How to Create a Website With a Successful Forum

Adding a forum to your website is a great way to have your visitors participate and communicate with you. But simply adding a forum isn't enough, we are going to help you create a forum that is both useful and successful.

Website forums are an excellent way to invite users to participate in your website. Having a strong community can also make for a valuable marketing platform, generate content and can also be used to spread the word about other services or specials your website is offering. Creating a forum is not as difficult as it may sound; all you need to do is spend a little time each week participating in your forum and create a pleasant space where your visitors feel comfortable. Below are some design tips that can help make your forum an important and successful part of your website.

Create an attractive design. The way your forum looks and feels will impact how your visitors and member see you. The more engaging, professional and customized your forum design is the more likely it is to attract new visitors and entice them to join and participate. Ensure that the look of your forum is appropriate for the type of community that is participating.

Make it easy to use. When designing your forum it is important that it is easy for participants to create new topics, access existing threads and navigate in general. To make creating topics easier for users minimizing the number of topic areas is suggested. Doing this will reduce the amount of time you will have to spend moving threads to the proper locations. Provide participants with generalized topic areas where they can easily participate.

Generate content. Generating content can be done by simply creating new threads to help the conversations thrive. You can also connect your forum to blog topics or a news feed that can be found on your website.

Promote your forum. You can promote your forum by participating or linking it to conversations that you may be a part of on social media sites. Being an active member on other forums is a great way to drive traffic to the forum on your website. This will also help your company seem more approachable by people who may not be familiar with you or your services.

Maintain a level of maturity. Forums may get out of hand by members posting negative or inappropriate comments on a thread. To avoid this it is important that you or someone else constantly moderate and maintain the level of respect you want your forum to have.

A forum is an excellent website tool to utilize. It offers members a chance to get to see the personal side of your business and not just see you as a website without a real person behind it. Forums can help generate participation and get your website some much needed attention.

7 Steps to Effective Forum Marketing

Forum Marketing for Being Social

With the push in social media these days, it seems like all anyone is talking about is Twitter this and Facebook over here. Don't get me wrong, while these are very effective ways of communicating with an audience, but there are still hundreds of other ways of connecting with a targeted group of like-minded people.

One of those ways is forum marketing. No, forum marketing is not dead. And yes, there are right ways and wrong ways of using forums as marketing platforms.

Marketing Yourself on Forums

Do you notice how some people have post counts in thousands and they are still there, day-in and day-out contributing to the conversations and answering questions...

Why? Because they give and discovered they get something in return.

Here are 7 steps to using forums marketing effectively:

1. Create accounts only at the ones you think you will participate in. It's a waste of time to register on 10 different forums - there aren't enough hours in the day to participate in them all.

2. Fill in all the blanks - if there's a space for your website address, put it there. Facebook and other social networks? Put those in as well. You want other forum members to be able to get in touch with you, in the way that's easiest for them.

3. Put a picture in your profile. People like to see who you are. Forums are about connecting and your smiling face is a great way to put a face with the name. Plus the default gravatars are just plain ugly.

4. Put a link in your signature file. This is a huge benefit to other forums members - if they like and can relate to your response or your comment, a sig link gives them a place to find out more about you. Some forums require a certain number of posts before you can add links, so check and see how much you need to contribute before you get that coveted link.

5. Introduce yourself. Try to find a thread for introductions or new members - if there's not one just put it in the general forum. Say hi; tell them why you're there, what you are doing in your niche. Introductions are a great way to get your name and face out there initially.

6. Before posting all over the place, take some time to get to know how that forum works - is it really well moderated? Is there lots of activity? Are there several sections for posting? If it's an active forum, chances are, you can hop right in and contribute to something. Remember, forum marketing is a technique, not a shortcut!

7. A longer response is better than a short one. This is a secret tip from me - it seems I get more interaction when my response is a longer response than just a simple answer to their question. Definitely answer the question, but include proof or why it works or how you used it successfully as well. Plus, you'll stand out from all the short, one-sentence responders.

Forum marketing is not a do it once and forget it technique. It requires interaction and a genuine desire to help others.

But, combined with other increase website traffic techniques and lots of consistency, you will see a boost in the targeted traffic to your site.

Using Forum Marketing To Grow Your Business

We are social beings by nature, and forums have become very popular social communities where like minded people gather to share their thoughts, ideas and strategies. Whilst many people join online communities specifically for social benefits, there are also professionals online who see the huge potential in forum marketing.

Personally, I join and interact on forums because it gives me a chance to promote my business through a signature link at the bottom of each valuable post I write. Others use forums just to gain a back-link to their website from their signature, and then there are people who are just starting out in the internet marketing business who are looking for advice and tips on which direction they should be heading in.

Okay, let's take a look why forums are powerful for online business owners...

