Underrated but Effective: Forum Marketing
Posted on October 20, 2007 by
Dee Barizo 
Internet Marketing, Promotion 
18 Comments
I don’t hear too much about forum marketing even though it’s a great way to promote your site. You might not get a lot of traffic, but the traffic will be higher quality because the people clicking through are oftentimes visiting your site because of your reputation. Also, the traffic is targeted because you’re gonna market in a forum related to your niche, right?
Here are a couple ways to do forum marketing effectively:
Pick a site that allows you to market your site. For example, I stay away from forums that don’t allow you to have links in your signature. Some forums like Digital Point Forums allow you to have a link to the newest post on your blog. This link shows up on every forum post you make. Also, some forums don’t mind you linking to your site in your forum posts as long as you don’t overdo it. Read the rules of the forum and browse through some posts to find out what is acceptable self-promotion.
To save time, rewrite your existing content and post them on the forums. I advise you to rewrite so that both your article and forum post will get indexed by Google. Google doesn’t like duplicate content.
Participate in the community. Don’t only start threads, but answer questions and give your opinion on other forum threads. Forums are even more community oriented than blogs so be ready to join the conversation whenever you do forum marketing.
Don’t forget networking. As you do forum marketing, you’ll meet some great webmasters in your niche. Leverage those connections to further your site. You can arrange joint ventures, link exchanges, guest posts, interviews, and special affiliate deals with the people you meet. Also, you can sell your product to them :)
What are some other forum marketing tips?
This post was inspired by: How I got 7000 visitors from Digital Point Forums
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We have found forums to be a decent source of traffic. Like you said, it is high quality, targeted traffic. We think forums are a great place to show that you are an expert in the field. Hopefully this will then translate to that high quality traffic blogs need to survive!
I have never used forums for advertising but I think they could be an amazing source of qualified leads. I have purchased endless marketing programs, software you name it but have found success in other ways. Will I ever learn? How many times will I fall prey to these internet companies promising me everything from what product to pick, to how to market it online? Will I ever re-coop any of the money I wasted buying all those products?
Or will I keep buying the next ”big thing”, hoping that one day, it will actually deliver and I can truly have an online business with a web site listed on the first page of search engines and will actually make money so I can be financially set and not have to die at my 9 to 5 job?
Sound familiar? They promise you’ll their marketing product will guarantee traffic you need for your site! Did you know most of them don’t even use they’re own products? They make their money from selling you the product. They have big fancy, splash pages, showing you all their satisfied customers and tell you, times running out, hurry buy now before the price goes way up.
Have you found anything that really works? What if I told you, for almost no money, I have 4 listings on the first page of Google, Yahoo and MSN? What if I told you I have one web site on the first page of Google and MSN and 2 on the first page of Yahoo? What if I told you all these listings and web sites are all linked together and sell the same product? What if I told you 95% of these listings were FREE? Have I got your attention yet?
What if I told you I could show you how to apply all the things I have learned and used in the last 6 months to your web site and you could get the same listing and dominate the search engines too? What if I told you it was so cheap, you’ll think I should be in a rubber room in the nuthouse?
I know it sounds too good to be true, but I’ll show you proof that I have 35 to 65 % of the listings on the first 2 pages of the top ten search engines for one product. Will you keep trying and doing what your doing now or are you ready to dominate the search engines and REALLY make money online for a change?
Edward M Burke Jr.
UPDATE: 4-12-08 3 websites on the first page of Yahoo and 2 website on the first page of MSN!
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Dee,
I think that forum marketing is underused because it is a bit time consuming. Internet marketers tend to look for ways that they can gain maximum exposure for minimum effort. Call it human nature, I suppose - we all tend to seek the path of least resistance.
To me, this makes forum marketing even more effective. While other marketers are out chasing the “next big thing” in internet marketing tools, a savvy marketer will stick to the basics, and this includes forum marketing.
In my experience, forum marketing has afforded me less traffic than other marketing types, but the conversion from that traffic is substantially better.
Thank you for the well-written post!
To Your Success,
Lee Rowley
Java Joint Media
Java Joint Media BuzzBlog
Excellent point about less competition in forum marketing. Thanks!
I suggest everybody, who use forums for promote their site, to use smaller forums in their niche, because bigger forums often don’t allow promotion.
Great post. I just started participating at cre8teasite forums and have been thinking a bit about this topic as well.
One thing I had considered was doing a bit of kw research around potential thread topics, I.e.; SEO related questions like “How to such-and-such.” Because the thread topic appears as the title tag, choosing thread titles that are both some what frequently searched as well as topically related to your site would seem logical. However, I’m glad you osted the bit about repuation. There seem to be some rather elusive dynamics on these forums that I’ve yet to grab onto.
Forum marketing can be great in a lot of ways. You can establish yourself as an authority, promote your sites/products, and get many links back to your site. I wouldn’t ever promote anything directly in a post, but almost all forums will allow signature links.
i don’t under stand how to enter into that business
but i am very very interested to business.
please tell me from basic things.
Yeah, I’ve got a little bit traffic from forums ;-)
Forum marketing is a great source of traffic and backlinks. If you’re a serious poster and have thousands of posts, then when you launch your new site within a few minutes … you just change your signature and suddenly you get thousands of backlinks.
I have been posting gin forums recently, and I have found that it definitely does help with traffic. I have been getting more and more hits from search engines as a result.
Also, I’ve had a couple of affiliate program sales recently. I’m not sure exactly where they come from, but I think they were forum readers who clicked through from my posts. The sales came not long after I’d been very active in the forums, so I think they were what did it.
Use an ad tracker to know where the sales are coming from. Then you will know on which type of promotion you should focus.
i use forum marketing. is a great way for attracting new visitors. Actually, the traffic that is coming from the forums, is well targeted and converts very good.
Of course, there is one condition if you want to have great conversions…
1. VERY GOOD SALES PAGE (or SQUEZE PAGE) like i am trying to have (maybe if you have time you will check it out and tell me what do you think);
2.A good reputation on the forum`s.
Tudor Ciurescu
Great post. Thanks for the tips!
Great ideas. I’ve used many of these, I also use Glyphius to check my work, no need to duplicate what is already out there and what may not be working.
Another tip is to view the cache of posts - I have found that some forums don’t display links to googlebot and hence don’t contribute to SERPS.
Posting to forums is a great way to bring traffic and a strong forum may be worth posting to for the traffic benefit more than any link popularity.
As said above - quality regular posts will bring your reputation to others attention and draw them to your site. “me too” type posts will not be of benefit.
Articlelley,
Can you please give an example of a forum you have found doing this?
I can’t figure out how that would work.