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 Online forums are a great place to
meet people, learn things and, most importantly, build
traffic for your web site. You can build heaps of traffic
to your site by just following these few, simple
guidelines.
Help People Every Chance You Get
Whenever someone posts a question to the forum, answer it.
Challenge yourself to see how many people you can help in
an hour or try and see if you can be the first person to
answer.
Be honest and offer real advice. Don't just post a quick
line asking them to call you for help. People who use
forums want answers - TODAY. They're banking on having
anywhere from 5 to 500 people on the forum ready to answer
their question.
The better your answer, the more likely they'll click
over to your web site!
Answering questions will help you to build a reputation
for yourself as the expert in your field. The more
information you give away, the more you prove that you
know what you're talking about.
Don't be afraid to give a lot of information away. You
might feel that you risk losing work this way but, really,
you risk losing work by failing to prove that you know
your business.
Be Friendly Towards Everyone, Even if You Disagree With
Them
Heated arguments are commonplace in forums - learn how to
express your opinions without being rude or insulting.
When someone disagrees with you, present your views and
then, as Dr Stephen Covey says, agree to disagree,
agreeably. Agree that you feel differently about the
subject and then agree not to argue about it any more.
Eventually, people will come to know you as "the nice
person that knows a lot about ...". That sort of
reputation can earn you lots of traffic as well as lots of
sales!
Contribute to the Forum as Much as Possible
Whenever you come across something you think will be
useful to other members of the forum, post it. Let
everyone know how you found it, where it came from and
write a short summary of what they'll find if they follow
the link or download the article.
This might sound like a lot of work but, in most cases,
it's really easy.
You establish yourself as the professional in your
industry. This really helps people feel confident about
doing business with you. Confidence equals clicks and
clicks equals Sales!
Use a Compelling Signature
A signature is the space at the end of every post where
you can provide your personal information like a name,
email address and web site address. You usually just have
to configure it once and then it will automatically be
added to every post you make.
People often use signatures to "advertise"
themselves. The key here is to make it short and
compelling.
For example, "We create web sites" is short, but
not compelling. You probably won't get any clicks with
such a boring signature.
Offer a solution to a problem or pique their curiosity
with a question-based link. Make people curious or excited
about what they'll find if they click on your link.
Here are 2 good examples:
"Are you losing sales because of these 10 critical
web site mistakes?"
"Discover the secrets of online marketing with my
free course"
As long as what you're offering is relevant to the forum
or discussion, you'll find a lot of people clicking
through to find out more.
Link Back to Your Own Web Site
Whenever you post something, try and find a helpful way to
link back to your web site. For example, if someone asks a
question on how to finance their start-up company, give
them a tip or two, and then link to an article on your web
site for more information.
This is called in-context linking and is, by far, the best
way to build your web site's traffic and search engine
ranking.
This works because search engines like Google decide how
important your web site is by how many different web sites
link to it! Essentially, by being active on forums, you're
voting for your own web site in a very effective &
ethical way. Bonus :)
By following these simple steps, you'll soon find hordes
of people clicking through to your site to learn more
about what you do and how you can help them.
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