Use Forums to Increase Traffic and Sales

There are many ways to promote your online business. To be successful, you should use a number of different methods in your promotional efforts. Forums are one of the lesser-known marketing techniques that can be very productive.

Many people start out by adding useless posts containing nothing but self-promotional material. Do not fall into that trap. People will steer clear of you, your postings, and your website. In addition, constant self-promotion could get you banned from the forum.

To benefit from forums, you need to give as well as take. Answer questions in your area of expertise. Provide useful information. By doing this, people will see you as an expert in your field. As people read your posts and see that you are very knowledgeable, you will begin to see more and more forum members clicking on your links and visiting your site.

To increase sales or traffic, join as many forums as possible. Make time to read and answer posts. Look for questions or problems that are related to your field of expertise. Everyone is looking for help on certain topics. By helping others, you will actually be helping yourself. Following are a number of techniques to increase your traffic and sales using forums:

Develop a signature (sig) file that includes the URL of your website or sales page. Each time you enter a post to ask or answer a question, include your sig file.

Forums are filled with people who are promoting products. Look through the various posts to find products to purchase, or better yet, get for free.

Forums are an excellent place to find a profitable niche for new product ideas. Examine post topics that have numerous questions. Typically, these are topics that people are interested in. Take note of the types of questions asked and the number of people asking similar questions. This can alert you to the need for a particular product. Make sure to go through these posts thoroughly. If the topic is filled with people answering a question, it is not a candidate for an ebook. If the topic consists primarily of questions, you may have found a profitable niche.

Get others to evaluate your website or sales page. Many forums provide areas where you can ask participants to review your site. This is an excellent technique that can improve your sales dramatically.

I check my traffic regularly and I see consistent traffic to my sites from forums that I post to. Making frequent posts is a great method to improve traffic.

Forums provide a very good source to get information on a product, service, or company before you make a purchase. People are more than happy to give you their opinion on products or companies that they are familiar with.

Forums can be very beneficial to the experienced marketer as well as the newbie. The most beneficial forums are those related to your site or niche. Seek out those related forums and you will surely see increased traffic and sales.

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Are you a member of the warrior forum? If not you are missing out on some serious traffic. The best part about the warrior forum is the traffic and prospects you generate are FREE.

The Warrior Forum is the #1 Internet Marketing forum online today. Thousands of successful internet marketers are using the forum as a place to network. I have found that participating 20 mins. a day posting and participating in online forums have produced some good business contacts. Some of my best business partners have come as a result of forum marketing.

As far as becoming a member of the Warrior forum is concerned, all you have to do is to set up your profle, create a signature box with your link and then start participating.

You will be surprised how fast people will respond to your posts and how many people are using the forum. It is by far the best forum to use for networking and learning how to market online. I have found the members to be extremely helpful when I’ve asked questions.

One of the best tips I can give you is to not SPAM the forum. All this will do is make people mad and you will be defeating the purpose of using the forum, which is generating friends and contacts.

Like I mentioned above, along with the Warrior forum find at least four other online MLM forums to participate in each month. Spend only 20 mins. a day posting and participating. Get started using the Warrior Forum today!

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It is not possible to have a successful online business without website traffic. This means that implementing an effective traffic building strategy must be central to any overall internet marketing plan. In fact, without website traffic you might as well shut up shop. However, it can be expensive to drive targeted traffic to your website using paid strategies. It is therefore helpful to understand how to get interested visitors to your site without cost.

The first free method of driving traffic to your website is blogging. Most people these days know what blogging is and perhaps you already have one. However, to successfully drive traffic to your website from a blog you need to create an interesting, informative blog that can develop a readership. After all, if no one reads your blog you won’t be able to use it to drive traffic to your site.

With blogging, it is important to submit new posts regularly, preferably daily. It is also important that your blog articles are of a high quality and of particular interest to your targeted audience. One way to attract return visits is to regularly advertise special offers such as a free e-book, template or widget.

Blogs can be an important part of your traffic building strategy because they are very popular with search engines. Every time you add a new post, search engines crawl through your blog and index the page. If you update your blog daily, your chances of gaining a high position on the free search results page is dramatically increased. Blogger and Wordpress are two of the most popular blogging sites. Both allow you to establish a blog free of charge.

