e­fi­cial results.

Con­sider Your Reputation

Most forums, espe­cially vBul­letin pow­ered forums, have a rep­u­ta­tion sys­tem. The way to earn a high rep­u­ta­tion is to post help­ful posts and reply with use­ful com­ments. If you’re only focus­ing on post­ing for the sig­na­ture link, then chances are that your rep­u­ta­tion will remain low. This is a bad thing con­sid­er­ing mem­bers are more likely to click on your links if you have a high reputation.

There are plenty of ways to build up a rep­u­ta­tion on forums and start get­ting your blog rec­og­nized. Here are a few ideas to get you started:

  • Wel­come new mem­bers as often as possible.
  • Post funny/interesting thoughts in gen­eral discussions.
  • Review mem­ber sub­mit­ted web­sites or projects (where applicable)
  • Post related links and arti­cles in threads.
  • Cre­ate help­ful and inter­est­ing new forum threads.
  • Pro­vide great feed­back and suggestions.

Be care­ful of forums with neg­a­tive rep­u­ta­tion sys­tems. If you make an enemy, your rep­u­ta­tion could be held back by them low­er­ing it. Always try to find forums that go with­out the neg­a­tive rep­u­ta­tion. In addi­tion, never ask for rep­u­ta­tion, or com­plain about being neg­a­tive repped. This is a sure-fire way to lose respect and authority.

Another aspect of gain­ing rep­u­ta­tion is giv­ing it out. Peo­ple love being com­pli­mented and pos­i­tively rep­re­sented, so pos­i­tive rep­ping other mem­bers will make them twice as likely to rep you back. When choos­ing other mem­bers to give rep­u­ta­tion to, try and pick mem­bers who are inter­ested in your niche, and who seem to be reg­u­larly active.

The more rep­u­ta­tion you give out, the more those mem­bers will notice you. Just remem­ber that there is a limit to how much rep­u­ta­tion you can give in an hour, and you don’t want to give it out on a whim. Be gen­uine with your recommendations!

Spe­cial­ize in Your Niche’s Forum Category

If you have a blog about foot­ball, then join sports forums and become a reg­u­lar in the foot­ball cat­e­gory. If you join a forum about foot­ball, then become an expert in the offen­sive or defen­sive cat­e­gories. Always try to become an expert on the board con­tain­ing your website’s niche. If you want to estab­lish your­self, you can try:

  • Cre­at­ing new threads in your niche’s forum.
  • Answer­ing other mem­bers’ questions.
  • Build­ing and expand­ing on dis­cus­sions using your own knowledge.
  • Ask­ing interesting/well thought out questions.
  • Find­ing and shar­ing related arti­cles and links.

Build­ing up posts in a spe­cific cat­e­gory will help you to estab­lish a name for your­self, and will get you rec­og­nized by an audi­ence inter­ested in your blog’s niche. The more you par­tic­i­pate in a par­tic­u­lar forum, the more you will build up your poten­tial cus­tomer base.

Con­sider Your “Cre­ated Threads” Count

Any­one can post on a forum. The mem­bers that get noticed are the ones that cre­ate new and inter­est­ing threads. This shows other mem­bers (and the admin­is­tra­tors) that you’re will­ing to go the extra mile in par­tic­i­pat­ing in the com­mu­nity. Cre­at­ing new threads on forums is a great way to increase your rep­u­ta­tion and recognition.

Be care­ful of how use­ful the threads that you cre­ate are. Mak­ing threads that are ben­e­fi­cial to the entire com­mu­nity will gain you more author­ity than threads that per­tain only to your­self. Some exam­ples of uni­ver­sally help­ful threads are:

  • A recent announce­ment from a major web­site in that forum’s niche.
  • Free resources that might be use­ful to members.
  • An inter­est­ing “what if” scenario.

If you run out of ideas for thread cre­ation, look at other forums in your niche. What threads are most pop­u­lar on those forums? If you find one that hasn’t been posted on the forum you’re active on, then post it your­self. Remem­ber not to cre­ate too many threads at one time, lest you be marked as a spam­mer. It’s also impor­tant to main­tain the threads you cre­ate, reply­ing to other mem­bers com­ments and ques­tions and prompt­ing fur­ther discussion.

