Is Forum Writing Productive?

You either love forums or you hate them! They can be well run and moderated or they can just be rubbish. However they cannot be ignored as a good forum brings in traffic by the ton. So are you wasting your efforts by posting on them or not?

I love forums! Heck I love them so much I now even advise other people how to build and run them.

If you have a website and are struggling for traffic then posting regularly on a good forum can boost your sales and your traffic beyond belief and all for free. Even just posting ten times per day in a forum that is in the same niche as your own website can bring huge amounts of free traffic.

One of the prime reasons for this is the use of your "Signature" box - This enables you to put a keyword back linked phrase to your website, and best of all it is a one way back link, which is just the sort that Google currently loves! So the more you post on forums with your signature linking back to your site, then in effect the more one way back links you are building to your website.

One way back links are notoriously hard to get. Sure you can buy software that allows you to search for blogs related to your keywords and then post comments against them,but most blog owners now manually approve comments, so if you post a spam comment which is clearly just intended to gain nothing more than a back link, then it will be rejected for sure.

So yes forum writing is productive, not only does it build traffic but it builds one way back links as well.

By regularly writing on a popular forum you will become known as an expert on your subject by your peers, and should you decide to launch your own product then you will already have a list of potential buyers "Warmed up" and ready to sell to.

The other beauty of posting on a forum is that you can do it twenty four hours a day, seven days a week. It does not matter where about in the World you are.

If done well writing on forums can actually bring you enough business to give up the day job. Yes it is me that I am talking about. Around about eighteen months ago I threw in the towel on my day job and started to write full time. So yes I would say forum writing can be more than productive!

Reasons Why You Should Promote Your Online Business Through Forums   Earn 1K A Day In a Nutshell   Warrior Forum WSO Timing   The Advantages And Disadvantages Of Having A Forum On Your Website   How to Kick Start a Forum?   Forum Marketing: How to Use Forums to Build Your Online Business   

How to Make Money From Forums

Forums are places where people can get together and exchange information, ask for advice, or offer help to others about particular subjects. They are very useful for conducting research, making professional connections and for just learning in general. Here are some tips for anyone interested in how to make money from forums.

Cultivate Value and Respect

Anyone who runs a forum knows the importance of posting. By posting frequently and informatively, you gain reputation and rank. Often you will have to pay out of pocket for your site's maintenance at first, especially if you choose not to use standard per-click advertising methods for whatever reason, so cultivating a good reputation is very important in how to make money from forums. If people like you and follow you, they will help your site to climb in the page rankings and, eventually, bring in profits.

Be Creative

Sometimes it takes thinking "outside the box" to make money from forums. If your forum is about local soccer, solicit local sporting goods stores, pro or semi-pro leagues, etc., for sponsorships. Offer to write relevant content for other, more successful forums or sites, to gain entry to their forums and build your own reputation. Contact local businesses and offer to sell ad space to them. By cultivating multiple income streams, you will eventually generate enough money in small increments to not only fund the forum or site, but may even make a profit!

Get into the Directories

Rather than relying simply on SEO, getting your site's forum into a directory is another great method for how to make money from forums. Directories like Dmoz and others are clearinghouses for subject-specific forums, and are a very popular way for people to search for forums about the things that interest them. Some of these directories exclude those forums that are ad-heavy or known for spam, so look into them individually. Try to find directories that specialize in your particular area of interest to ensure targeted traffic.

Get Affiliated

By partnering with other sites or by joining an affiliate network you can substantially increase the possibility of making money from your forum. Product promotion should be relevant to your forum's content, and always make sure that the network or other sites that you partner up with are reputable. Essentially, you are allowing them to advertise on your pages, and vice-versa, with the ultimate goal of more click-through to purchases-and profit. This is how to make money from forums without a lot of work on your part.

Create Paid Advertisement Sections

Many of the top forums are currently turning over hundreds of thousands of dollars a year, simply through paid advertisement sections. This can include employment opportunities, products or services available, classified listings and more. This really only works well when you have a lot of members who know they will get value for money by advertising.

You can quickly see how to make money from forums, with the multiple venues that are available. More traffic brings more opportunities for earnings, whether it is via per-click ads, sponsorships, affiliate programs or other revenue streams.