1) Forum Marketing- Building On Your Existing Knowledge:

Whether you're a seasoned marketer or a newbie, conversing and participating on online forums can be very valuable for the future growth of your business. Well respected forums have a lot of valuable content shared by many different marketers who approach their business from completely different mindsets. I have learned a lot over the years just from reading other posts left by like minded people in the same industry as myself. While this may not be seen as direct forum marketing, it has helped my online business grow immensely through the years.

You can pick up some great little tips & tricks just by browsing through the popular categories of a forum, but be warned, there are also a lot of bad habits you can pick up from internet marketers who have no real clue as to how to run an online business. What I really like about forums is that there are many different viewpoints shared by successful entrepreneurs, and when a conversation erupts into a full blown debate about what are the best strategies to run a business, you will begin to see who are the experts and who are the opportunity seekers very quickly.

Opportunity seekers are the ones who give advice on how to make "quick cash" online, where the seasoned business experts will highlight the importance of creating a long-term business plan that is sustainable over time. You can pick up some great little nuggets of gold from both parties.

When joining a forum with the sole purpose of learning about your industry, I suggest you take a close look at who is doing the posting, what their strategies are, and what their goal of posting is.

Learn to distinguish from the people who actually work to provide value, and weed out the ones who simply post on forums to gain a back-link to their website, or simply just to promote their online services. Marketers who post to provide value are the ones I pay attention to. I don't trust the ones who are just posting to promote their business. This is ineffective forum marketing and I'd much rather ignore what they have to say.

I like to take notes when I go onto popular forums and I also like to write down the names of members who seem to have a strong presence on the forum. I then go through their previous posts to dig a little deeper into their overall business strategies.

You can learn a lot from these people and if you are impressed by their approach to online marketing, you can follow their posts and get to know them a little better each time you visit. Maybe I will even send a private message after a short while asking for specific answers to questions I feel they would have extensive knowledge in. This approach is very valuable and you can build valuable relationships with knowledgeable folk over time.

2) Forum Marketing- Marketing Your Online Business:

Forums are great place to promote your brand, products and services to targeted people within your niche. I use forums for many different reasons but my main reason is for promotional purposes. I have quite a bit of knowledge in the internet marketing industry and I would like to promote what I have to offer to that particular market...what better place than where these people hang out every day?

A simple little signature profile at the bottom of your posts can bring in a lot of traffic over time to your service, providing you give value to the forum that is. I have seen forum posters leave one sentence posts in an attempt to get their signature file on many threads within the forum. This is a complete waste of time and will drive very little, if any, visitors to your web space. Adding little to no value to a forum is a waste of your time, and a waste of the forums capabilities of helping you with your online presence.

If you go to the most popular internet marketing forum that exists on the net today, you will see many well known people adding consistent value to that forum. These marketers know exactly what they are doing and the reap the benefits tenfold.

Alexa Smith is a regular poster on the warrior forum and she provides incredible value to participants of that forum on a consistent basis. Alexa has marketers, and "would be" marketers, hanging onto her every word. If she decided tomorrow to launch a product within the warrior forum, she would make a boat load of cash overnight, simply because she provides valuable information every post she writes or responds too. This is how forum marketing is done effectively.

The key to making forum presence work for you is to provide as much value to the members on that forum on a consistent basis. Joining forums with the purpose of promoting your service is short sighted, your number 1 goal is to provide as much valuable advice as possible to the members.

After a short while you will notice a lot of people coming to your website from clicking on your signature link. If someone on a forum provided me with great advice on a particular question I had, I would absolutely click on the link in their signature...who wouldn't? Even if I didn't ask a question in the forum but got some great tip from a fellow marketer by reading other threads that I have no posts in, I would still click through to their service regardless. Remember also, your valuable posts will be on the forum for a very long time, so you can have consistent exposure to your business providing you regularly give value.

Conclusion:

There are many ways to promote your business online, and you should be using a mixture of them all to create an online presence that reaches far out across the whole world wide web. Forums are just one of the ways to do this, but they can be very powerful if approached in the right way.

Years ago I would have used forums to gain a back-link to my website, these days however, I approach this with a much more targeted goal in mind. Back-links are of course very valuable for search engine traffic, but not as powerful as bringing targeted traffic straight to you service or product. I participate in 5 forums related to the niche I'm in, and I spend at least an hour each day providing value in each of these forums.

Not all traffic is equal, so it's important to go where your target market is already hanging out. Forums have dramatically helped me promote my business and will continue to do so for many years to come as long as I consistently use these communities to provide value to it's members.

I also learn a lot from forums by conversing with experts in the internet marketing field I am passionate about. Don't underestimate the value of participating in high traffic forums...the value they can bring to your business is immense, as long as you use them to market your business in the proper manner.Forum marketing is one of my favorite free sources of traffic and it works wonderfully well if used in the right way.

What Is the USENET Death Penalty?

Contrary to what some spammers might think, online communication is a world where you can be held responsible for what you do. The USENET Death Penalty is the most severe penalty that any user of this newsgroup can face, just as the name implies.

