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.
The Discussion
Leave a Comment Read Again?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 =-.
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 =-.
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 =-.
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 =-.
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 =-.
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 =-.
Some good advice there. I’ve just started using forums myself to promote my sites. Working pretty well so far.
That’s great! What kind of forums do you join?
.-= Alex´s last blog ..Let Me Critique Your Thesis Customization – 30 Days Only =-.
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 =-.
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 =-.
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 =-.
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 =-.
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 =-.
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 =-.
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.
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 =-.
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 =-.
Yes, DigitalPoint is a huge traffic source for the blog here.
.-= Alex´s last blog ..Let Me Critique Your Thesis Customization – 30 Days Only =-.
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 =-.
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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O nice overview of blogging,i want to add a little bit
I know a lot of people and myself too who after a week of posting get sniffed of and want to have an easy way of posting plus to seo your blog is another tuff job to do,for all those beginners out there i want to advise them to use an auto blog posting software by using which they can post content to their blogs and can post their blogs to blog directories easily,the most versatile and easy to use which i am using is a free blog poster available at http://www.massblogposter.com
I like what you are doing i would appreciate if you email me we discuss a similiar project
Very interesting article, I hope these tips will help my photography blog to grow. Thanks
Blog forums has always been one of the better ways to achieve traffic to my sites, the longer your with them the more the community gets to know you and they get curious to see what you have on those signature.
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