Online forums can also be used successfully to generate targeted traffic. By simply posting on forums and using a link to your website as your signature, you can receive the benefit of visitors to your website. You can find forums related to your niche by doing an internet search. Just make sure that the forum is active and has high traffic itself otherwise it might not be worth your time. Once you register on the forum, take some time to browse current posts to get sense of where people are coming from and what they are interested in. When you feel ready, start writing some posts yourself.

It is very important to understand the rules of forum posting. You are generally not allowed to promote your own business or products in forum posts. If you do this, your post will be removed and you will usually get a warning. In some cases, you will lose your forum membership. These rules can sometimes be applied in such an extreme way that even if someone on the forum asks for a recommendation, you still can’t give it. The best way to use the forum is to give generic but helpful information on any given forum topic. In forums, promoting your own business is considered spam even if it is relevant to the thread.

Both blogs and forums can be used to enhance your reputation or “expert” status. Building your credibility is an important aspect of attracting targeted website traffic. After all, if you invest in your own reputation in your particular niche, people will gain confidence in your advice and return to the blog or forum to see what else you have to say.

In your forum signature or blog “about me” page you can provide a link to specific web pages or affiliate programs. If you have taken the time to build credibility with your readers, they will click on your link to check out new articles or special offers. Blogs and online forums are a great addition to any traffic building strategy. They also have the added benefit of being free.

These two traffic building strategies are highly effective and you can begin to use them immediately.

Forums are concentrated communities of highly targeted prospects that are all interested in the same things.

Why are they a great place to market your home business?

1. Forums are HIGHLY targeted.

2. You can learn great new tips and tricks on any particular topic.

3. Your links remain over time and increase in number with every one of your posts.

The biggest reason that forums are a great place to market your business is that people that click through to your ads will already be familiar with affiliate marketing or internet marketing because those are the types of forums where you’ll be promoting your business.

If a prospect from a home business or affiliate marketing forum sees value in what you’re promoting and joins your business they’ll already know how to get off to a fast start without your help.

You’ll be promoting your business through what’s called a “signature box”. I don’t get thousands of hits a day, but I probably get 20 – 30 highly targeted hits on average. With forums, that’s enough. It’s a constant flow that slowly grows over time.

If you post a comment on a highly viewed thread hundreds of prospects in a single day may see your signature box advertising your lead capture page.

I want to make it very clear that you should not post a comment just to get your signature box seen. This is SPAMMING and it’s distasteful.

The other forum members will know what you’re doing and they will remember you as being someone that tries to take away from the community instead of trying to add to it. Only add to the discussion if you have something of value to include otherwise just read, learn, and wait for your turn to chime in.

How do you find forums?

Just go to Google and do a search for home business forums or network marketing forums, you get the idea. Save yourself some time, if it looks like no one has made a post in a forum for the past month it’s probably not worth your time.

Here are a couple I visit regularly: wahm warriorforum

First you just register as a member of the forum, set up your “signature box”, and then simply participate.

Like I said before don’t SPAM! Chime in when it’s your turn and don’t be afraid to ask questions. If you’ve had a burning question that you haven’t been able to find the answer to – forums are the best place to ask that question.

Find 5 forums in your target market and register yourself as a member. Commit to making a least three posts per day per forum from here on out.

Signature Tip: Always send people to your personal capture page that will grow your own list!

Sample Signature:

Residual Wealth Factor FREE 7 Day E-Course ads $1,000’s to your monthly income: yourleadcapturepagehere

If you have a website the best way to get traffic to it is to utilize the many forums online. Forums are where people gather to talk about a variety of subjects. Some of the forums you may find are general in nature and talk about everything and some are dedicated to particular subjects. If your website is promoting a product, service, or information on a particular type of thing you can use a general forum, and also look for subject specific forms geared to your particular area. There are forums on every subject under the sun and you are bound to find specific forums dedicated to your website’s subject.

