I'm in the personal finance niche, and I participate in about 6-10 forums in the area. It definitely helps in bringing in some traffic, as well as networking with other bloggers in PF - which leads to linkbacks, commenting, etc.
Bible Money Matters | LogosForWebsites | @moneymatters
my niche is in dating/relationship/love matters..my question is..does it matter if a forum doesnt allow you to put your link in the signature.so is it still worth the time posting on the forum?
You Jump I Jump dot net - Daily Tips on Dating and Relationship. So you'll be on the right 'ship'
Personally, I still post to relevant forums even if they don't allow links in the signature. I have my link in my profile page and if I am able to add to some value with the forum posts and information I have to share, some people (maybe not hundreds but I'm not really looking for those kinds of figures!) will check out my forum profile page and look at the site.
For personal developement, the zenhabits and steve pavlina forums are pretty good. I've never really been the forum type but I think things are about to change!
Already this forum is sparking ideas for me.
@TracyOConnor - yes, maybe a general forum where people who are interested in a variety of topics would be a good fit for me. I took a look at yours and it seems a possibility.
@pauldickinson - I'm thinking that my blog is also really about personal development. The forums you suggest might be a good fit. I'll take a look.
@Juliet - I'm even thinking that there could be some good, relevant author forums which would work for me.
Now my only problem is zeroing in and acting without a danger of overwhelming myself! I'm going to paonder this for a while.
Like @biblemoneymatters above I participate in a handful of PF forums. Fortunately there isn't so much new content that my head would explode!
I used to participate and helped run a forum for a local parenting group, it was VERY time consuming, though it was valuable at the time.
I am still looking for a good mommy blogger forum, maybe I should invent one! I'd love to talk to other moms who blog (whether they blog specifically about kids or not).
Kelly, mom of 4, blogger @ The Centsible Life
I do participate in blogs, one is the Moms Like Me Forum for the Detroit area. I posted a link to my blog which linked to a black and decker contest to win a "green" mower and blower and one of the women who clicked over to my blog WON!. How cool is that? I hope this means that more people will click over to the blog to see what else there is of interest.
http://veriance.blogspot.com/2009/04/black-and-deckers-green-lawn-gear.html
Since two of my blogs are personal/mixed bag types and my other is about my dad to promote my book that I wrote in his memory, I do participate on a variety of forums but not as often as I should. I started with My Space because there are so many discussion groups there that interest me but also like Shelfari discussions. I am on a couple author forums but I agree with Holly, that I'm not out to exchange reads with other authors, I want to actually have readers buy the book. Since I love animals and my cats blog, I also participate on the zootoo forums and catblogs sometimes. It sure takes a lot of time though, especially when I was active with My Space.
Karen, author of "My Funny Dad, Harry"
I posted elsewhere about my difficulty in finding forums that allow a link in a signautre. My area is books and travel. Travel forums are the natural match, since from time to time they have long threads about books and travel. Some, like Fodors, I have participated in for years off and on, but they do not have profile pages. However, I would rather become well known there than on a forum mostly peopled by fellow bloggers.
Besides being active in the blogger community, I want to reach BEYOND the blogger community to pull new people in to reading my blog. To do that, I have to get known outside the blogger community. Places like Linked In help, I think, but Fodors and Thorn Tree where people live different lives than those of us enmeshed ini the social networking communities, are the ones that appeal to me.It is harder, because the "outside" world is not automatically set up to encourage the use of links and signature lines.
Any thoughts on this, Darrin? (I've been kind of hoping you would do a post or two about reaching beyond the blogging community.)
The tips in the anonymous pro-blogger forum article article are a must read.
We noticed a lot of people say there are no forums in their niche and that forums can be a big time waster.
This is the method we used that might be of use:
Finding Forums Tips
To find forums popular with people you want to reach a good place to start is alexa.com. With forums it is the amount of traffic that a forum gets that is important not the search engine position. You get a good indicator of the amount of activity on the forum by using this method.
Just go to alexa type in "your main niche keyword". Then go thru the sites receiving the most traffic and find the ones with forums. Alexa gives some other great information like the demographics and the type of keywords driving the most traffic to the forum. That way you can also be sure you picked the right forum to match your niche.
When you join the forum find key players who post the most and extract the link they are promoting in their signature_link. You can use this to find what other forums they are using. To do this just go to google and type "inurl:forum + signature_link". This will return other forums that may also be worth joining. Again you can enter these forums into alexa.com to see if they are getting the right traffic and if the demographics matches your niche.
Forum Time Management
We also noticed that people commented that forums take a lot of work and suck time. The trick is to pick no more than 2 forums to frequent and set a time maybe on the weekend to visit the forum and get ideas for you own blog posts first. Make this a weekly or daily habit. Only when it becomes a habit should you start commenting on the forum posts. In the mean time you can get ideas for your own blog posts. Some forums have RSS feeds which are useful to subscribe to with google reader to keep up.