Spammers are huge problems for just about every network form of communication currently in use. Even though the spammers are the heart of the problem, they are not the only problem. In fact, without ISPs that have sloppy policies regarding filtering out spammers, the spammers would not be able to do what they do. It is an example of people fighting back against the spammers that make networked communications miserable sometimes.

How it Works

If you were an ISP or an individual user that posted spam on newsgroups regularly, you would be contacted by the moderators of the groups and, eventually, by the server administrators. In fact, they would contact you several times to ask you to remedy the problem and to cease and desist posting spam on any of the USENET newsgroups that the server hosted. At a certain point, the administrators of the servers and the moderators of the newsgroups would get fed up. If they didn't hear from you and if the problem persisted, they would pursue the USE-NET Death Penalty as a remedy.

If somebody is served the USENET Death Penalty, there are basically three ways that it can happen. The most severe incarnation of the USE-NET Penalty is called an Active USENET Death Penalty. In this instance, anything posted by the ISP or the offending individual will be automatically canceled. A passive USE-NET Death Penalty is not quite as severe. The posts made by the offending ISP or individual will not be canceled but they will not be propagated further along the system, either. If you get served with a partial, it means that certain newsgroups will no longer allow you to post on them but that you will still be able to use the USENET system.

Is this Arbitrary?

Enforcing a USENET Death Penalty on an ISP or user is neither arbitrary nor selective in terms of the size of the organizations threatened with them. Some of the largest ISPs in the world have been threatened with the USE-NET Death Penalty, including America Online and CompuServe. These ISPs were found to be the sources of a flood of spam newsgroup postings and, because of that, the USENET system threatened them with being completely excluded from the system.

Even though it doesn't sound as severe as the other two incarnations of the USENET Death Penalty, you need to take any notice that you are about to be served with a partial USE-NET Penalty very seriously. If somebody intends to ban you from a newsgroup, it's unlikely that you'll ever be allowed back into it if you don't take any action. Be reasonable and listen to the complaints that you are receiving. In some cases, you may not even realize that you are spamming a newsgroup and, if this is the case, most moderators are very reasonable, as long as you talk to them about the issue.

Building Big Forums: Advanced Forum Building Tips

Once your forum has been officially launched and is open for discussion, it's time to focus on the day to day promotion and continued growth of the community. Below are a collection of proven marketing tips leading forum operators recommend for growing a robust discussion community. Some suggestions will bear fruit right away, others will take time:

Rule number 1: Never pass up free advertising. If you're a member of other forums that have "Advertise your Site" sections, don't hesitate to post links back to your forum. Submit your forum URL to the big search engines. While obvious, many seasoned forum operators fail to do this. This is a mistake. Search engines love forums for their volumes of rich content and ease of indexing. Google, Bing, Yahoo!, and Ask.com are the largest. Get your forum listed with all the top forum directories. Start with your host's directory (for hosted forums) and continue with independent directories which can be found with a Google search. Don't forget Twitter: Whether or not you have your own Twitter page, you can still use Twitters' search feature to find discussions relating to your main forum topic: Engage in these discussion and invite people to join the conversation at your forum. Be careful not to spam! Create a Facebook group. If you're like most of us and already have a Facebook page, you can create a separate Facebook group based on common (forum related) interests and invite those folks to continue the discussion back at your forum. Post in relevant, high PageRank venues: Blogs, forums and a variety of other online communities are generally appreciative of thoughtful contributions and can be a great opportunity to direct visitors to your forum. If the community's publisher allows it, include a signature file in your posts with a link back to your discussion board. Remember, self promotion is acceptable but only if you are on-topic and have proven yourself as a contributor to the discussion.

While employing some or all of these strategies doesn't guarantee instant success, not using them may hinder the growth of your discussion community. Let's take a look at a few additional suggestions to promote interest in your forum:

Include a signature link to your forum site in every correspondence you send so that more people can be made aware of your forum; while this practice is obvious, is does sometimes get overlooked. Also, make sure to put a link to your discussion board in the signature of all your email accounts. Ask members to lend a hand. If you have engaged, dedicated members in your forum, ask them to assist with promotions. Further, ask them to extend an invite to friends that might be interested in joining the discussion. Invite an expert: Once your forum has momentum, consider inviting an expert in your niche to contribute to your forum. Consider trading links with webmasters in your niche who don't have a forum of their own. This can benefit both of your websites with additional, relevant traffic.

With that said, stay tuned for the next installment in our series on building a successful, self sustaining forum where we'll present tips, tactics and strategies for moderating a harmonious community. As a reminder, a collection of basic suggestions for setting up and launching your forum can be found in our previous article. Thanks for reading!

Forum Marketing Can Build Your Business in 4 Steps

I was recently on a webinar with one of my mentors on the subject of Forum Marketing. What I came away from the webinar with were 4 step by step tips you can use to build a successful business using Forum Marketing.

1. Pick A Niche

First thing you have to do is to figure out what your niche/ market is going to be.