Forum Rules of Etiquette

Don’t Spam: Whether the forum is a general subject forum or specific to a topic you need to be active and actually posting information that is a part of the conversation. Simply rushing through a forum and posting a blurb about your site or product is going to get your post deleted and your user name banned as a spam poster.

Make Use of Forum Features: Use the signature lines to help spread the word about your site. You never have to even say a word about your outside interests as you post. Make posts on forums wherever you can add insight to a conversation and your signature lines will do the ‘talking’ about your site for you.

Another common feature on many forums are specific areas where members who are otherwise in good standing and active on the main forum threads can post about themselves, their sites, and other various items of interest. These are great because you actually can ’spam’ in these as far as advertising your stuff just be sure to abide by the forum rules and do not abuse the service by posting a bunch of threads on the same subject.

Finally, following above guidelines generate tremendous website traffic, and customers read your posting and visit your website. Forums are one of the effective marketing methods to drive traffic to your website.

Why four from just two blogging packages? Here is the answer to that question, and how if you create a blog using each, you will maximize your earning potential from your products:

Blogger

Blogger is blogging software owned by Google. Most people run their blog from BlogSpot, Bloggers blogging fast domain.

However, where Word presses scores over Blogger is in the fact that the software can be uploaded to your website, and can be run from there. For more resources visit us at www.building-blog-empire.com. This enables you to use any of the thousands of Word press plugging and templates that provide an almost unlimited degree of functionality in your blogging that will help to drive traffic to your website.

When you create a blog with any of these two different packages, whether run from your own computer or from the blog host, you are able to provide fresh content daily to your virtual website. Because that is what a blog is: it is in effect a web page, in the same way that a Squid lens and a page on a website is a web page.

Bogging and Search Engines

Blogging allows you a presence on search engines such as Google and Yahoo, and allows those with little idea of SEO or even of web design, to sell products online. There was a time when blogs were a rarity and something new, but blogging is now a way for anybody that knows how to create a blog can drive traffic to their website or to their blog page and help they make money through free advertising.

However, even a blog has to be advertised. Blogging in itself is not an advertising technique, but one of displaying your thoughts, idea, products or advertising your products. Now, you might think I am being a bit duplicitous here, stating that blogging is not a means of advertising yet can be used to advertise! Yet both statements are true.

Is Blogging an Advertising Technique?

Yes and no. You can create a blog in order to get traffic to your website, and in that respect you are using your blog for advertising. You can place a link to your website: your squeeze page, sales page or just a content page. The question is, how do you get people to read your blog, and then click on one of these links? The link could be placed at the bottom of every post, and on a permanent page on your blog, but how do yet get traffic to your blog: you have the same problem now as getting traffic to your website!

What you have here is that blogging can be use to promote another site, whether it be a website, another blog or a social networking site such as Face book, MySpace or YouTube. You can use all of these to promote and sell products. You can also visit us at www.your-own-blog.com. However, how do you get people, to find your blog? Creating a blog is fine, but that is only the start.

Use Article Marketing in Blogging

There is one way, and that is article marketing. By writing articles about your niche or product, and then including a link to your blog in the article, you can use the article to advertise your blog. If you can persuade a reader to click on your link, they will reach your blog on which you provide them with links to your website, your other blogs and your Face book and MySpace home pages.

Posting on blogs is easy. Getting blog traffic is not. There are a lot of blogs out there and only so many blog readers to go around. If you are thinking about posting on blogs or if you are already posting on blogs but not getting the kind of blog traffic you want, there are a few things you can do to make your blogs more interesting than some of the other blogs you are competing with.

Research Prior to Posting on Blogs

Blogs that get a lot of blog traffic have one thing in common: they cover topics that people are interested in reading about. To make sure your topics will be of interest to the general public it is a good idea to research various topics before posting on blogs. You can perform general searches on the Internet to see what’s popular and what’s not. You can also read other blogs that are similar to yours. If they have high blog traffic and lots of comments, they are probably hitting on good topics.

Consider Your Tone before Posting on Blogs

Blogs are different than news stories. People read blogs because they want to hear opinions along with facts. And as crazy as it might sound, people want to hear YOUR thoughts. Don’t be afraid to state your case or add commentary when posting to blogs. Personal opinions, tone, and writing style all help to draw in regular blog traffic. So, consider these things carefully before posting on blogs. They will have a huge impact on your success.

