Boost Your Blog Traffic With These Forum Marketing Tactics!

Drive blog traffic using forum marketing

Every blogger understands the importance of traffic when it comes to making money blogging. In fact, many of us have come to realize that having good blog content but no traffic amounts to nothing. In fact when you're in this situation the simple solution is to employ different traffic tactics and invite more and more people to your blog!

It's because traffic is such a crucial element when it comes to blog success that my resolve this year is to quadruple the Web Income Journal's traffic.  And to do that, I've decided to heavily diversify my traffic generation strategies. For the past few months I've concentrated more on driving traffic through blog commenting and seo but I've decided to add more avenues in the coming days. One of such is forum marketing.

In the beginning I used this method but never really concentrated on it to make much impact. And so right now, I'm doing some research and learning more about generating traffic through forums.

From my earlier attempts and what I'm learning right now, I'm more than convinced that forums could really be another way of quickly spreading the word about your blog. This is because a diversity of people will be able to view your blog once you become really visible on forums. Besides, forums are a great way of meeting and interacting with other bloggers of similar interest.

In this post I want to reveal a few tips I've picked up that could help greatly in promoting your blog using forums. If you think forum marketing is good for your blog promotion then you may be interested in these tips. Take note, these are just a few tips I've picked up so far which I hope to implement in the days ahead. Feel free to add your own tips in the comments below.

Using Forums To Market Your Blog

1.  Target A Forum that’s In Your Blog's Niche

Of course you know the importance of this. If you intend to drive traffic to your blog there is no need generating traffic that is of no use to you. Only put your blog in front of those who are interested in your content. So the first thing to note in driving traffic through forums is to pick forums that are targeted to your niche market. Besides, once you're on the forum try as much as possible to post in the threads that you are actually interested in. Don't waste your time trying to spread yourself all over the place. Believe it or not, the degree of your understanding of and your interest in a topic in a forum will shine through your forum post. And once people notice your interest in a forum topic, you're bound to get more attention from people reading your forum post.

2. Showcase Your Expertise

One way of doing this is by providing valuable contributions. Like stated above don't go spreading yourself out thin all over the forum. Choose questions that you can answer as an “expert”. When you target those threads that are related to your blog topic you can easily stand out with your responses. You must understand that this is critical because posting off-topic posts in a forum could earn your being kicked out of the forum.

3. Your Language Matters

Avoid text lingo and be dignified enough to spell right. You may want to use text shortcuts but understand that most times these could make words almost unreadable, and may end up annoying most people. Besides, since your main aim is to drive traffic to your blog you must realize that once other members see you as someone who cannot write good content, they will not be able to trust you as a credible source of high quality information. As a result you may find it hard to invite people to read your blog, since they cannot understand what you are posting on the forum.

4. Build A Reputation As A People Helper

I think this is one of the most powerful tips of all! One thing that is sure is that people don't care about what you have to say until they find out that you care about them. So in using forums to drive traffic to your blog first extend help to other forum members when they need it. Once you allow people to feel that they are important, they will be interested in you.

5. Network and Build Relationships

Get to know other people in the forum and build relationships with them. Post your link in your profile page and signature. Forums are about interaction so use that well to your advantage. You may want to use a username that readily inform others of who you are and what you do to get more attention!

So, what forum marketing tips are you using that could be of help to us?

21 Comments
  1. Hey Chadrack, great stuff man. Forums are going to be big for me this year so I’d like to add one thing: go for the sticky post! Write something really, really amazing so it becomes stickied – tonnns of people will thank you for it and will let you stay at the top of the threads – that’s some powerful traffic!

    • Hi Murlu, great seeing you around. First let me say happy new year! And thanks for that tip. I’m really out to make some impact with forum marketing this year. Once again thanks.

  2. Reply
    Dennis Edell@Direct Sales Marketing January 22, 2011 at 5:40 pm

    All killer tips that work!
    My first foray into online marketing many moons ago was in forums. Set yourself up in the right way (without being “full of it”) and the networking and traffic will never stop.
    I still get people contacting me from forums I haven’t been to in years…don’t forget, forums keep archives also. 😉

  3. Reply
    Dennis Edell@Direct Sales Marketing January 22, 2011 at 5:42 pm

    I just noticed, only two of your top commenters, one being me, is using a gravatar avatar….a post on the subject might be a good idea. 😉

    • Hi Dennis, that is something I’ve tried to do something about a long time ago. As you suggested I’ve already done a post about it when I noticed this a few months ago. In fact, I’ve also installed a plugin that reminds anyone trying to post a comment without a gravatar to get one. You may not see that message because you already have a gravatar. But anyone without a gravatar sees that message. I just don’t understand why many bloggers don’t want to put a face behind their comments. Possibly many are not looking out for networking but just want to get a backlink.

      Following your comment I may have to pull out that post and stick it up front for sometime!

  4. In fact when you’re in this situation the simple solution is to employ different traffic tactics and invite more and more people to your blog!

    • Yeah, driving traffic is not a one-solution thing and that’s what I’m out to do. I’m all out to explore different ways to achieve my aim. And you know what? I’ll be happy if you can offer some tips 🙂

  5. Without being “full of it”? Can’t really get you there. Do you mean acting haughty? Please can you offer some explanations?

  6. Another great post Chadrack!
    I’ve been using forums for quite sometime to promote my site, and currently they’re my #2 source of traffic right after Google! And #1 amongst targeted visitors (they have the least number of bounce rate!)
    They are definitely powerful for driving targeted traffic if you give them enough time!

  7. Though in my own experience it not more targeted like blog commenting and you have to do more to become very relevant in a forum and of particular difficult is finding very targeted forum because the forum admin might not have a very stern hold on what you can post…but it is still needed as a traffic source!

    • I think that is very insightful. My past experience with it sound a little similar. You need to spend a whole lot of time and of course post something that is really attention grabbing for others to take a look at your signature line. Thanks for the insight.

  8. No problem! It just occur to me that was your reply was, I am very thankful for  meeting a blogger like you…that walk the talk and also consistent…keep the flag flying!!!

  9. I have come to notice that the ‘reply’ button under a comment is void, could you please remove it…the one that works is the reply button by the right hand side when you are trying to reply a comment…thanks

  10. The building a reputation as a helper tip goes a really long way. I’m currently doing that at the Facebook group Bloggers Lab and it’s gradually increasing my Facebook fans.
     

    • Hmm, that’s interesting. I must say I’ve really not being active on facebook for now. I’m into a few groups there but not much activity but simply talking about these tactics has given me more push to get more involved.

  11. Not easy like blog comment.

  12. I really appreciate your post and you explain each and every point very well.Thanks

    for sharing this information.And I’ll love to read your next post too.
    regards
    Share Tips

  13. hi Chadrack, I like your post, you give a good suggestion of not using short form of words because it is happened to me sometimes that I cant understand the article if it has shortcut words.

  14. Yes. Forum posting i a great way to increase traffic but another method is engaging in social networking sites like facebook and twitter. There you could definitely look for users who are interested in your blog. It’s one of the most powerful technique in internet marketing today.

    Leave a Reply to Amr Boghdady Cancel reply

    Empowering You to Make Money Online
    Logo