Forums -- How to Use Them for Promoting Your Internet Business?

There are different ways to promote an internet business. 'Pay Per Click advertising, banner advertising, article marketing, forum marketing etc. are the different ways which can be used to promote your site on the web. Here, we shall discuss about forum marketing, which is one of the simplest internet marketing strategies used by internet entrepreneurs to market their businesses online.

There are hundreds of forums on the internet. Some of these are general forums whereas some are niche specific. Forums can be used to share information on a specific subject or just socialize. Active participation in forums is a great way to market an online business. The benefits of participating in forums are as follows:

(a) Builds backlinks.

(b) Drives traffic.

(c) Builds your reputation.

(d) Provides help and ideas from other members.

(e) Helps you to publish special offers.

The first step for forum marketing is to decide which forums to join. You must join forums which have the same topic as to that of your website or closely relate to it. This will help you to get access to people who may be interested in the products or services which you offer. For example, if you have a 'Dog Training' website then it will be useless to join a gardening forum or a car forum. Members there will only be interested in gardening or cars. So, with a 'Dog Training' website, you must join forums which are related to the subject. You can search in 'Google' to find out the relevant forums and join them one by one. Before joining a forum, read the TOS carefully. You must adhere to the rules of a forum. For example, most of the forums do not allow any blatant advertisement. You may promote your website only through the signature link at the end of each post. Some forums do not allow the use of any affiliate link in the signature line and you can only use the URL of your own website there. Failure to adhere to the rules of a forum may get you banned from it.

Sometimes, search engines like Google crawl popular forums and index many posts. So, your posts may appear in the search engines along with your website URL in the signature line. This will help to drive traffic to it.

After joining a forum, you must participate in the discussions on a regular basis. Always try to help other members of the forum by answering their questions and giving valuable advice. If you add value to the forum, more and more members will click your link and visit your website.