You Can Get More Blog Traffic with Short Posts

Posting on blogs is slightly different than posting on other types of web pages. Blog readers like short posts–really short posts. Short blogs are fun and easy to read. Long blogs, on the other hand, look intimidating and time consuming. If you want people to actually read what you are posting on blogs or if you’d like to see repeat blog traffic, it is a good idea to present as much information as you can in a limited number of words. A good rule of thumb when posting on blogs is to keep each post under 250 words.

Think About Blog Traffic Posting On Blogs

Quality doesn’t always equal success when posting on blogs. There are lots of good blogs out there that don’t get a lot of blog traffic. The reason is because nobody knows they exist. You can avoid this pitfall by thinking about blog traffic before you begin posting on blogs. Things to consider specifically include keywords and keyword phrases. If you can use natural keyword placement in the blog’s title and throughout the body of the text, your posts stand a better chance of making it into search engine rankings and a better chance of drawing more blog traffic.

Always Think About Your Readers When Posting On Blogs

When posting on blogs nothing is more important than your blog traffic (a.k.a. your audience.) Some of the things readers like to see on blogs include: snappy headlines, bulleted or formatted lists, links, and information that is easy to scan.

 Increasing traffic is actually easier than it seems–provided you know how. We will go over 7 specific methods of increasing traffic. These are guaranteed methods to draw more visitors to your blog.

Tip #1: Sign up for pinging services

It seems pretty obvious, but most bloggers, even those who are more experienced, don’t sign up for pinging services. If you’re new to blogging and don’t know what pinging means, pinging basically means that when your blog is updated, a “ping” is sent

out by the service to let pinging sites know that your blog has been updated. People who are visiting sites with pinging services will then see your blog flash across the side of the screen as “newly updated”. Pinging services include Yahoo’s blo.gs, weblogs.com, Google Blog search, and ZingFast.

Tip #2: Sign up for Technorati

If you go to technorati.com, you’ll see an option on the left side of the screen to “Claim Your Blog”. Doing so allows you to get updated link counts, add your photo or branding to Technorati, and see your Technorati link. Having your blog claimed on Technorati helps to increase traffic because the millions of people who go to that site will have a chance to see your blog on there.

Tip #3: Sign up for FeedBurner, a RSS service

What FeedBurner basically does for your blog is it helps you to promote your blog’s content, build your audience and measure your audience. In other words, it helps you increase your blog’s traffic.

Tip #4: Bookmark your blogs at places like del.icio.us

You can set up an account and profile at del.icio.us. Then, using that, you can add links to your blog along with excerpts from your blog. Anytime someone visits your profile on

del.icio.us, they will see a link to your blog and excerpts. There are other social bookmarking sites that you can use in much the same way. The bottom line is, using these social bookmarking sites can help you increase traffic.

Tip #5: Post comments at other blogs

No, this doesn’t mean you should go and spam other blogs with comments that are only there to promote a site. It means that you should visit similar blogs to your own, post legitimate comments and then sign your name(along with a link to your

blog). This way, people know you aren’t there just to promote your site—you’re there to post a good piece of feedback and also say where you’re from.

Tip #6: Ask owners of other blogs to post a link to yours

Find other blogs that are similar to yours. If they seem to be decently popular(that is, they have a good amount of comments for each post), you can try to contact the owner of the blog to add a link to your blog if they have a links section. To make them really want to do this, you can offer to link back to their blog on your blog. People do this reciprocal blog linking all the time and it does help to increase traffic.

Tip #7: Use keywords in your blog

Like regular web pages, having a good keyword density on a blog is a terrific way of getting search engine spiders to notice your page. (FYI: Search engine spiders are programs from search engines that browse sites and report back their findings to the

search engine database, which then lists that site. The more keywords on your site, the more likely it is for a search engine spider to pay a visit)

If your average blog posting is around 200 words, try to use 2-6 keywords per blog post. 2-6 keywords in a blog posting of 200 words is a keyword density of between 1 and 3 percent, a respectable number. Remember that you don’t want to use too many

keywords, as that will make your blog look bad.

