This is something I don't see discussed on the various message boards very often. If you are not utilizing niche specific forums for your websites you are missing out on a golden opportunity to drive some serious targeted traffic. This doesn't mean that you need to spam the forums, that would be ridiculous, and a short-term way to build a burst of traffic before you get shut down. What I am talking about is finding forums that are related to your niche. If you run a fashion blog find a fashion related forum. Begin posting, then promote your website in your sig link. You don't even need anchor text, as this link is meant to drive traffic not boost your SERPs. The key is finding a related forum for your particular niche. If you have done this correctly then you will be getting some serious traffic to your website that is already interested in your topic. This means you will be able to gain new readers and hopefully retain an audience. I see alot of people only talk about profile links, and I want to make it clear that this is not what that is. You need to be partaking in the community so that they go ahead and click thru to your website. Once you find one and are starting to see traffic keep posting, then go find another one and start posting there. It's one of the best methods of gaining free traffic. Why would you pass that up?
I agree, and not only are you getting free traffic by posting on forums in your niche, but you can also pick up new ideas, content and things to write about. What questions are people in the forum asking that you can provide answers for? Not to mention that you can build backlinks to your own site and also build a reputation as an expert / authority in your niche.
By the way you can find forums specific to your niche by typing your keyword phrase + forum into Google's search window
Just found another thread that mentioned big-boards.com--this place is pretty cool and can show you how busy a message board is. The key is finding a place that is has a lot of members. There is no point in finding a message board that hasn't had a post in a week. You want to be able to get your website out in front of people who are going to click thru and see what you are all about. So posting on high traffic and relevant forums is key to getting massive free traffic.
Using Googles search function for forums will produce some great results. People do underestimate the importance of targeted traffic and prefer to gain masses of traffic which will not convert in the same way. Period.
Agreed, its better to have a couple hundred targeted visitors than thousands of untargeted visitors - unless maybe you just want people to click on your adsense ads. But at the end of the day you want to attract visitors who would be interested in buying what you have to offer.
I know you will all hate me for saying this, but..... Unless you have a GREAT Signature which when clicked brings them to a page which your "Targeted visitors" will be beating down your door to either sign up for email list, facebook group, or twitter account.... it is pretty much a complete waste of time. Once somebody visits your link they will NOT be back. So, by saying "no need for anchor text" it is even more of a waste. There would be absolutely no reason for them to click. Anyway... Follow the above advice.. but be really smart about it... (Yes I know, my sig doesn't go to a capture page)
What I meant by not having to use anchor text was simply not using just your keyword. You want to have a sig line that gets people to click thru. If you are on an active message board, have a relevant website your linking to, and participate in the community there is no reason you shouldn't be getting 300-500 uniques a month. But if you are just using a keyword as your sig line then its going to be alot harder to get people to click. That is free traffic and not only that it is targeted. Your not linking a fashion blog to a webmaster forum or vice versa. There is ample reason they WILL come back to your website, because it should interest them.
"300 - 500" uniques a month? You would have to show me proof of that. I don't know any niche that could do that.
Fashion niche. And by posting an analytics screen shot would just bring arguments that I photoshop'd my numbers. I'm not talking about micro niches here, I'm talking about leveraging message boards that exist for very popular niches. It just goes to show that you don't need front page rankings to get traffic. There are countless other ways, and message boards are a great generator for getting traffic from your particular niche. 300 uniques a month is just ten new visitors a day. On a high traffic forum that shouldn't be hard for anyone to get.
Man, you are right... I used this strategy many months ago. I sold 230+ products with 3 refunds at all, so it was a big deal without paying a dime.
Some millions of people will be spending much amount of time in forum sites than other sites. We can easily grab traffic from those forum sites. It is quite simple to advertise in forums and it is 100% free of cost in advertising in forum sites.
The difficulty is finding a niche forum small enough that people care to click other user's signatures, but also large enough that there is plenty of activity.