Hi all, I'm Amy, just wanna say hi to all the forum people, I'm new and need advice. My friend and I are trying to market our website, I am going to be trying to get links from forums, could someone advise me on wether I need to post in the forums or is just signing up and leaving a signature enough to get a link, many thanks in advance. xxx Amy
Welcome, Amy. Signing up, leaving a signature and that's it? It won't help you to do anything. You should look for traffic, this is what any website needs, and traffic doesn't come like this. Forum marketing doesn't mean to join some forums and then to do nothing. Join forums in your area of expertise, post on these forums, make yourself known by helping people, and traffic will come.
In the Forum you want to participate. Also forum are now making sure you are adding content (valuable) , because some will require you have post X amount. Also if you just post fluff in here you will get points taken away from you. You want traffic : Post some Ad's | Write some articles
I have to agree with Ladyred. Just creating an account will do nothing to benefit your website. Partake in forums that are suitable for your website. Make sure people realise that you are an expert in your site. If you post stupid posts, without any valuable information, you negatively impact people's impression of you and your website.
ezine ads is correct, the idea of forum marketing is all about going in and getting involved in a community where potential buyers would hang out. For example, in 2005 one of the fastest growing web companies was scubatoys.com. I actually purchased stuff from him because I joined a forum called scubaboard. He was hanging out there, had a reputation of being very helpful (and was) and I decided to buy the majority of my scuba equipment from him. One of the best things he ever did for his company was get involved in that large community and give honest feedback on equipment, etc.
You need to re-evaluate your strategy. Forum links will do nothing. Start writing articles and pointing linked keywords back to your site (just one link per article). Use forum signatures but participate on the forums (make sure they're in your niche), or you'll probably lose your account. Bookmark your site on all of the social bookmarking sites, especially delicious.com, since they get re-syndicated on many other sites. Most importantly, don't just promote your home page, but your inner pages, too.
Focus on providing useful information and people will link to you. Trade links and do some article submissions
Yeah very well explained by "ezine ads" its all about making a good repute. People will obviously follow you if you are delivering something of value.
What niche does your website service? What are your keywords? Have you done any research?? It will take way more than you just dropping a link in a forum and "hoping" that someone will click on it.