Bloggers, Work Smart Not Hard

It really is amazing how many bloggers are burning rubber out there. By that I mean they are working really hard but doing all the wrong things.

No wonder people think blogging for an income does not work

I was at a forum which I have been a member of for about three years and have about 60 posts on there.

Yeah, I know 60 posts for three years does not make me the most active member of the forum. And it is one of the more active webmaster forums.

I noticed something odd. A chap who had about 2000 posts for a one year membership declared his earnings. About $80 a month.

Shocking.

I don't know about you by $80 a month is not a lot of money, it's quite bad.

So why did this grab my attention?

This guy has done what he was told to do by the gurus, forum participation and he was actively participating as well.

But if you are going to post 2000 posts in a forum in one year...... Doesn't leave any time for much else.

See what I mean by working smart rather than hard.

Now I am not saying forum participation is bad, in fact it's a good thing and I get a fair amount of traffic from the forums. But you have got to be smart about it. Having one well thought out and relevant answer to someones question is going to go much further than lots of inanae posts. it's about the quality of the message not the quantity.

So if you are a marketer who is doing your own thing and not outsourced, try to focus on return on investment regarding time and effort. it'll help you decide how often you post in the forums and how much time you leave for other effective things like article marketing, social networking, product creation, content creation.... need I go on?

Some Useful Affiliate Marketing Forums

This affiliate marketing forum post is mainly directed at newbies.

I remember when I first got into affiliate marketing, I was SOOO excited. I just wanted to talk about it all day long. Share ideas, sound off someone.

One of my friends got into affiliate marketing with me but lasted about 10 seconds. 'Seemed too difficult' apparently

So all this excitement and no one to share with

Till I discovered the affiliate marketing forums. Big day.

Now some of the forums are just areas full of spam, no useful information. Just people trying to get backlinks.

And at some forums.... well the big bad wolves are just waiting to jump and bite your head off when you say anything. Even hello!!

But I also found forums which were nurturing, full of really useful information and treated me with a little respect.

So I am sharing some of these forums with you here

• 5 star affiliate marketing forum

Absolutely my favorite especially when I was a newbie. Well laid out. A ton of useful information. Allows you to have links in your signature. Don't know if the links are do follow but this forum is worth it's weight in gold

• Warrior Forum Probably one of the most widely known affiliate marketing forums. A lot of really advanced affiliate marketers here.

Tend to offer warrior special offers on ebooks written by other members. Good source of information although the newbie may find some of it rather heavy going. Again a lot of information that you can learn from

• Digital Point Forum Another pretty large and very busy Internet marketing forum. Loads of newbies here but also a lot of more experienced marketers who share advice. Backlinks allowed in signature.

There is also a market place at digital point forums for websites and services and all sorts of things Internet marketing related

• Conquer Your Niche.

Not as busy as the previous forum. Some big name marketers here. Useful for getting backlinks. Also allows you to write adwords style ads for your websites which are displayed on the forum. The more posts you have, the more your ads are displayed.

• SEO chat

Not really an affiliate marketing forum. SEO chat is on the list of forums I visit most frequently. Great Search engine optimization advice. Allows backlinks in your signature. Only problem with this forum is a few of those big bad wolves lurk here

Hope you find these useful

Forums For Backlinks And Traffic

Forums marketing is something that a lot of Internet marketers are aware of but not many are using effectively. And the key term here is effectively. Forums are great for niche marketing sites in a number of ways

• Online Reputation. By participating actively in forums in your niche you can actually establish a reputation of being the guy in the know. It really all depends on the quality of your postings on the forum. There is a forum that I visit everyday where one of the members has really caught my attention. The chap just posts some amazing stuff. I find myself scanning threads for his responses because there is bound to be something useful in it. This is the kind of reputation you want to build in your niche forums.

