If you have a home business and are looking for another avenue for promotion, consider forums as a viable option.
Forums are a great place to promote your wares and are often overlooked.
Why Forums?
(a) The people in them are active. Active customer are more likely to buy
(b) You can usually interact with your client
(c) Forums are spidered by search engines often, creating valuable links
(d) If you make a comment in a forum and have your link in your signature, people often click them, thereby creating valuable traffic for your site.
So what forums are worth your time?
Do a search for “forums” the ones at the top of the list are more likely to be active than those further down. When you get to a forum, check out the membership list, its PR (Page Rank) and the number of posts in the last day. These are all valuable clues to the the activity in the forum.
How should I promote myself in a forum?
A forum is like any community. You should act in such a way that you are well known and respected. Here are some suggestions for effective promotional activity
Do:
(a) Post ads in the classifieds section. These are generally read often
(b) Place your key links in your signature
(c) Try to assist those asking for help
(d) Be careful to follow all the forum rules.
Don’t:
(a) Blatantly advertise your product with every post. Links in the signature file are fine though.
(b) Dont be aggressive or condescending
(c) Don’t get involved in arguments or flames.
(d) Dont complain or attach blame, stay positive and helpful
One forum I visit regularly is to be found at http://forums.digitalpoint.com/
If you have a favourite forum I’d love to hear about it. Please leave a comment in this blog so that others can visit it too.
If you own your own website or you have a page supplied by a program, growing website traffic will be one of the keys to your success. You need a growing, self-generating stream of website traffic and plenty of it. Preferably free and preferably preconditioned to buy your product of service
This article provides some ideas for growing website traffic.
Directories
Directories are website listings. The trick is to find a directory which receives huge volumes of website traffic. Start by applying for listings in Yahoo, DMOZ and Looksmart. These are huge portals with significant website traffic. Getting listed isn’t easy but once achieved you will see a significant lift in your website traffic. Look at other directories but make sure they have a good traffic rating (use Alexa).
Traffic Exchanges
Every website you view in a traffic exchange generates credits which are exchanged for views of your site. This website traffic is free and can be generated almost instantly. The more sites you view the more people visit your website and the more your website traffic grows.
Article Writing
One of the most effective methods of generating website traffic. Best of all its free. Magazines, Ezines and Webmasters are always looking for fresh content. Just write an article on any topic which interests you, optimize it for keywords and be sure to include your website URL in the bio line at the bottom of the article. Then submit it to ezine directories on the web. This will generate website traffic and create backlinks to your site, which in turn helps with search engine rankings.
Read the rest of this entry
Saw this in my travels and thought I’d pass it on.
Its a listing of the largest web directories on the net. It lists
free and paid directories. They can be sorted by PR,alexa rating etc.
Looks like a very useful resource which will save hours of listing.
You can check it out here:
http://www.seocompany.ca/directory/free-web-directories.html
You may have heard people talking about
“Instant Buzz” over the last few weeks. I’ve
been using it myself and the results have
been fantastic (by far the best fr*e
advertising system I’ve seen).
Normally participation is by invitation only
(I was lucky enough to get an invitation),
but they’re opening it up to the public
from September 1st through September 4th.
Click Here
It’s important that you check this out before they change it back to invitation-
only. You’ll regret it if you don’t.
Anyway, check out the above link for
details. That will explain the system better than I can.
All I can say is that the results for me so
far have been superb.
If you have any questions, please don’t
hesitate to write me back. Just be sure to
install it first before you write, as it
only takes a few seconds and it’s very easy
to use.
Looking forward to talking to you once you
have it installed! I can also talk to you
via the community they have set up once
you’re inside.
Instant Buzz