Also be sure that the keywords used are relevant to your blog. Before even making a blog posting, decide what the post will be about and then select a keyword or two to use in your post. Then do it. It’s a surefire way of getting more traffic to your site!

These days everyone has a blog but most of them float unread out on the internet cloud. So the big question I keep hearing is how do I get more traffic to my blog? The answer is simple, and if you are willing to put in a little time you can do it for free as well.

Blogs are more or less just like any other website out there. Sure they are designed to make it easy for bloggers to post news, images, and video without much computer savvy but in reality they are just user friendly mini-websites. So now that you have one you want to get more traffic to it so here’s a few of the free and basic first steps to increasing your blogs traffic.

#1 Blog About Something People Care About

Seriously – if nobody cares about your blog because it’s just random talk about what you ate that morning you aren’t going to pick up a lot of traffic. However, regardless of how weird your interests may be someone out there also cares about them. So this one is an easy – just blog about something that someone else can relate to.

#2 Submit Your Blog to Directories

This one is also easy but takes a bit of time. There are a lot of free services out there where you can submit your blog to. They are basically like giant phonebooks for blogs and once you add your blog to their service more people will be able to find your blog. You’ll be able to categorize your blog and many of them let you use your own “tags” which are basically key words. Just jump on your favorite search engine and type in something like “free blog submission” and you’ll find lots of sites which can help you out.

#3 Have a Blogroll

Blogs often have a list of links somewhere that lists the other blogs or websites that are related or that the blogger enjoys visiting. If you want to help increase traffic find some sites that will trade you a link on their blog for one on yours. Don’t get too carried away with this though as you can actually lose traffic if you abuse this. This is where you start to get into the internet’s deeper and more inner workings so for brevity we’ll just leave it with this: you don’t want more than about 100 links on your front page or you might actually decrease your chance for big traffic.

#4 Submit Your Blog to Feedreaders

Most blog services have the ability to create a “feed”. You might hear people talking about RSS, syndication, or feedreaders. Basically what this means is each blog creates a list of what posts have been added to it much like headlines for a newspaper. You can find sites out there like the Blog Directories which you can submit your blog feed or RSS to. If you do this they’ll pick up your headlines and people can then dig through them for interesting blogs. The best part about these feed systems is that most continue to check your blog for updates so once you’ve submitted it you can just reap the benefits!

#5 Blog Often and When Appropriate

One mistake some people make with blogging is blogging when they have nothing useful to say just to get another “post” on their blog. If you are doing this then you are going to have a hard time making fans who are interested in saving your page in their favorites or bookmarks. However, you want to often update your blog. If you don’t post regularly then you’ll bore your fans. Blog often, but make sure you’re blogging something of interest.

#6 Make Sure Your Blog Has a Theme

If you’re blog is all over the place you’ll have a hard time putting together a fan base. You may get a few hits here and there by random people but you want to build a community. To do that you’ll probably want to pick a few categories you’re going to post about and stick with them. If you are the type who likes to make random posts sometimes you could just make a category called Random Thoughts or something along those lines but again be careful.

#7 Pingbacks and Trackbacks

If you want people to visit your blog then visit other blogs that are related to yours and get involved. You’ll find that people often leave comments with links back to their own blog or another related blog in the comments. These are part of the pingback/trackback system which can be a lot of fun and also get you a lot of additional traffic. Avoid spamming though as you’ll just irritate potential friends and you’ll likely have your comments removed and lose your comment ability.

#8 Appearance Matters

Every blog service offers templates which can make your blog look unique or have a style you feel fits. Often you can also customize your blog with custom graphics and tinker with the layout. While this can really help your blog be careful that you aren’t making it irritating to potential readers. Not many people want to come to a blog that hurts their eyes to look at or which has loud music they don’t like.

There you go, 8 simple tips on how to increase your blog traffic. The last thing to remember is that building up your blog traffic is going to take time. Depending on the potential number of people interested in your topics and your other blogging related skills it could take weeks and even more likely months to really get things going. If you blog it, they will come!