After you decide what your niche is going to be you must then research that niche to make sure you have a profitable niche.

You can do that by going to Google.com and searching for keyword tools in the search bar. This will give you a number of different keyword tools once you have selected a keyword tool.

Put your niches keywords into the tools search bar and this will give you the number of times your keywords were searched helping you decide if you niche is profitable or not.

2. Get an Affiliate Link

Get an Affiliate Link which means get a link to what you're promoting. You can do this one of two ways you can create a product to promote if you don't have your own product you can promote someone else's product.

Once you have decided on a product to promote your next step is to choose whether you're going to send traffic straight to your product link or are you going to send traffic to a squeeze page (this is recommended).

A Squeeze page is a page where you send traffic to and your prospect can opt-in (give you their name and email). The reason you want to have your prospects opt-in is so you can build your list so that you have prospects to promote to on a continuing basis and it's not a onetime deal.

If you don't how to create a squeeze page you can Google it or go on YouTube there should be lots of resources to show you how to create a squeeze page.

3. Find Forums

So now you have decided on a niche and you have your affiliate link. The next step in the process is to find forums or discussion group related to your niche.

How do you know where to find forums in your niche? Go to Google.com and search your niche+ forums or your niche+ discussion groups. This will give you a list of the most active forums related to your niche. Now that you have a list of forums choose 3 forums that you would like to participate in.

4. Post 6 Opinions A Day

Once you have chosen your 3 forums. Read over the threads and make 6 opinions or comments and put your signature (your signature is a link to your opt-in page or product) at the bottom of the post.

By putting your signature at the bottom of your opinion it will create a passive traffic stream to your link. To maximize this process make 6 opinions for 3 straight days on the 3 different forums you have chosen. That would make 18 opinions a day and 54 opinions over 3 days and then just track your results.

Hopefully this was helpful:

Best Practices With What to Allow on Forums

A forum is a great way of discussing a topic that you are interested in and knowledgeable about with like minded people or of sharing your experiences and possibly helping beginners in the subject. A well run forum is a pleasure to visit - you feel welcomed and amongst friends.

Running a forum is more than just about letting every Tom, Dick and Harry join and then letting them dictate the 'mood' of the forum. It's up to you, as the administrator, to set some ground rules and abide by them.

Firstly, you must manually activate every new member registration. Spammers are unfortunately attracted to forums like flies to honey, and even the newest forums will start getting a trickle of these every day. Although it's tempting to allow these to join to up the membership levels to make it look like you've got an active forum, allowing these in will be a bad mistake. At the least you'll be inundated with advertising, and at the worst some very unwelcome posts might be made. You, as the site owner, will be responsible for what's on your forum. As you go through the registrations each day obvious spammers with made up email addresses or user names which are simply advertising products will be easy to spot. If you need to go further you can check on the IP address and where the person is coming from. If you're still not sure, do a search at StopForumSpam - an excellent website that keeps up to date records of spammers, as these people try to join every forum going. You'll soon become quite quick at spotting spammers against bonafide registrations.

You can't start a forum and then lose interest in it. Unless you are working to activate registrations, moderate comments, administer the forum and contribute to discussions yourself it's not going to get very far. Running a forum takes time every day.

You need to decide where the boundaries lie and the kind of behaviour you'll tolerate. Some forums I have been on insist people search for answers already given to similar queries before posting a new question, and when a 'newbie' posts they get responses fired at them to search the forum for answers first. Or are you more tolerant, and encourage individual replies? It might take more time repeating the same information, but it does make the forum more personal. What happens when someone asks a daft question, and gets shot down rather rudely by another member? Do you tolerate that? Or do you try to set ground rules for how people should behave towards each other.

Sometimes this might depend on the audience for your subject matter. I run a specialist forum for keeping bearded dragons, and we're likely to have older children joining as well as adults. Sometimes an incredible ignorance is shown about keeping these reptiles - people should have done their research before taking them on, and as such these poor creatures are now looking at short unhealthy lives unless their owners can be given correct advice on how to keep them. On another similar forum, new members asking stupid questions are shot down in flames, and they leave after making one post, and without gaining any help at all. On my forum I actively encourage all members to be welcomed, and their most basic questions answered so that they get the information they need to the benefit of them, and their pets.

Now this is obviously just an example, but do you want to help and encourage people? Or just have a membership of 'experts'? That is a decision you need to make, as it's you, and the moderators you might have to help you, who can influence this by the way in which your members respond to posts and also the way you moderate. Sometimes you need to PM posters who aren't interacting in the way you want them to, and accept this might lead to losing a member, but if it helps for a better community overall, the loss of one might prevent all those 'guests' who visit before taking the plunge think twice before joining. It's interesting, but I've only had one problem with a member in the 5 years I've been running the forum and had to ban them. Most members pick up the friendly culture of the forum very quickly.

