How to Generate Traffic from Online Discussion Forums

July 7, 2009 – 12:15 am

Internet forums or online discussion rooms are great place to discuss topics related to your business, get information on specific topic or for seeking help from other online members. These forums have evolved from what used to be ‘Newsgroups’ or ‘Listservers’ in early period of Internet.  Nowadays, these discussion forums are all over the Internet covering every niche or market segment. You can post your queries, answer queries, seek opinion of experts or simply chat with your friends through these discussion forums. In last few years, there has been a tremendous growth in online discussion forums and almost every field and topic has got a forum dedicated to it. Some companies even use these forums as channel for online customer care and support.

Discussion Forum as a Traffic Source

People join online forums for varied reasons. Some are looking for help and support, others are willing to share their knowledge and experiences, while some are there to simply chat and learn something new. Apart from these there are another form of participants whose numbers have been increasing in recent past. These are the bands of online marketers and webmasters looking to increase traffic to their website or monetize these forums.

Online discussion forums can prove to be a great source of focused traffic for your website if used properly. They can provide an effective word-of –mouth publicity for your business and website. Though most forums ban any promotional or advertising material but they do allow informative and legitimate discussions which refer to products, services or links to third party website. Forum promotion can be used effectively to advertise your business or derive some focused traffic to your website.  You will have to use your wit to promote your website and not to be labeled as a spammer.

Basic Forum Posting Rules

Before your start posting in discussion forums make sure that you have ample knowledge on the subject and ready to take an active role in meaningful discussions.  Each forum is monitored by a forum administrator (or owner) and one or more moderators who keep an eye on every post. If you sound like a spammer or break any forum rules, it is highly likely that you will be kicked out. There are some basic rules which must be followed while participating; otherwise you may end up getting yourself banned or derailing your marketing campaign. Some of them are listed below –

1. Post on the forum regularly.  If you will post frequently on a forum, other members will start recognizing you and will take your posts more seriously.
2. Post something meaningful. You should always have something useful to contribute to the forum. Research thoroughly on the subject prior to posting. Make sure you have something valuable and informative to add to the forum.
3. Mention your website only in relevant posts. Don’t try to needlessly ‘push’ your website in irrelevant posts that has nothing to do with your product category. This may annoy other participants.
4. Don’t always post a question. Also post answers to the queries posted by others. Try to answer honestly, accurately and to the best of your knowledge.
5. Always follow the forum guidelines. Every forum has its set of rules and procedures which must be followed by every participant. Read these guidelines thoroughly and always abide by them.
6.  Try not to sound like an advertiser. The minute you are compromised, people will treat you as an outcast and you may even be shown the exit.

Forum Signatures

Signatures are few lines of text that appear below you every post every time you write something.  You can put anything from your products and services to URL of your website. Some forums even allow hyper linking the text. People have made these signatures as most effective and popular form of making money from discussion forums.  Many forums don’t allow putting your signatures straight away. Some have a threshold of minimum number of required posts while in others, admin and moderators grant this privilege. There is a limit to the number of characters which can be included, so try to use this real estate efficiently.