Spend 10-15 minutes participating in a forum that relates to your topic area. When you think about where are potential readers already going, that is where you should go.
In 31 Days to Build a Better Blog, Darren says he spends about 15-30 minutes a day visiting forums in his favorite topic areas. Contributing to some discussions, especially in areas where you can provide the answer for someone asking a specific question, is a great way to establish yourself as knowledgable in the topic area.
Forums Provide Great Blog Fodder
Forums also provide great inspiration for blog posts. Think about a question you see posted frequently – the kind that make the moderators roll their eyes in a “Not THIS question again” fashion. Those are the areas where people are genuinely seeking specific information, and are likely to be great blog posts.
Forums Allow “Free Advertising”
Be sure to use your signature and profile spaces to link back to your blog, or even specific posts on your blog! And of course, like commenting on another blog, forum posts are lasting ways to show your value and knowledge….don’t waste your time with a simple “sounds great” or “I agree”…provide a bit of meat in your response and people will take note.
Challenge – Find three new forums in your topic area that you can join and set up a complete profile and signature with the maximum allowed number of links (each forum has their own rules so be sure to check). If you are already the member of a forum, visit that forum, update your signature and profile, and spend 10 minutes answering questions and contributing to the conversations there.
On a totally selfish note – both Untrained Housewife and Blissfully Domestic have new forums in place for their readers. Links in the signature (fill in the profile information) are allowed so consider visiting these and starting a few forum threads.
I belong to quite a few travel forums. But I’ll be honest, I don’t see as much coming from them as I do from other blogs. Often forums are set up with good intentions, but if everyone there is after building their site they tend to get spammy. At least travel does…
I don’t think forums ever bring tons of TRAFFIC because the most active forums tends to keep users on the site. So I’d definitely agree with you there. But what I’ve noticed about forums the most is that they are very helpful for building connections. The active users on a forum can often be very helpful…if it’s not too “clique-ish” that is.
Angela <><
I agree with you both, but I think it depends on the forum. Most are indeed restrictive on what you can and can’t post. And there are differences in terms of whether you are seen as a peer or an “expert” by those reading your posts. If you are seen as a peer, I agree that there likely wouldn’t be a lot of traffic. However, if the forum is centered around helping those with a problem *you can solve*, that is the one you want to focus energy on. If people have questions you can give a helpful answer on, those are the type of forum posts that can get you some attention and people clicking on your link.
The forum I went to today is one that I used to purchase signature ads. It’s an inexpensive way to advertise ($5/month) and the forum totally serves my niche – birth pros who are looking for help with their businesses. The signature ad is a banner ad with my website name and a tagline, with a link back to the site. I’ll need to play with having the link go to specific posts. The key, of course, is to participate in the forum so that people will see the ads at the bottom of my responses.
Another benefit is that sometimes, I’ll turn my forum posts into a blog post, so participating is a good way to find content based on member’s burning questions of the day.
I’m struggling to understand the differences in benefits between participating in a forum and participating in a social media venue like twitter or facebook. Any thoughts? Is there a difference?