If you’re reading this blog, chances are, you’re a new Internet business owner, looking for marketing advice. Or perhaps you’re thinking about joining an MLM program or a cash gifting club and are looking for information on how to market your opportunity. Either way, blogging is one of the one of the best ways for YOU to get going in the online business community.

A blog (short for weblog) is an online journal containing regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video. Blogs could be about anything, from strictly personal life observations to pop culture gossip.

So why should an Internet entrepreneur, such as yourself, maintain a blog? It’s quite simple. Blogs are a GREAT way for you to increase traffic to your business web-site while creating a trust relationship with your readers. The ultimate goal of your blog should be to increase visibility of your online business web-site, NOT to sell products or services. If you try to “plug in” a sales pitch in the middle of your blog, at the very least, the readers will be put off and leave and at the worst they will flag your blog as spam or inappropriate content. On the other hand, if you provide quality content, a vast majority of your readers will repay you by checking out your opportunity.

The other major added bonus of posting blogs is that they create what’s called “back-links” to your web-site, which is something that search engine spiders look for when they determine the position of any given web-site in the search rankings. More blogs = higher position in the Google and Yahoo! search engines.

So, how do you write a quality blog? How can you attract prospects to your online business without overtly “selling” them something? No one likes to be sold to, but everyone likes to buy. The key is to write your blog in a way that doesn’t aggressively “sell”, but “helps” the potential customers make their choice in favor of your product/service/opportunity.

For example, let’s say your business is selling electronic cookbooks. You might think that it would be best to write a blog like this:

“Super-Duper-Crazy-Cookbooks.com is EVERYTHING an aspiring chef could only dream of!

For only $9.99 get HUNDREDS of recipies, including rare dishes from Taiwan and Morocco!

Surprise your guests by whipping up our famous chocolate-strawberry souflee!

Create incredibly tasty meals for the whole family in 20 minutes or less!”

You get the idea. There are a couple of major problems with this blog. It sounds a lot like an ad and doesn’t provide any educational content, thus it is likely to be flagged or ignored by a majority of readers. Also, it is an extremely weak piece as far as search engine placement because it doesn’t have any “keywords” in it. Keywords and key phrases are what a person types in when they’re searching for things on Google and Yahoo. In the example with cookbooks, they will look for “the best Indian food cookbook”, “electronic cookbook reviews”, “best Chinese recipies” and other such key phrases.

Think about what it is that you have to offer that is unique and interesting. Perhaps, using the cookbook example, it’s your exotic Ethiopian food recipies. Then, it would be a good idea to target that audience by providing a blog like this:

“Ethiopian Food – Is It The Right Choice For Your Family? Recipies, Cooking Tips etc.

Ethiopian cuisine consists of spicy vegetable and meat dishes, served atop injera, a large sourdough flatbread. Ethiopians eat with their right hands, using pieces of injera to pick up bites of entrées and side dishes. No utensils are used.

Ethiopian cuisine is gaining popularity with families in America: the children are allowed to eat with their hands while getting a highly nutritious meal, filled with lean protein and vitamins.

So, is Ethiopian food the right choice for your family? You decide! Here is an easy-to-prepare recipe of one the most popular Eithiopian dishes, provided by Super-Duper-Crazy-Cookbooks.com:

The recipe is here.”

A couple of notes about this blog: it provides something of value for free which is going to be appreciated by many people; it also contains many search engine key phrases such as “Ethiopian dish”, “Ethiopian Cusine” etc., which vastly increase the chances of this blog being found on the Internet.

Once your first entry is written, create an account with as many of the major blog sites as you can. It’s a very good idea to post your blog on at least 6-7 blog sites (you may wish to use a blog disseminator). If you haven’t yet joined an online business opportunity, make sure you ask your team leaders for help with blogs. For example, I provide a list of the best blog and article websites to my team along with detailed tips on how to post the blogs without any problems. Remember that the more blogs you write, the more people will go to your website. I would recommend writing a blog every other day for the first month after your start/join an opportunity.

I hope this was helpful to you! I wish you the best of luck in your blogging endeavors.

Brad Smith

blueoctopus@cox.net