Reasons Why You Should Promote Your Online Business Through Forums   Earn 1K A Day In a Nutshell   Warrior Forum WSO Timing   Who Wants to Make $100 a Day Online? How to Use Forum Posting to Make Money Online   Forums Are Great Websites For Sharing Ideas, Opinions, and Information About Specific Subjects   

Conversing in the Usenet Talk Hierarchy

If you're accustomed to chatting on Internet forums, you may want to consider what Usenet has to offer. Internet forums are very popular but, in many regards, they tend to be harder to find, more narrow in terms of subject matter and far less competently moderated than many Usenet newsgroups. Usenet has several different hierarchies under which the various newsgroups are classified. Talk is one of the most popular and one of the 8 hierarchies that most servers offer their subscribers. This category has a huge number of newsgroups within it.

Usenet requires that you use a newsreader to read and post. This is a special piece of software that is oftentimes free. The interface is text, but the posts can carry attachments. This format is not at all distracting and, because the newsreader is required, it tends to appeal to people who are willing to put the time in to learn a new networking technology so that they can enjoy a higher quality of conversation. Usenet has been around since the 70s, and there are quite a few very qualified people who make use of this service to have conversations.

In the talk newsgroups, you're very likely to meet a lot of experts in the subjects being discussed. Usenet has its roots in the academic world and has always drawn people from that world among its users. The hierarchies are also approved-in the cases of the Big 8-which means that there was adequate interest in the subject of the newsgroup to justify its existence. On the Internet, the posters tend to be quite random. Anyone with the time to make an account can post on an Internet forum. The talk forums on Usenet tend to draw a crowd that's far less random.

There are a huge number of categories on the talk hierarchy. Some of them include lively political debates and some of them are very laid-back chat. If you're on a server with a long retention period, you'll be able to go back through conversations that took place over a long time period. The newsgroups, unlike most forums, are actually good sources of information, in many regards, because the users of this service tend to be better-informed about what they're talking about. Also unlike forums, some newsgroups are very actively moderated and posts with bad information are oftentimes removed.

Reasons Why You Should Promote Your Online Business Through Forums   Earn 1K A Day In a Nutshell   Warrior Forum WSO Timing   How to Kick Start a Forum?   Are You Afraid to Spend the Money on a Membership Site?   Internet Uniting Expats and Immigrants Worldwide   

Creating A Forum

Do you have a great idea for a forum, but are not sure how to go about creating one. Well building a forum is easy in one way but very hard work to get up and running if you are not careful.

Now forums are great for building repeat traffic and with repeat traffic you should start earning some real money over a period of time. But many forums come and go, as the fact is that you may have the best idea in the World for one, you may hit upon the latest hot to have niche, and you may build a great looking site and have laser focussed forum topics, but then you get nobody signing up or posting and in the end you just give up.

Building the front end of your forum is the easy bit, no really it is, now "Creating a forum" is where the skill comes in.

Your forum needs a good look to it for sure, but it also needs to load fast, and be easy to navigate. You also need to make it as easy as possible for people to register, yet at the same time you need to make it hard for autospam bots to register. If you do not stop the autospam bots at the start, then you will spend most evenings and mornings just moderating spam and deleting fake users. In the end if unchecked this will make you feel like giving up, and many do, that is the reason why creating a good forum is such hard work.

Now if you have had the sense to get good anti-spam measures in place then the next thing you need to be concentrating on is getting posts and threads up on your forum. It is so simple, the more people post, the more people post! A circular argument but one that is so true.

Creating a good forum is very much down to the quality of the posts you have on it. If you have a load of junk on your forum then people simply will not sign up, so you need to keep your forum well moderated at all times.

Getting people to post when they join can also be an issue, with many forums seeing only one in ten people that sign up actually posting on the forum. Crazy but true. So in an ideal world you need a few friends to get your forum up and running, or use the services of a professional to help build your forum.

Reasons Why You Should Promote Your Online Business Through Forums   Earn 1K A Day In a Nutshell   Warrior Forum WSO Timing   How to Kick Start a Forum?   Internet Uniting Expats and Immigrants Worldwide   

Forum Boost

Have you just started a new forum, but are fed up that your board looks empty and that nobody is signing up to your forum even though it looks great and you have picked a great niche to run it in. If this sounds like you then it maybe that you need a forum boost.