When your forum starts to become very active you might find it is too much to moderate all the posts yourself. You will find regular posters are flattered if you ask them to become a moderator and help you run it. You should ensure that anyone you ask has views that do not diametrically oppose yours (although healthy debate should always be welcomed), and whose approach to answering posts is in line with the 'feel' you've developed for your forum. You might also want to appoint someone or more than one (depending on the size and activity on your forum) to be other administrators, particularly to help with the activation requests for new members. Sorting out 150+ spammers a day is better with help! I'm in the lucky position of having an administrator in Australia - from my point in the UK I do the day shift, and he does the night!

You may think you are very knowledgeable about your subject, but it's great if you attract someone to join who's known as an Expert in their area. I invited two such people from their contributions on other forums and their expert knowledge and experience has been a real boon to my forum.

If you allow people to sell items or services, you might want to think whether you're going to let people join just for this purpose, or whether you want to restrict this service to contributing members. You might also want to restrict what they can offer. A good rule is that someone needs to make 10 posts before being able to put up information about what they want to sell.

Something that encourages people to post is always helpful in trying to get a lively forum. Assigning different ranks to people who post above a certain number of posts can encourage people to try to reach the next level. On my Bearded Dragon forum we go from Egg, through Hatching to Adult - obviously not appropriate to many forums, but you get the idea.

I found that forums don't actually help you to make money - having Google ads on the forum did not bring me any revenue despite a high number of visitors to the extent that I abandoned them. People come to the forum for advice or to chat, not to click on adverts. Linking your response through to informative pages on your website is the best suggestion I can make, and of course, having a forum increases the number of visitors to your main site.

If you have a forum but it's becoming less active, look at the tone of the posts and see if the feel of the forum has changed. Unless it was once more relevant that it is now (a forum about the London Olympics will be less topical in 2013!) you might want to try to make it more positive, friendly and welcoming to newcomers. This means posting a lot yourselves, and engaging the moderators in trying to turn round the feel of the forum. If a particular member is causing problems, then don't feel bad if you need to ban them. It's your forum after all, and it's totally up to you who you allow on there. You need to make sure you and your moderators keep active and posting - people want to feel important, and like someone 'official' to respond to them.

Forums are a great addition to the internet - there's one set up for almost every niche subject, and people enjoy using them to get information they need, or to share their knowledge. A well run forum is a pleasure to visit, just like going to your friendly local pub. But no one will want to put themselves in the firing line to get abuse from bullies. So it's your job to keep them out.

Paying attention to your forum and keeping to these best practices will keep your forum active, friendly and attracting the right kind of visitors and new members.

Now That You've Joined a Membership Site, What Do You Do To Get The Most From Your Membership?

You will get the most benefit from any membership site you join when you do the following five activities...

1. Make the membership site a favorite. Bookmark it on your computer so that you do not have to remember where it is, or what it's called. Bookmark it! In fact, I would suggest that you make a special folder or a special spot just for the site(s) where you have a membership(s). Make it a favorite. Use a program like Roboform to help you remember all those passwords. Not just to help to remember all those passwords, but Roboform will also auto fill and login for you. Avoid that awful feeling of knowing you have the information "Somewhere!", but just can't find it.

2. Participate. Join the forum if there is one and be sure to complete your profile, adding your picture is a MUST. Comment on the posts, videos and articles. If they've something for you to rate, then do it! Answer questions, ask questions, just get involved. It will really help your learning, and it will also really help you get that information planted in your brain. Remember you have to make the membership site valuable to you and the only way to do that is to get in there and do the work.

3. Label the e-mail addresses from the admin group of the membership site. I use Gmail, my preferred -- I'm amazed at how much more organized I am with Gmail rather than Outlook, which I used to use. When you label that person's e-mail with the name of your membership site, it stands out in your inbox. You'll know that maybe something new has been posted, a new call has been scheduled, or perhaps a new video has been added. By labeling the e-mail address from the admin group you'll be able to quickly and easily find and use that membership site. As you get to know others in the group you can add their email address to the label you have for the membership site.

4. Do the homework. Get in there. Watch the videos. Create the web pages. Do the blog posts. Create your profiles on all the social media platforms. Do whatever it is you joined the site to learn. Do that homework, consistently! When you start to practice what has been delivered within the site, you will be amazed at how quickly you can become proficient. So get in there and do the homework.

5. Use the tools and the techniques provided within the site. I have met people at different events and have discovered we are members of the same site. When we discuss the membership site that we both belong to I find that they never went in and used the tools that were provided. I belong to a Web Graphics Explained membership site and Frank provided a ton of different graphics. When I was talking about how I had used them the other person said they didn't even know they were there! Click on all of the buttons, investigate the posts, the videos. Be sure to learn your way around.

Using Forum Marketing to Advertise

Forum marketing is an excellent form of advertising that basically consists of posting your thoughts and questions and getting responses in the form of replies. It is similar in some ways to writing an email from my point of view, except that what you write is open to many people. You are looking for responses to your posts in these forums. You are also reading posts that are written in response to somebody other than you, and you are able to gather different ideas and opinions about what works for people and what doesn't. As far as I'm concerned this is an excellent way to think through whatever you are attempting to do online.

