Its a time tested technique and has been working for me since I got my start with blogs. If you can manage to use it properly you too can pull in hundreds of visitors a day, and get a lot of returning readers.

Traffic from forums is awesome because people who use forums are ‘community-minded’. They are the types of readers that enjoy interaction, which means they like to comment.

Here is how you do it:

1. Find forums for your niche.

You may be thinking that not all niches have forums about them. But you would be surprised what kind of forums their are out there. I even found forums about appliances, remember finding places your potential readers gather is easy with Google search something like “appliance forums.”
Try to find more than 2 of them, currently I am using 4 or so to bring in some traffic.

2. Sign up and customize.

Now if you haven’t already signed up go do it now and come back to read on.
Ok, back? Good, if the forum lets you use signatures with links in them, you obviously want to add your site and use some catchy text. You also want to set up your avatar, use the logo+slogan of your site and maybe the url. If the forums you just signed up for don’t allow any type of links I would shy away from it, even though you don’t exactly need them to get some traffic.

Rules for signatures:

• No flashing text, it makes you look unprofessional.
• No neon colors, like the last one.
• No long descriptions, people just wanna look at your links and know whats their. They don’t want to read a paragraph.

Rules for avatars:

• No multi-color avatars, they look ugly and leave a bad impression.
• Use your logo, avatars create a brand. If people see the avatar enough they will remember your site.

3. Don’t jump into quick, you might drown.

I see it time and time again, people rush into a nice forum and spam their links in every thread they get a chance. Which is a great way to get banned and annoy people, thus hurting yours and your blogs reputation. So  snoop through the forums for a day or two before you get into it.

What you do while you snoop:

• Look around and find the best topics and most active areas.
• Read the rules and get a feel for the people their.
• Figure out whose in charge and who is popular.

If you do this then when ever you do start posting you will be able to get better results.

4. Get posting.

Now that you have joined, setup your profile and you’ve gotten a feel for the place you can start posting. Just make sure you do it in little steps.

Your first 100 posts.

Because people hate newbies that spam the place they practically live in you want to take it easy, at least for the first week or two. You should just answer peoples questions, be helpful and friendly and if possible link to blogs other than yours. Do not post about your articles just yet, get some where around 100 posts just so people don’t automatically say, “pshh just another youngster tryin to teach us something” and leave the thread.

After 100 posts.

This is about when you want to start pushing your blog into posts. You have already helped a good amount of people and built a small reputation for your self amongst some, so now you should start writing good content in threads of your own. Include a relevant link to your blog in each post saying “learn more about this here: link to your site.” You could even link saying “get your daily dose of blogging tips here: link to your site.” If your posts are good enough you will drive alot of traffic to your blog, no doubt about it

Posting rules: Cause you don’t want to over do it.

• Don’t spam your link every chance you get, it makes you annoying.
• Don’t link to you blog more than once in a post or thread.
• Make sure you don’t spam the place with threads, it will get annoying.
• Be an active member, don’t just post for traffic, post and help people out, they may click your signature links.

7. Make good with others.

I have made quite a few friends through forums, it really just happens. If people find your content really helpful they may private message you asking you a quick question or two. But don’t just leave it their, you should put in some extra time to establish relationships with key forum members such as moderators, administrators and owners. Send them a message just telling them how much you like their forum, maybe offer some help and throw in some suggestions too. You cannot have enough influential friends, they can help you send bucket loads of traffic to your sites.

Some side notes.

I have tried a few ways of getting traffic out of forums that may be questionable but they work.
Get into an argument, I have been in some good and bad arguments.
Good ones are the arguments that two or more people share their thought to try and prove a point. People can actually learn from these and even though they stay out of the argument the usually still read it. Thus getting you some exposure which can turn into traffic.
Bad arguments are the useless quarrels that a few members get into, I had one about Americans not being stupid, it got me a lot of traffic but I can’t say it was all good traffic. Plus this can ruin your image at the forum.

Fake site sales, every time I go to sell a site I end up getting a good hundred visitors within a day to the site I want to sell. Some times I may post a fake sale with a really catchy title that pulls in potential buyers. They all check out the site and some stick around to comment. The only problem with this is that if you don’t sell you may get some angry posters.

A quick recap:

Since its a 1142 word post

• Their are forums in your niche, so find them.
• Sign up, then set up your profile.
• Snoop around the forum and get a feeling for the place.
• Take it easy for the first 100 post, don’t spam and link to your blog too early.
• Make friends with the mods and owners, they can help a lot in the long run.
• Sketchy ways of pulling in traffic: Fake website sales and arguments.

What do you think about forums as a constant form of traffic? Any other tips or words of advice?

You can all expect to see a lot more quality posts like this one in the future so SUBSCRIBE!!!

Image by wwarby