How to Increase Your Targeted Traffic With Forum Participation
Given the numerous marketing alternatives developed over the past years, should you still consider forum marketing? Yes, you should. While they are not as hip as the trending Web 2.0 platforms (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram), it remains an effective way of developing relationships with a target audience and drive traffic.
Leaving generic posts or creating signatures won’t cut it. Forum marketing needs a lot more hardwork and commitment. Read on to find out how you can increase traffic using forum participation:
Find the Right Forum
Find a forum that matches your niche. It makes it easier to find the target audience and generate the right traffic to your website. For example, if looking for a forum about makeup artists, search the word ‘Makeup artists,’ add (+) sign, and the word forum.
Alternatively, use specialized search engines developed to help users find forums. They may lead you to relevant forums you are less likely to find using mere Google searches. Join one or two forums and add more as you build a following. Spreading yourself too thin only leads to poor results.
Essential features to look out for when joining a forum is its level of activity, if it allows signatures and the community it has. You will spend a lot of time on the forum, so you need to ensure you like the discussion going on.
Be Active
It is essential to be active, especially if there are numerous discussion forums in your niche. Your level of activity determines how fast you establish authority as an expert in a forum. Participants look for specialized knowledge, and if you can deliver, they are likely to gravitate to your posts. The more active you are, the more traffic you attract to your website. Here are tips to help you maximize the benefits of joining a forum:
- Go through the rules. For example, the forum may have set a specific word count per post
- Add value to participants’ experiences and build relationships
- Reply to exciting topics. The more your replies address the needs of an audience, the more likely they are to follow you
- Make short signatures highlighting benefits while stroking the reader’s interest
Make Regular Posts
You need to post multiple times a day or a week and engage with the audience as much as possible. This is because posts are quickly pushed further down, causing fresh posts to disappear from the first page. For the best results, commit to making regular posts as part of your blogging process.
Include a Link in Your Signature
Including a link to a blog should help generate as much traffic to your website. A standard signature should have the name of the blog and its tagline or title. Linking the signature to an informative post is an effective strategy if looking to drive traffic to specific parts of a blog.
Start New Threads and Use Old Threads
While participating in other people’s discussions is essential, it is critical to start a new thread. When you have established authority, new threads should garner considerable traffic to a website. The thread should be about an exciting topic to attract as many participants to the discussion. Consider asking questions or people’s opinions about a particular topic.
Old threads not only interest old participants but also new ones. Once you post a comment about an old discussion, all the subscribers receive notifications causing the thread to become top on the list of other threads. Additionally, more participants will see it and join the conversation.
Avoid Creating Long Posts
You are competing against social media platforms that require followers to create posts as short as 280 characters. As such, you need to keep your messages short and meaningful.
Create High-quality Content
The phrase ‘Content is King’ not only applies in social media marketing techniques but also forum marketing. Thus, you need to avoid providing short answers, like Yes or No. Instead justify your response with an informative and well-thought-out reply. Consider linking to other sources to provide more helpful content.
Conclusion
Forum marketing remains an excellent source of new, targeted traffic for new and experienced marketers alike. It demands a lot of time input before establishing authority, but it pays off in the long run. Marketers also get to enhance a brand’s awareness.
