Given that an online forum has a large number of followers, website owners have found it to be an efficient way of website promotion as it can give them quality back links. To be successful, a website is in constant need of traffic which can be gained through Link building and high search engine ranking. Website owners therefore utilize Forum Postings as effective tool to serve their online business goals.
I would like to add this point - "Forum posting will be useless if you do not contribute anything with useful replys to the community you are belonging to. It will be useless if you are going to SPAM with links or solely advertising intention."
I agree with sxperm on this matter,Forum posting only works well if you participate and provide value to the community.That's what makes people to look at your sig in the first place. also Quality Back links, Self Branding, Building Reputation, Free Traffic is what you get from forum participation.
Yes, Forum posting measn not that you will only want to take advantage you also need to do something for other like need to reply properly other question not jsut open spammy thread for your link
Forum Posting is very beneficial for website. But it should be dofollow and it should not look spammy.
Forums make a strong back link for our site. Signatures are also very useful for our site as well as blog.
I use to enjoy the benefit of forum backlinks when I spend most of time posting to forums and join discussions. But I agree with Sxperm, you need to contribute and provide useful information and not just for the purposes of getting backlinks. Besides forums will also provide you with new friends as well as new techniques.
As long as you dont expect visitors from forums to click on your ad. Since most of us are using Google Adsense and Adword, we do not make it a habit to click on ads