When you begin to contribute to blogs and forums, do not make silly comments such as "thanks for the great post" or "that was really useful information." These types of comments will not induce people to visit your site. Your long-term goal on forums should be to network with other members, and perhaps do some joint ventures or other collaborative efforts. With blogs, the main goal is to gain page rank (links) to your site, but you can also get some traffic if you post effectively.
Forum Posting
In order to be really successful with your posts, you must add some new information to what has already been given. In other words, read the post and comments, and then add useful and thoughtful information - something that has not already been said.
"Part of your forum/blog research goal is to figure out why people are participating in that particular medium."
Evaluate the forum guidelines and the interests and level of experience of the people who post on the forum. Be sure to notice how many contributors there are. If there are only a few daily posts, do not waste your time on that forum or blog because you are unlikely to get traffic. On the other hand, if the site has a good page rank, it may be worth your while to add some comments just for page rank (see the SEO section of this Module) Part of your forum/blog research goal is to figure out why people are participating in that particular medium. With forums, often the main reason people go there is to get answers to questions and other types of advice. With blogs, the motivation is a bit vague, but often relates to SEO. Occasionally, you will find blog comments that are interesting and useful; in that case, that will be a good place for you to post also.
Do not forget that you can also post on Squidoo and Hubpages for traffic. There are probably too many links on these pages, however, for you to get much page rank from such postings.
Many sites will allow you to link to your own pages from your forum posts, and sometimes from blog posts. If they do allow this, try to comment on as many of the posts as you can and you will get traffic - that is, as long as your posts are useful and you offer something free in your link. On some forums, sig (signature) files are allowed, where you can list your Web sites and other brief information.
If you cannot add a direct link with your sig file from your post to your site, then create a username that will get attention, such as "freereportonyourkeywords," or something similar. Generally, most blogs and forums will let you link to your site from your login name. If not, do not bother posting because you will not get traffic or SEO value.
Over the long term, your goal should be to build networking relationships with forum members. Look at the questions people ask and think about how you can answer them. You may even want to create an FAQ (list of questions and answers) with the most frequently asked questions found on that forum (or similar forums) and your answers. Then offer your FAQ as a free report to other users of the forum(s).
Look at what others are doing on the site to get ideas for your own comments. Some savvy marketers get almost all their traffic from forums -- and make a very nice income doing so. If you feel you do not know enough about the topic on the forum or blog, get some ebooks (see our resources section), go to ezinearticles.com, do a Google search or go to wikipedia.com and learn something.
Over the long term, your goal should be to build networking relationships with forum members.
Do not forget that you can also share free tools and products on forums that members will appreciate. People always appreciate freely given information and resources. One great way to offer more information on a topic is to put it up on your Web site. Then mention that forum members/readers can find out more at your link. Use your domain name, and then name your information page with the topic in it...for example, www.yourdomain.com/identitytheft.php. One of the most important things you will ever do online is to learn as much as you can about all the facets of Internet marketing and then share it with others. Later, you can create your own product with all the research you've done.
