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Why You Should Use (Not Abuse) Forums to Increase Your Traffic
Copyright © 2005 Tinu AbayomiPaul
There are dozens of reasons why you should look up the
forums that are related to your market and post to
them often. Here are 3 to get you started.
1- Get to Know Your Market as both an Associate and An
Expert
The research alone is a good enough reason to at least
sign up to some forums and read. Just by reading posts
in forums, you can hear what your market concerns are,
straight from consumers. You'll be able to find what
their pains are - look particularly for frequent
questions that don't appear to have solutions.
For example, if you sell timeshares, and you join
travel communities, you may often hear questions
asking for the best times of year to visit a certain
region or locale. With this information you could
start a section at your site for every listing that
tells the cheapest time to travel for that area, the
best time of year for good weather, and other special
bits of information a traveler might want.
When you're comfortable enough to begin posting, after
watching the conversation for a few days, or perhaps
even a week, you might find that new people have
questions that you can help them with. By consistently
becoming the go-to person, you increase your
credibility as a knowledgeable expert, and people
begin to trust your ability to provide information.
2- Increase Your Site's Visibility With More Targeted
Links Back to Your Site
Many forums are run by hobbyists who aren't so much
concerned with marking money from their visitors, as
having an established community for discourse on
certain issues. These forums will often allow you to
leave a link to your site in every post. The ones that
are open to public viewing for visitors are also
frequently spidered by search engines.
If you set up your link correctly, you'll then have
topical links back to your own forum. Even if the
search engine spiders can't see these links at forums
that can be viewed by registered users only, you will
also find that once you become a part of the
community, other members will click your link out of
curiosity or because they're looking for something
specific that you may have at your site.
Even forums that exist to gain more sales of their own
products often allow you to post your link, especially
if it isn't to a competing site. For example, internet
marketing forums run by people who sell do-it-yourself
SEO products may allow infopreneurs who sell a
different type of product, such as an autoresponder
service, to post their link freely.
The focus here, at all times, is to help other
members, not just to promote your product. Your link
is in your signature, so unless someone asks you a
specific question, you get far better results from
being helpful than you do by posting forum spam that
gets deleted anyway.
3- Lurk, Listen and Learn
If you've been around forums at all, you already know
that there are often 8 to ten times more people
registered and not posting than there are people who
actually visit and participate.
Reading without ever posting is commonly known as
"lurking". I usually suggest that at least for the
first week, you should monitor the community you wish
to join in this way, just reading posts, and learning
the personality of the forum you'd like to post in -
this keeps you from committing any faux pas that might
have you corrected by another member, or even worse,
banned.
Sometimes you'll find a forum that is appropriate to
read, but doesn't seem like the right place for
commercial posting. Or you might find that you're
there to learn and not to teach - or maybe you just
don't have the time to post as you'd like to. You can
still learn a lot by being a lurker.
When lurking in forums, your primary job is to listen
(figuratively speaking) and learn. Again, pay
attention to questions that come up repeatedly over
the course of a month or so. Be on the look out for
rumored product or technology developments. Find out
who is the resident expert - maybe this is the key
person for an interview you want to do, or an
affiliate program you can join.
The most important thing you can learn from this
exercise is what annoyances your market is
experiencing. If you sell cat furniture, and you find
out that a common complaint is availability in remote
markets, maybe you can change your shipping policy to
add international ordering and increase the scope of
your business.
Anywhere you can fit a solution to a problem can bring
you the sales you need. You may find out that you need
to change your product, to enhance it, or perhaps to
take out features your prospects just aren't
interested in.
This is a good solution when you have the time to
visit forums and post or read. As you become more
busy, you'll find yourself at the forums less and less
as a poster, so this isn't necessarily a permanent
solution. However, if you follow these steps
correctly, you'll soon have the traffic to foster more
community relations at your own site as well.
Tinu is a website promotion specialist who posts free
information on a variety of traffic tips in her blog
at http://www.freetraffictip.com .
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