• Human visitors. In most forums you are allowed a signature which most marketers use by including a link to one of their sites or a site they are promoting. Not all forums offer this feature and some forums insist that you have a certain number of posts before they allow you a signature. All this being said, once you are able to get a signature, put an anchor text link in it to a website you wish to promote. I suggest your own site, preferably a page with an opt in form on it. If you are someone that posts accurate and useful answers, your forum signature can result in a ton of traffic to your site, simply from people clicking on that link in your signature. You have to have captured their interest with the quality of your answers before this will occur. I think this may be why a lot of marketers say forum marketing does not work. I think they do not understand that just putting up any old rehashed shpill and adding a signature does not do it anymore. There are hundreds of signatures with thousands of links in each of the forums online. You have to start thinking, In what way can I make my signature the one to click on?
• Backlinks. The SEO lifeblood of any niche marketing site. We all know that to win the SERPs war for our chosen keyword, we need a ton of relevant backlinks pointing in to our web pages. And forums are a great way to get in coming links. But not all forum links are created equal. Some forums, actually the majority of forums, have started using the no follow attribute. I know this because my backlinks analyser tells me which links are do follow or not. So if you are using forums purely for backlinks for search engine optimization, you will need to do a little research to find which forums in your niche do follow and which do not.

Before we finish this post, forum etiquette is something you need to pay attention to as well. The large forums have forum moderators whose job it is to ensure that the forums are not used inappropriately. Forum etiquette is a big deal. The penalty for misusing the forum can vary from your post being deleted [not too hash a slap on the wrist] to getting banned from the forum. Hmmm! all those posts and links gone overnight.

Promoting Your affiliate marketing sites on forums. has a funny video on forum etiquette

Till next time

5 Useful Forums In The Affiliate Marketing Niche

Forum participation is a great way of getting traffic to your niche sites

Here is a list of 5 useful affiliate marketing forums

1. http://www.affiliatemarketingintro.com/Recommends/CYN Top recommendation
2. http://forums.digitalpoint.com/
3. http://affiliate-marketing-forums.5staraffiliateprograms.com/
4. http://forums.seochat.com/
5. http://www.webmaster-talk.com/

Loads of useful information

Till next time

The One Forum You Must Join As An Affiliate Marketer

So you are into affiliate marketing and have built your website. You are looking to increase your websites traffic and enhance your profile online.

If you have read my previous posts, you know by now that forum participation is a very viable option.

But not all forums are created equal. You have only 24 hours in the day so you need to use your time effectively.

The following criteria should be applied when choosing the forums you are going to register with

• Niche specific. Your forums of choice should iseally be in the niche you are targeting
• Large membership base. Obvious really. The higher the number of members, the greater the number of people that will come across your posts
• Good search engine ranking
• Backlinks. You want to participate in forums that allow you to have a signature that contains live links to your website. That is backlinks that do not have a 'no follow' tags
• A few marketing experts as moderators

For one such forum follow this link.

If you can only join one forum then this forum is it

The link again

Till next time

How To Increase Website Traffic Through Forum Participation

Back to our series on generating traffic to your website or blog.

Let us focus on forum participation. Here we will paint a few broad strokes on forum participation and in future posts we will go into the details of selecting which forums to post in and how to word your posts for maximum impact.

Forum participation has been around for a while. I will be the first person to tell you that this is not a new methos or a secret key.

Forum commenting is however a very useful method of

• Building your reputation online: If your posts are full of useful information and if there are some little known titbits thrown in, you will fast get a reputation of being 'One in theknow'

• Drive visitors to your website: Again if your comments are valid and informative, people will tend to click on to your website [don't forget to include a link in your signature] to find out more information from you

• Increase website ranking: A large number of online forums have no follow links. These are bits of html code that tell the search engine spiders not to crawlyour link. [Applies to Google spiders, not sure if this applies to Yahoo or MSN] Some forums do not have no follow tags. This means that if you identify these forums and post to them with a backlink to your site [again please use an anchor tag!!], the link will contribute to your ranking in the search engines.

A good place to start is at this very popular forum with affiliate marketers. You will recognize some of the names of people posting in this forum. Do not feel intimidated, your point of view is also valid.

Click here to visit the site

By the way, they allow you to post adwords style ads for your website. The number of times your ad is displayed depends on the number of useful posts you make.

Please do not try to spam the site. You will be quickly kicked out if you do

The link again is http://tinyurl.com/2rhv9l