Effective Forum Posting Rules led me to 2739 visitors monthly from Forums
You see everyone preaching about blog comments. Today I am going to tell you something that I have been doing for a while. I have been forum posting on a few forums. In some more actively than others. Well in the course of my posting, I realized that my forum posting has actually turned out very well. Not only I am helping others, I am increasing the traffic to my site. I am increasing the number of loyal subscribers.
Now on average I am getting 2739 visitors monthly from Forums!
That is a big accomplishment in my opinion. I think the only reason I got this traffic was because I was being real in forums. I was not trying to make up posts, I was not trying to obsessively link to my own sites. I was simply trying to be helpful. In this post I will step by step guide you through the process of forum posting and getting traffic. I will show you exactly what I did and how I did it.
1) Picking the Forums
You would think that you can comment on any forum and get alot of traffic. Well NO! You will only get traffic from forums that are related to your blog’s niche. This plays an important role in the results that you will get. Do not limit yourself to the top forums. Try to get exposure in smaller forums because there your effort will be highlighted. The advantage of smaller forums are that they are more targetted, and there are only so many users. They will bound to check your website out, but in larger forums sometimes your website along with posts get ignored.
You must remember that you should only pick the forum that have interesting categories for you. Place where you think you can write genuinely. A place where you don’t have a problem sharing your opinion. I personally chose to post at a few forums. Because this way I can be active in these communities.
2) Picking a Username
I think a good username can get you better credibility and exposure. Be original with your nicknames. Use the name that you have been using on all forums. Avoid using your website or blog name. Because then if you link to your own website multiple times, then you would be considered a spammer. And even if you don’t link to your websites, majority of the time people won’t consider you an authority figure in my opinion. So go with something generic. I usually take “smub” because that is my initials. Syed MoizUddin Balkhi. Short and simple.
3) Pick Categories
Often times you would see forums with alot of categories. They will have General Chat, and other BS Categories. My knowledge is in Blogging, SEO, Web Design, and Templates, so I will be in those sections. Reason because that is where most of my audience is. So in forums like digitalpoint, I limited myself to these sections. This way I can get more targetted visitors to my website.
4) Posting and Linking
Mostly, the threads I was posting were support posts, so this way the user on the forum knew that I care. They were checking my website out left and right. Since I stayed under my specialty area, I knew what I am talking about. I was able to help the users and this way they came to my website searching for more help or tutorials. If the question is something that I have already answered on my blog, I would link my post occassionally because if you do this heavily then you will get infarctions. I recieved a few of those in my process of learning. The solution to those were you link to a social media page where your post was. So indirectly you are sending the users to your website.
Another thing I did was I linked to the guest posts that I have made on other blogs. This was also sending the visitors to my site indirectly, and it was raising my reputation in the eyes of the other blogger whose site I blogged on because I wrote good content.
You should also use every opportunity where you can link to your social profile like twitter or some other network. Because this way you will get more followers and users will indirectly come to your website.
The important part that you guys should not miss is that all posts must be helpful. They must raise the level of communication. If someone has already answered the question, and you have nothing better to add, don’t go and repeat the person because that is the most annoying thing you can do in my opinion.
5) Forum Signatures and Avatars
Most people don’t know how to use forum signatures effectively. Why? Because they link to their homepage. Yeah that is ok and is acceptable, but highlight your content also. If you have a post that you think will attract new users, then post that in your signature. I have a post that attracts audiences from so many different sources, 13 ways I promoted my blog to success. I usually link this in my signature.
A problem you would face doing this is that there are character limits in signatures. How can you fit these long urls. This is why url shorterning services are here. You use these url shorterning services to make your url shortest possible. Then you link them. This way you can have more posts in the signature. Remember when the user checks one of your post, they will most likely check the homepage if they find the post interesting.
Next thing is avatars. You don’t necessarily have to have a brandable avatar. Brandable one is nice to have. Don’t put your url all over it. Make it eye friendly. Don’t make it bright red thinking it will stick out because it looks really freaking spammy. Use your avatar well.
You do this process for a time period of 3 months and you watch your traffic grow like crazy. You might be wondering why I hid the link to wordpress support forum. Because this post is ranked really high, and I love the traffic I am getting hehe. I don’t want to share that.
Another thing you might notice about my stats is one is coming from Darren Rowse’s 31 Day Build a Better Blog Challenge Forum. It has only been 12 days since the challenge has started and even lesser than that since the forum has been officially launched. I have recieved 157 visitors as we are speaking, numerous twitter followers and alot more contacts. I recommend you all to join. This is a perfect example of how 7 days of posting got me 157 visitors from a small forum.
If you like this post feel free to share it, digg it, stumble it, tweet it, and most of all share your opinion on forum posting.
Hey, I am Syed Balkhi, The guy who is behind Balkhis Inc. I entered the industry back in 2002 not knowing a single thing. I barely spoke English at that time. In the past six years, my language barrier has been eliminated. Aside from English, now I also speak html, and php. Along with the languages I have also managed to master a few arts. Art of web-designing started when I first entered. Messing around with photoshop, I learned how to create my first web design. Now I founded a web designing firm Uzzz Productions. After running numerous amount of websites in various niche, I have mastered the art of web-development. Now I am compiling a resource of what I already know, and what I am learning on this blog. This resource is to help me if I ever need a guide to look back to, and it is help my fellow webmasters.
its a great information.2739 visitors coming monthly from forum.it a good news.now i will use forum…its good idea.thanks
I am currently slowly working my way back into forum marketing because it really does work
nice stats!
Excellent advise Syed. I am yet to start posting on forums but intend to shortly. My main problem is availability of time.