Forum marketing needs to be approached as a daily discipline and do your best to make it at least a weekly discipline. You need to find forums that are relevant to what your business is about. If you are trying to establish a presence online as a marketer, which you probably would not be reading this otherwise, then you will want to have a presence in online marketing forums such as Warrior Forum and Better Networker. Those two forums are excellent places to begin marketing yourself, your business, and to gain advice from those who are well established and successful. Do not be disappointed in the fact that some forums will ask for a small payment for a membership. The membership fee is a very small price to pay for the advice and the ability to promote yourself and your business. You will want to learn the right way of doing things in these forums and online period, so that you will earn the reputation of being a professional.

When you first join a forum, it will be best to introduce yourself and just say hello. Don't try to promote any product or business you are involved in right away. All you should really do in the beginning is introduce yourself, and possibly give a few compliments to others if you can. I think it would be a good idea to go to some of the websites that are advertised by established people in the forum, look the site over, and then go back and compliment that person on their site and their business. You don't necessarily have to buy their product to just say that their site looked impressive and you will try to come make a visit again when you can. Doing that will help that person's confidence that their efforts are paying off and might even establish a relationship with that person that enables the two of you to help each other. You will want the same from other people as well. As you try to learn marketing skills, you will want feedback from other people, and forums are good places to play with ideas like this.

Once you have been a member of a particular forum for some time, and have introduced yourself and established a certain presence that is positive, you will want to make sure you make solid contributions with your posts and replies. You can put your website links in your signatures, as allowed by the forum moderators, and as you put good, solid input into the forum people will take a look at your site. You want to build a platform of respect. You will want to base most of your post content on your own experiences and in your own words. I also think that referring to someone else's content is fine as long as you give them the credit and say you agree with their post.

Finally, everybody is limited time wise and can only do so much on a given day. Understanding that is another reason for finding maybe one to five forums that are relevant to what you are doing and concentrate on them regularly. If you try to be involved in too many things, there will be something that does not get the attention that it needs. This is also true in forum marketing and all other forms of marketing. All of us try to do too much in our daily lives and I think that is human nature. You will have to be careful about this and determine for yourself how many forums you have time to be involved in and where you have to draw the line. Having to stay out of a particular forum, even though it is a good one, because you have found the forums that work best for you is something you can't let bother you. Go with the advice of successful people, join the forums you are comfortable in, and then give things some time. I speak from experience when I say that impatience can be your enemy.

Thanks for reading and I hope this article helps in some way.

J S Moore

5 Ways to Put Your Best Foot Forward When You Join a Membership Site

Sometimes doing what comes naturally is not the best thing to do. If you are in a situation for the first time you may not have any idea about what to do. When you join a membership site you definitely want to put your best foot forward, because you never know where some of the relationships may lead you.

Interact with others. That is so important. You can be seen as another expert. Become the go-to person. It's one of the ways that can build up your own reputation within your specific niche. Answer questions, help people. I know that I participated in lots of membership groups where I was the one who knew the most about a number of different topics.I thought about it and thought about it, finally I decided I'll help these other people, and now, I'm in a membership site where I know the least. I don't feel the least bit disadvantaged, because everyone is helping me, and I don't mind, because I know that I paid it forward.

Show your human side. Share with people about who you are and what you like to do. Perhaps you want to share an experience that's going to help someone learn, but it's also going to show the personal side of you. I have done, personally, quite a few things that helped me learn related to my dogs. I learn a lot from my dogs and do love to share stories about them. Show your human side.

Be careful with your words. You don't want to scare people away with your words or upset them by using vulgar language. An example, I was looking at my niece's posts on Facebook, and she had a friend who was so vulgar and so rude that when I suggested perhaps he wanted to watch his language, I got pretty rude comments back. My niece was smart, she deleted those particular comments and is no longer friends with that person. Be careful with your words.

No hard selling. There is no better way to get yourself alienated in a membership site, then to get in there and try and sell everybody everything right off the bat. It's not about you. It's how you can provide value and how you can provide service. Demonstrate to others that you know what you are talking about. Pretty soon they will be asking you questions about your business.

Create an auto signature. If your membership site has function to post comments or questions, then it's very likely that you can create your own personal profile. Remember to always, always, always create your personal profile and add your website URL. That way, if people like your advice, if they like what you're saying, if they like your questions, they can click on your personal profile, take a look and see what you're all about. That is not hard selling. That is relationship selling and attraction marketing.

Earn Money Online With Forum Marketing

Earning money online is not rocket science. If you can follow simple instructions, then you're able to build a business that can quite easily become your primary income. All you need is a good plan, and to follow that plan through.

For any business to be successful you need customers. When you earn money online those potential customers are called traffic. An online business is just like any other business, you need traffic viewing your offer in order to generate sales, and forum marketing is one of the best ways to generate that traffic.