Cre­at­ing and main­tain­ing new threads is a fan­tas­tic way to get noticed by the com­mu­nity. In addi­tion, those who view your mem­ber sta­tis­tics will be impressed at your thread count, and will prob­a­bly be inter­ested in vis­it­ing your blog.

Become Friends with the Admins

Forum admin­is­tra­tors are friendly peo­ple, and if you become friends with them, you can gain perks that other mem­bers might not have. Even if you’re a lit­tle bit shy, there’s no rea­son not to leave a “what’s up?” or “great job” mes­sage on the administrator’s pro­file. You can also check to see if they have an instant mes­sag­ing client listed, and attempt to chat with them.

Get­ting to know the admin­is­tra­tor will help you in ways you can’t imag­ine. Admin­is­tra­tors always go to loyal and active mem­bers for favors, and per­form favors in return. Need a quick stum­ble or digg? Ask the forum admin and they’ll be happy to trade with you. Need to get a ser­vice com­pleted? Ask about mem­bers that can help out, and the admin will point you in the right direction.

How­ever, you don’t want to irri­tate the admin­is­tra­tor. If they don’t seem inter­ested in being friends, then move on to a dif­fer­ent forum, or focus on other promotional/beneficial tac­tics. Admin­is­tra­tors have sway over the com­mu­nity, and you don’t want to get one angry. Here are some more ideas for becom­ing friends with the admin­is­tra­tor of a forum:

  • Make small talk — dis­cuss com­mon interests
  • Offer to help with a small task that needs to be done for the forums
  • Talk about projects and the sta­tus of your endeavors
  • Ask them how they’re doing from time to time
  • Be friendly and approachable

Those are the four unusual yet effec­tive ways to adver­tise your blog on forums. While these meth­ods take more time than your aver­age pro­mo­tional method, they come with major benefits.

Photo by Toni Verdú Carbó

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Article by Alex

I'm the 17 year old blogger & designer behind Blogussion. I live in New Jersey (but root for the New England Patriots), and am a Junior in High School. You can check out my rarely updated personal(ish) blog, Asnio, or connect with me on Twitter.

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Zero 2 Hero Blogger July 8, 2009 at 4:20 pm

This is all really good advice, I’ve had alot of success promoting my blog by using forums. 1. people get to know you, and 2. your posts will stick around for a long time with you link in the sig. So it can bring traffic down the road.
Zero 2 Hero Blogger´s last blog ..Project 1 – News Blog

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Alex July 10, 2009 at 3:25 am

It’s great for branding purposes. Forums are really just an extension of the blog comments and increase the chances of creating better relationships.
Alex´s last blog ..Let Me Critique Your Thesis Customization – 30 Days Only

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Nicholas Z. Cardot July 8, 2009 at 6:27 pm

I’ve never actually promoted my blog in a forum but it’s definitely something I’m going to look into. Thanks for the insights here!
Nicholas Z. Cardot´s last blog ..Only 2 Days Remaining: Subscribe Now & Win

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Alex July 10, 2009 at 3:26 am

Oh you have to get into it ASAP. Not only is it a great way to promote, but to meet new people and build new relationships, and even learn new things. My advice: do it ASAP!
Alex´s last blog ..Let Me Critique Your Thesis Customization – 30 Days Only

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HAVOC MARKETING July 8, 2009 at 7:16 pm

Forum marketing works, the only downside is it takes time. Its more of a long-term strategy. Thanks for the great tips.
HAVOC MARKETING´s last blog ..Twitter Traffic Swarm – Get More Free Targeted Traffic From Twitter

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Alex July 10, 2009 at 3:27 am

It does take more time, but I think in some degrees, the results you get are better than blog commenting on a long term basis.
Alex´s last blog ..Let Me Critique Your Thesis Customization – 30 Days Only

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Domains July 8, 2009 at 8:39 pm

Some good advice there. I’ve just started using forums myself to promote my sites. Working pretty well so far.