So what is a forum boost or forum boosting as you may have heard it called?

Well forum boosting is whereby you pay someone to help get your message board off of the ground. You can spend as much or as little money as you like to do this. It really does have some great benefits: -

Your forum will rapidly be populated

It will look "Busy" as a result more people will join up

The more people post, the more people will join and post, it really is that simple

You will buy a guaranteed number of threads and posts.

It really will kick start your empty forum into life.

To start with you may think "Well I can just post myself under several different names" - Well that is true, but on average you will have to have posted well over a thousand times or more before your forum becomes self sufficient e.g. new people start joining and posting. This can take a lot of time, and if you are working full time budget on doing around fifty posts per evening.

Clearly it will take you some time to reach the number of posts I mentioned before you forum becomes self sufficient. On top of this you will need to budget for at least an hour a day to moderate the forum and keep it spam free.

Many people start out building up their own threads and post before realising the benefits of using a forum booster. With most companies you can take out a "Trial Boost" which you can use to test the water and check out the quality of the companies posting capabilities. Typically these packages offer a boost of two new threads and ten new posts. If you try one of these and they go well then you might consider a much large package of 100,200 or even 500 posts to really get your forum off to a flying start.

If you use Google AdSense on your forum, the long term revenue will far outweigh the cost of paying for a forum boosting service at the outset.

Reasons Why You Should Promote Your Online Business Through Forums   Earn 1K A Day In a Nutshell   Warrior Forum WSO Timing   How to Kick Start a Forum?   Internet Uniting Expats and Immigrants Worldwide   Forum Marketing: How to Use Forums to Build Your Online Business   

How To Find The Best Forums For Promoting Your Site

We all know how important posting & commenting on forums is to your presence online and the growth of your business - but I hear you ask 'which forums are worth the time?' and it's a good and very important question which I plan in some part to help answer today - so here we go...

Finding The RIGHT Ones

If you already understand the importance of using forums for back links, then you are probably wondering where you can find out more about which forums to join. In any given niche, there are far more out there than any one person can join. First of all, here is a website that can help you. Google big-boards.com as a starting point

At the Big Boards website, you can discover some of the most popular forums in your particular niche. When you first arrive at the website, you will see three major sections. The top part allows you to simply search. That is normally the easiest way to find what you're looking for. However, there is a directory underneath the search box. If you would rather browse, you might find some forums that you never knew existed. If that's not enough for you, the third section shows you some of the most popular forums on the Internet. You can sort the entire list by many different filters.

Relevancy Is Key Here

Let's suppose you have a website about pregnancy. You may see pregnancy in one of the categories. If you were to click on it, you would be taken to a list of the most popular forums. Next, click on the drop-down box that says, "Sort by..." Then, choose the option that says "members." You may need to look at other information about the forum before you choose to join it. In this example, the most popular forum is in China. You can pay attention to the flags to see which country they represent. However, the second example is in English. It has over 200,000 members. That would be a good place to start!

How To Check Forums For Quality

Also, you may want to click the drop-down box again. This time, select the option that says, "Alexa Ranking." Alexa is a company that ranks websites according to popularity. This is usually an indicator of how authoritative or trustworthy the website will be. It's also a good indicator of the quality of back links you'll enjoy. So go ahead and do that. Then, see which forums pop up. They may be different. The ones towards the top are usually your best choices.

By joining forums with both a high degree of members and a high Alexa ranking, the quality of back links will be better. Additionally, the information you exchange can help you. That's not to say that you should always choose forums with the most members. Some forums can have higher quality links because they are more selective about membership. You will need to take the time to visit the forum website and see it for yourself.

I mentioned Big Boards, but you can also just do a search in Google's "forum search." It doesn't give you the detailed forum statistics or anything else, but you can pretty much bet that the ones that come up at the top are the ones Google likes best.

Key Point Here. Join as many forums as you've got time to monitor. Get into a steady routine of spending a certain amount of time each day or making a set number of posts each week. Interact naturally, and you'll start to see traffic from your efforts.

Reasons Why You Should Promote Your Online Business Through Forums   Earn 1K A Day In a Nutshell   Warrior Forum WSO Timing   Internet Uniting Expats and Immigrants Worldwide