A very good set of tips, I must admit. As a forum owner, I am myself in the position of several choices and you have helped me clear some thoughts.
In regards to PR and all that. Keep in mind that one backlink is not equal to another backlink. A PR4 backlink could be more useful than a PR6 backlink. It all depends on the context of your and the website that is linking to you. You want on-topic websites to link to you. Having your link to a, say, pregnancy website from your DP sig doesn't make much sense to me.
Coldie, that was great. I love that practical idea. Very inspiring. Hope I will soon reach the place where you are now.
Many folks use what is called the "in-line banner" for things like Adsense, etc., whereby an ad is placed after the first post in every thread. But I've found that the addition of a banner (for guests only) at the very top of every subject gets the most clicks. Be sure to put a statement under the top banner to the effect of "To remove this ad, REGISTER today!", with a link to register right there. That way potential new members will get the idea they aren't going to be bombarded with ads after joining.
the point is forums pay peanuts, sucks a lot of cpu power, and need lots of time and attention, not to mention as said before the hardest part is starting a forum ... there are 1000s of forums around for every possible niche nowadays. by the way, for spamming i wouldn't forget the good old UseNet. there's still lots of old school UseNet freaks hanging there. newsgroups are not dead.
Thanks for the info mate , Iam in the forum buisness and know that these are great things. Appreciated.
I already have PR 5 on my log furniture website, logcabinrustics.com, which I think is considered to be pretty decent for an e-commerce site. Can forum links improve that as well, or are they mostly a strategy for getting new sites listed?
yes, i've 2 sites who went from pr0 to pr4 just making few posts in some popular travel forums. but in my opinion instead of focusing on the PR factor and on Google we should just focus on ways to get targeted readers. the whole industry is focused on how to gamble the search engine ranks but in fact all you need is basically to be in the place where your targeted customers hang out .. <your widget> forums, <your widget> mailing lists, newsgroups, social networks, wikis, blogs, newsmags, classifieds, directories, ... and once you do that i can guarantee google will take notice as well both on ranking and PR. as a matter of fact, you don't need Google at all, for instance most of the p-rn sites aren't even in Google index. of course for this strategy to be successful you must have a site with very interesting and original content. in theory an e-commerce site can hardly do it, but think again...
Fantastic post, thanks for sharing your information, it will defiently help people on their forum ways!