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.

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:

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

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.

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.