If you don't have a product to market, then consider Plug-in-Profits. They'll build a website for you, on your own domain, and set up an autoresponder that you own, all done for you. It's definitely worth checking out.

Once you have a product to sell, remember to not try sell on the forums. It's tempting, but don't do it. Ever.

People visit forums looking for answers. They'll usually find a forum post because they've done a search for a specific question, and are looking for an answer. If you try to market to them, they'll just ignore it and move on. Give value. Answer questions. Contribute to the community.

Most forums allow you to add a signature to your posts after you've proven yourself, and this is where you add your link back to your Plug-in-Profit site. Check out other forum users, especially the popular ones with a high rating and prolific posters. See how they've formatted their signatures, and what they've done with their profiles. Copy those who know what they're doing, it's the fastest way to learn.

You want to find 5 or 6 forums in your chosen niche, no more than that at first, and contribute to these. Choose the biggest and busiest forums with the highest pagerank. The pagerank is important because every signature on each of your posts not only directly markets your site, it also adds a very valuable backlink. Backlinks are valued mainly by the relevance of the link to your site's content, and the pagerank of the source site. A link from a PR6 site is worth thousands of PR1 links.

Relevance is also critical. If the site linking to yours has no relevance to your content, then the link will lose almost all of it's value. You need to post to forums in the same niche or at least closely related to your site's content.

That's it. Find a good product. Build a bit of history and then a good signature at a handful of related forums. Post consistently - at least 6 posts on each forum every single day. Every post will market your site to people already interested in your niche and looking for answers, and add a valuable backlink to your site. This backlinking will slowly build your search engine ranking, and the traffic you get from these, and your business will grow.

Build Your Brand - Forums

One very effective way to build your brand and show potential clients your expertise in your chosen field is by participating in online forums. These are a great place to come together with others who share the same interests as you and for you to shine as an expert.

Forums are extremely easy to find whatever line of business you are in just go to Google and type into the search bar your subject and forum, for example "online business forums" if you are an internet marketer, you will find a huge selection to choose from no matter what market you are in.

What I suggest next would be to spend some time reading through some of these potential forums to find which ones may suit your needs the best, it is also worth while seeing which ones are the most active as you want to be in regular contact with other members, not just once in a blue moon!

Most forums will want you to sign up before you can post but usually you can read through most sections in the forums without joining, so you should be able to get a rough idea whether the forum will suit you and your needs.

Once you have picked a few forums that you like, it is worth taking the time to fill in your profile, add your photo - people like to see who they are talking to and it will make you seem more trustworthy.

If allowed add your website URL, you can sometimes add this to your signature, so every time you post people can see your link to your site, which means if you're giving great advice or help people will visit your site to find out more about you and what you offer.

When first joining the forum I think it is always a good idea if they have a welcome to new members board to post there, say hi and introduce yourself, usually you will find most members extremely welcoming as they like new input in their community.

Read any rules and sticky threads about what you can post, then start communicating with people, don't go straight in trying to sell yourself or your business let the regulars get to know and trust you, offer helpful constructive advice and stay out of any heated debates between existing members, as usually there are a couple who will always take little digs at each other, leave it to the moderators to sort out.

Once you have been a member for a couple of weeks and have joined in some conversations it is a good idea to start posting some interesting current topics that are being talked about in your industry, basically getting involved, showing you are up with the current affairs and have an opinion and importantly showing that you are someone that understands your niche!

Benefits of forum posting...

Exposure - Expose yourself and your business to potential new clients.

Gain backlinks to your website - Help improve your ranking in the search engines.

Expertise - Use your knowledge to help others.

Posting in forums really is an easy and fun way to interact with your peers and paying public, so why not get started today? Go and spend a little time researching the forums in your niche, then get posting!

Join a Membership Site, Get Engaged

When you join a membership site for the most part, you're there to learn, But one of the great resources that a lot of people don't take advantage of is also learning from the other members within that site.

Before you get in there and start making comments and asking and answering questions, you want to decide what exactly it is you want to share. Take a look at the content that you have in your business. Do you want to share all of that, and my advice is always give away your best stuff, and do you want to share your experiences?

How many times have you yourself learned from the experience of others? I know I have learned many lessons that way in my lifetime. Decide what kinds of content and kinds of experience that you want to share with other members of that site.

Depending on how big the membership site is, there may be individual groups within the site. An example is I belong to a group to learn how to better utilize Infusionsoft, a customer relations management program. Within the group, there are some of us that are intermediate, and we have some specific need that we want to address and learn to grow our business. There are others who are just learning and others who are advanced, and they are interested in different groups, different topics. Get into your membership site, join some groups, and make sure that you are active.

Decide what is your purpose, what are you there for, what do you yourself want to get out of the membership site? Is this something that you just are interested in learning about really quick, is this a static membership site where there isn't a lot of interaction, or is it one of great big membership sites where there are people talking to each other all the time. Decide what is your purpose, because you're not going to spend as much time engaging, growing and learning from others if it is not a site that you plan to stay with for quite a while. My Infusionsoft membership site, I plan on staying with that group for a long time. I help lots of other members in my area of expertise, pay it forward.