You have to have a little bit of everything. Can’t ignore blog commenting even though you find better use with forums. I know some people who would just post in every forums even when they are not related to the person’s niche just for the signature link. For username, I just pick the same one I use for Twitter. Some people just put the url of their site as the signature instead of taking advantage of anchor texts for relevant keywords to the site. Some forums won’t allow you to use shortening url services because some people hide affiliate links.
I’ve posted on forums on the past and haven’t has a great of a result, but I guess it really just has to depend on the forum itself..I found that the more mainstream the topic for the forum, the more visitors I got from the forum..
Great advice it all makes a lot of sense.
Just a couple of questions though:
1. You said “The solution to those were you link to a social media page where your post was.” I was wondering wich SM services you use?
2. You mentioned url shortening services, wouldn’t using the affect your seo?
I used, Digg Pages, Mixx Pages, and Reddit story pages.
The goal of this is to increase your traffic. If SEO is coming, then yay but the potential of the visitor converting into a reader and then linking to you from their blog is a better way of indirect seo rather than risking your chance of getting banned from the forum…
This is very helpful. It is important that you follow what is required in posting.
Very good and reasonable tips
Sometimes it can be hard to find a right forum. Especially for a person that does fundraising. However finding a place to increase my SEO, site traffic, and making your site more productive there are a plenty of.
well my forum stats were great as well but they were not as consistent as yours. it fluctuates from time to time. I would like to add the fact that one has to be careful when promoting through forums. Make sure to add value because if they find you annoying then they might tune you out which will do more harm for you and your blog.
Very true Melvin, if you don’t provide value to the forum then you will end up in getting toned out.
I have only used forums for backlinks to my main site, I haven’t thought about actually driving that many visitors. Thanks for the tip!
Nice reminder surely. Forums are older then posts, and this method of gaining visitors is nothing new, but it is good so see it as some people have forgotten it surely, because of blog comments popularity.
Wow! I haven’t known that participating in forums could bring so much visitors. What about the time? How long does it usually takes to read and write there each day?
You don’t have to be making 25 posts a day to get this much traffic. 3 good posts a day would be fine. Now each person have their own speed, so it varies.
I have experimented forums before, as I was a forum moderator myself, great ideas in your post Syed
I use the webmaster forum at DigitalPoint to promote my blog a lot. And it works great, we get probably the most traffic from forums than anywhere else. Forum marketing is something you CANNOT miss out on!
Wow Syed, 2700+ visitors/month? That’s really really great! Too bad I dont really use forums that much, maybe I should start now then
Thanks for showing us the specific forum where your traffic comes from
Cheers,
Meg
Nice work. I’ve been having some success with this too but I’ve never got more than a 1000 visitors in a month. However I only really go to two forums consistently. I guess you show that I could do better.
I think focusing on better service and helping others might be a good idea.
I noticed that when I wrote longer and more high quality replies, more people started clicking my signature. (As opposed to the methodology of posting millions of times.)
-Joe
how do you keep track of the stats?
AWStats and Analytics…
I’ve seen a lot of benefits from forums as well. If you can help someone and if you are constantly participating with some input, then you are very likely to get traffic from forums. And these traffic will be very good one.
These tips are simply great for forum etiquette and strategies.
I may have to find a few relevant forums.
The article is really very helpful, i will definitely use it to promote my website.
Thanks a lot
Excellent post. I have found using the forums to be a very effective traffic technique, just be careful not to spam!
The tips seem to be very practical and proved by your experience.
It is true. You can generate some nice traffic from forums. But this is as long as you are posting regularly and you are not spamming the members.
Wow!
So good to read this! For me it was not an eye opener, as i already knew that posting ‘real’ posts on forums could eventually increas traffic to your own website. But this article pushed me really to go work on it more!
Excellent article! I hate it when I’m in a forum and someone responds with some gibberish, especially when they can’t even put it in the right category.
Awesome post you always provide effective technique and tools. It is a big problem of us but now it will remove. Thanks Buddy.
Now I begin to see the effect of posting in forums,I am happy to have used your great experience and got a result.
[...] I will definitely get more active in forums because forums in webmaster industry has a lot of new users joining every day looking for help. That is how they learn, but if you facilitate their learning experience, and help them out, they will be more than likely to stick around to your website and follow you wherever you go. That is how you build the most loyal readership. Read how to use forums effectively and maximize your benefits. [...]
Thanks for making such nice comment for this post. keep in touch.
Wow, that’s a great article. Th best thing about traffic from forums is that the traffic is usually REALLY targeted and is easily convertible. Although I found some forums here which I could’ve never thought of getting traffic from, for example : problogger and wordpress. Kudos to you man!
I never thought picking certain user name’s with certain signatures really mattered.
I do think there is a lot to be said for not trying too hard. Sometimes just trying to help others can in turn come back and help you as well. I guess it would feel like you were taking a break as well, but really it is doing you some good at the same time
Sweet article. I don’t get many visitors from digital point but I’m gonna start interacting more and trying what you said in this article.
Thanks
I am a newbie to this forum site. I hope you guys help me always if I fall in trouble. And I’m really happy to join with you. Pls share your valuable tips and tricks with me.
I’ve just seen SEO benefits from foruns, haven’t seen big traffic yet. Thanks fot the tips.
I read this post again and again trying to find something very important and I feel very thankful for the experience I get and the results those I see.
Yes, you did receive visitors but it’s a lot of work for such little reward.
Sandra Dalene VanAlstine – Wanted to introduce myself
Thanks
Sandra Dalene VanAlstine
Nice advice its a good idea.