Increasing your Internet presence through business forums will give you a different kind of clout than Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Pay Per Click (PPC) or any other method of gaining visibility.
Business people who see business forums as just another method to drive traffic are missing the point. Business forums can not only drive traffic, but also build up your personal brand and reputation. It can help you land speaking engagements, joint venture partners, interns who will work for you at no salary, high PR backlinks and a whole lot more. Of course, you will also get highly targeted traffic.
Focus on Providing Value
The people who become very well known in online communities are those with reputations of helping people. Find questions that you believe you can help answer and answer them. Become known as someone who knows what they are talking about and can help others.
Choose a specialty. Rather than trying to answer questions on everything, answer questions on the subjects in which you have expertise. If you are a great copywriter but a poor PPC marketer, then don’t hang out in PPC forums. Instead, give spot-on reviews of other people’s copy and help others learn the art of copywriting.
Provide Case Studies
Provide case studies of things you have personally accomplished. If you have successfully launched a website, share your step-by-step formula for how you made it happen. If you created a campaign that converted at 6 percent, share how you made that happen. Share your sales funnel, how you interacted with your users via email, how you optimized your sales page, etc.
If you build a successful PPC affiliate marketing campaign, share how you made your process work. Share your keyword research tips, bidding methods and how you selected your affiliate programs. Hold back only enough so that your business isn’t damaged. For example, don’t give away your specific markets or keywords, but be generous with methodology and advice.
When Should You Link to Your Website?
Only link to your site from your forum signature, your forum profile and occasionally forum posts if you can genuinely provide more value by sending people to your website.
Never ever spam. People who land on your website should be the kind of people who have already had exposure to you and want to learn more. They will deliberately seek out your website in your signature because they have seen the quality of your content from your posts.
Forum marketing is less about “Look at me!” marketing. It is more about reputation building and gaining exposure. Once you have that exposure, people will seek you out as the expert in whatever industry you are in. When used properly, business forums can catapult you to a completely different level of success. Use it to build connections, reputation and traffic.