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Alex July 10, 2009 at 3:27 am

That’s great! What kind of forums do you join?
Alex´s last blog ..Let Me Critique Your Thesis Customization – 30 Days Only

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Seth W July 9, 2009 at 12:37 am

I like participating in forums but have found little promotional benefits unless I am on the right thread and the most relevant forums. I really like DP and Sitepoint.
Seth W´s last blog ..Diving into the Blogging Pool

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Alex July 10, 2009 at 3:27 am

That’s true, and that’s just one reason why I think blog commenting is chosen over forum posting by many people.
Alex´s last blog ..Let Me Critique Your Thesis Customization – 30 Days Only

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Inspirational Thoughts July 9, 2009 at 1:30 am

contrary to other commenters, I believe that forum marketing to be one of the best strategies and quickest way to gain return visitors. You build a relationship with many individuals on the forum which then will click your signature and have a good chance of becoming a regular reader to your blog.
In addition, right next to blog commenting, it is the easiest way to build up backlinks.

One thing that I have noticed when it comes to creating threads is that you’d get more clicks on the ones you’ve created as opposed to being response #8 in a thread with 10 responses.
Inspirational Thoughts´s last blog ..5 Christian Inspirational Speakers You Should Know +1

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Alex July 10, 2009 at 3:30 am

Relationships on forums are much easier to build than blogs, and are definitely more beneficial. Build relationships is a great marketing tactic and, again, way easier to do on forums than blogs!
Alex´s last blog ..Let Me Critique Your Thesis Customization – 30 Days Only

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Tycoon Blogger July 9, 2009 at 2:56 am

That is a good tip to become friends with the admins. Even better, why not become an admin or moderator.
Tycoon Blogger´s last blog ..Top Ten Reasons to use Twittley

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Alex July 10, 2009 at 3:31 am

Sure, but it’s kind of an unrealistic goal on some forums (obviously).
Alex´s last blog ..Let Me Critique Your Thesis Customization – 30 Days Only

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Davey July 9, 2009 at 8:01 am

I really like the ‘Become friends with the admins’. It has helped me a few times before.

But you need to be an active forum member to benefit from these methods. If you only post something once a week, this won’t help a lot.

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Alex July 10, 2009 at 3:32 am

It’s kind of hard to build a good relationship with the admin without seeming like a suck up though, do you agree?
Alex´s last blog ..Let Me Critique Your Thesis Customization – 30 Days Only

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Jake @ How To Easy July 9, 2009 at 3:22 pm

Do you notice getting much traffic to your blog from forum posts? I haven’t seen a whole lot through this technique. Maybe my stat software just isn’t reporting it. I guess the most compelling titles get the click though.
Jake @ How To Easy´s last blog ..How To Save Money on Electric Bills – Heating & Cooling

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Alex July 10, 2009 at 3:32 am

Yes, DigitalPoint is a huge traffic source for the blog here.
Alex´s last blog ..Let Me Critique Your Thesis Customization – 30 Days Only

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James Mann July 13, 2009 at 9:38 am

I used to spend a lot of time on forums, too much time. I knew it and tried to regulate the time spent on forums but I just couldn’t stay away. It was more of social thing I think.

I am all for the social networking but there is a time to draw the line and that is when it is becoming a bigger waste of time than it’s worth and that is what was happening to me.

So what I did was to stop going to forums all together. Perhaps that was a little drastic but I did manage to get back on track with my web sites.

I just needed a little self control and maybe a time limit and only heading to the forums after the rest of my updating is done for the day. :)

I think perhaps I was also spreading myself over too many categories and should have focused more on the categories that were directly related to content on my sites.

Great point about participating on forums that don’t give negative ratings. I didn’t even think about that one.

I have a few forums that I haven’t been to in a year or two, that were very helpful to me when I was starting out. I think I might drop by and see what and who is new.
James Mann´s last blog ..How To Make Money Online With Google Adsense

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Nizam March 2, 2010 at 3:25 pm

I’m quite active on a couple of forums but never thought of promoting my site at the same time. Thanks for the tips Alex!
Nizam´s last blog ..Cartoon: PR Basics

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