No doubt one of the overriding concerns you have is getting good, targeted traffic to your site. Heck, even the "gurus" can't get too much good traffic. The key is not just getting traffic, but targeted traffic. You want visitors to your site who are hungry for what you have to offer. Weather it is a product, service, or information you have to offer, you want visitors that need it, folks who are immersed in your particular niche. The question is how to get them.
You have a number of choices. Some work pretty well, but cost money, like PPC advertising. What if you could get targeted traffic, people who lived and breathed your niche and would love to go to your site; and, what if you could get them to really want to go to your website? Further more, suppose this huge pool of hungry visitors was free! That's right, they would rush to your site and you wouldn't have to pay a dime!
Well, this source of targeted traffic exists, for almost every niche. It's in the thousands of internet forum sites. Some niches have dozens of forums. The regular forum visitors tend to be the most involved in the particular niche and the most likely to want more information from you. You can use postings in the forums to drive great traffic to your site. Even better, you can use forums to establish your credibility within a particular niche. You can become an authority, the one who people turn to for answers to their questions, and who gets more traffic than the recognized authority on a subject.
The key to using forums to drive traffic is participation. That's right. You have to get off your duff, stop standing on the sidelines, just lurking in the forums, and actually post something. This is important for a few reasons. Three of the most important reasons are:
? First, many forums will not allow you to post a link until you have a given number of posts on that forum.
? Second, you want to be seen as an authority, not someone who is just there posting links to drive traffic to you website. In order to accomplish that, you have to post information that will help people solve their problems.
? Third, and a very important reason to post, is that it can provide a link to your site; a link in. Google, Yahoo and many of the other search engines look for links in to determine relevance to a particular subject. The more links in you have, the higher you will place on the search engines. Being highly placed on the search engines practically guarantees targeted traffic.
Problem solving is important. You have to be a problem solver. People are looking to you to be a solution provider. If you are, they will reward you; gladly. Quality posts on the right forums will establish you as someone who has the answers. People love answers. It makes life easier for them. You can be that person who makes life easier for them. If you are that person who makes life easier, people will reward you. When you are, people will follow links to your site for the answers they are looking for and more information on a subject, product or service.
You can use forum postings to get subscribers to your opt-in list as well. You can post a sign-up link straight to your autoresponder. Alternatively, you can send folks to a landing page with your sign up form and some more information. If you use forums to gain list subscribers, make sure you abide by all the rules of the forum. You do not want to get banned from further posting.
You can also post problem solving affiliate links on the forum as well. If someone is looking for a particular product or service, and you are an affiliate for what they seek, help them out! Give them a way to easily solve their problems. You can put your affiliate link right in your post. Those seeking what you are offering will follow the link, buy the product and you will make your commission. It works great and doesn't cost you a cent!
Hopefully this can get you started to making money from forums. I use many of these techniques on a regular basis and they work great. You can too!
Steve Faber has been successfully marketing both on and off line for years. He has been a principal for a bricks n mortar business that grossed almost $2 million a year. He has been involved with several successful websites for both bricks n mortar and online businesses. You can get his free newsletter with great information to really grow your business at: http://site.liveanotherday.com/newsletter.html