Participate in the activities. If they're asking questions, answer them. Give your honest opinion. If there is a contest, throw your hat in the ring. If there is a promotion of some sort, assist the people who are operating your membership site by sharing to your friends and family or letting other people know in your social media that "hey, I belong to this site for learning how to use social media marketing or use Facebook for business, and it's great, come and join me."

Automatic Forum Moderation

I am a Judgment Broker that writes a lot. This article is my opinion on why automated forum moderation software and systems are not always a good idea.

Online forums are supposed to be places for the free exchange of ideas and experiences, with mutual assistance and the exchange of information. On most forums, some occasional fun and humor are a welcome bonus.

Moderating a forum is not easy. Besides the problems of spammers and hackers, there are sometimes quarrels and misinformation. Sometimes the smartest members are controversial, however they are very good for a forum.

It is sometimes difficult to perform the moderation work required, and to make everyone happy, while continuously remaining altruistic, positive, generous, fair, objective, and vigilant.

On large forums, with several moderators to share the workload, there can also be the problem of too many "cooks in the kitchen", each with their own agendas and policies.

Recently, automatic forum moderation software, often available as a plug-in for forum hosting servers, has become more popular. It is promoted as the new solution, to save time for forum moderators, and eliminate the need for sub-moderators.

Some basic features of auto-moderation forum software often include:

1) Sometimes allowing the owner of the message thread (the person who started a conversation) to delete the entire thread at any time.

2) Allowing the owner of a thread to delete any individual replies to their thread that they feel are inappropriate.

3) Allowing all members to report any inappropriate posts. The remaining moderator, decides if the post was inappropriate. If so, the post is deleted and the poster receives a warning. If the report is found inappropriate, the reporter receives a warning.

4) Keeping track of inappropriate postings and the handling of warnings and restrictions.

5) Moving some of the moderation power to every member.

Auto-moderation forum software still requires at least one person to handle all complaints, and to decide who is right.

In my opinion, auto-forum moderation software may not a good idea for these reasons:

1) It can remove some intelligence from important decisions. Some people are more suited to be moderators than everyone is.

2) It sometimes lets the starter of a thread, who may know next to nothing, decide to delete a thread that has developed into an intelligent discussion with a lot of information. Often, the starter of the thread is the grain of sand that causes a pearl of wisdom to form over time.

3) Not all forum members are equal, and each member has different ranges of intelligence and experience. Auto-moderation software treats newbies and gurus the same.

4) It makes forums less friendly, because members are reminded of the rules and penalties much more often.

5) It can make experienced members more apprehensive about posting, reducing the value of a forum. Imagine a forum where a newbie or a crazy rabbit has enough power and influence, that they can unjustly delete your post and complain about you, with a push of a button?

I think forum auto-moderation software might work better for light-topic, social or informal forums.

However, for serious topic-based forums, auto-moderation can make it very difficult to have a free exchange of information, without the possibility of some form of abuse by some member, which could unfairly cause the original poster to lose valuable points.

Auto-moderation software may have its place, however until it can pass a Turing test, it should not replace human moderators having significant involvement.

Are You Afraid to Spend the Money on a Membership Site?

When I first started my journey online, I was afraid to join a membership site. I really didn't think it was going to be worth it. I thought they were people just out there to get my $27 a month.

Well guess what? It really is important that you get out there and invest in the tools that you need in order to take your business to the next level. Whether you belong to a site that is technical, personal, personal development or business, when you use it you will definitely reap the benefits.

When you invest in the tools you need to move your business forward, you shorten your own learning curve and you reduce your own frustration levels. It really does make a difference.

Many people have said that -- or have questioned that a membership site is really not worth the money. Once I got over that myself, I realized," Oh my gosh, most of the membership sites that I have joined have been worth their weight in gold." You are going to have access to that information for as long as you are a member and if you need to go back and review something or look at something again, it's there for you.

PLUS you 'll be able to value your own time. When you invest time in your own learning and use that time to find the tools you need, you are allowing yourself to learn that piece easily and efficiently. You can then spend and invest your time on the other things that take your business forward that are more critical in your business.

How many times have you spent hours doing research or looking for something? How frustrating was that?? Being a member of the most effective membership site for you will drastically reduce the amount of time you spend hunting for something!

The one thing you really need to do is do your research! You can research a membership site by seeing whether or not there are any comments about it, who are the people behind it, are they known out there other than the membership site for that particular topic.

Do your research, do your Google searches, find out who the people are. If you can, go on forums or other blogs, you might ask whether or not anyone has heard of this person, do they know what they are doing, have they heard of this company.

Do your research. Not only will it help you have the confidence in the decision you make, it will also help you a great deal in understanding how much is available to help you grow your business.