For us personally I think concentrating on the challenge forum and building habits is the most productive habit to develop for a start. It's important not to get too overwhelmed and give up.
For our niche the high traffic forums we came up were selfgrowth, zenhabits and oprah.
Time to do some lerking!
Children are born ExcitedByLife. When did we forget?
Hi
i joined 2 forums
http://smallbusinessonlinecommunity.bankofamerica.com/community/forum
<cite>www.freelanceforum.org</cite>
i'm studying them, and found great tips
For travel bloggers, I recommend joing www.travelwriters.com, where travel writers lurk, ask questions and get into debates. This forum allows signature links.
I also participate in the TMAC (Travel Media Association of Canada) listserve, which connects me with my fellow travel writer and industry members.
I like the advice above about using Alexa. I think I'll find one more travel forum to join and see how that affects traffic. Maybe one for travellers instead of travel writers...
For travel bloggers, I recommend joing www.travelwriters.com, where travel writers lurk, ask questions and get into debates. This forum allows signature links.
I also participate in the TMAC (Travel Media Association of Canada) listserve, which connects me with my fellow travel writer and industry members.
I like the advice above about using Alexa. I think I'll find one more travel forum to join and see how that affects traffic. Maybe one for travellers instead of travel writers...
I use digitpoint and digital point, since my niche is tech and seo
I usually help people there for free and help people moving from blogspot to wordpress.
This way I build my credibility and people reco my work.
Forum can be a great source of links and traffic.
I actually found a forum about 2 weeks ago and I was so disheartened. It was exactly the type of website I had dreamed of. Well, not exactly. Using analysis of the site recommended in day 4 allowed me to discover what was missing. And now I'm starting to connect with some other members, I'm discovering more things that are missing.
Now I'm really excited to uncover topics to include, and also discovered that the useablity of the site is lacking. So yea for me!
Debbie Lattuga
I just signed up for www.work-at-home-forum.com/ it is a little limiting since you can't promote your self. So we will see.
I have been on Pat O'bryans Milagroworld.com/forum for quite some time. There are not a lot of big contributers, but always lots of help and support. We support each other on twitter and go to each others blogs. Critic sales-blogs pages etc. Get tech help. I like to help others as much as I can and I always invite them to my blog.
It is my experienc that the more familiar I am with something the faster it goes. When I first started out on twitter and on the forums I was slow...now it is so much faster and both have paid off.
Getting in on the start of this forum is really great!
Sheila
What forums have you found to participate in?
I found this:
http://www.quarterlifecrisis.com/forums/
Though it doesn't particularly fit my niche, because mine is a hard one, I used this one because I was previously signed up for it. I am going to instead find more forums that are closely related to my demo, which is W18-35
How have you found forums in your niche?
Based on my demo.
What techniques are you using to build your profile in the forums you're visiting?
I try to start new threads and also participate in existing threads
I'm also a member at CMF Forums as well as Digital point. I'm a member at Sightpoint forums, although I don't visit there very often as well as a member of Darren's photography forum -- I have too many interests! LOL!
Except possibly for CMF, none of the others are truly my niche although I cover topics that are discussed in them.
Hmmm..speaking as a moderator for a top 100 big board, we have a huge problem with people joining just to promote their own sites. If you do it on my board, you'll get an instant ban and a deletion. We do allow people, even newbies, to put a discrete link in their signature. That means they at least have to participate in the boards to get seen, but if they post a bunch of nonsense for that reason, they are gone. So, if nobody has mentioned it before, please be considerate of the rules of the board you are joining. Participate, don't spam.
That said, there are no boards on my specific topic, and I'm having a difficult time finding one on the broadest topic. I have at times put a sig link in with the board I moderate, which gets me huge results. I suppose I can try it again although as a moderator, I'm not always popular with the regulars, and do fear some backlash to my blog which is why I took it out.
Since my topic is about being inside a public school, I was looking for general school employee forums, but found none. I don't belong on teacher forums, although I can't find those either. The only other group who would be interested in my topic, possibly, are parents of young teens so maybe I should start at some mom boards.
Paperback Swap has a forum for romance books. I participate there regularly, but they're mostly for "I want to find xyz" and "Is this on your wishlist?" lol I should find more... I started one on my site, but it's brand new. Must find a way to promote! lol
raizethebar
Member
Thanks to many of you for sharing about the forums, because I had no ideal as to where I should begin looking.
This is the only day's task I haven't attempted at all yet - Have people got much success with it? I used to be on forums all the time in my teens but don't so much now. I guess the thing is, I'm a really busy person, and I'm finding that all this blogging is making me sit in front of a screen so much more. So do I really want to sit in front of a forum when I've got no real desire to be there? I feel a bit fake if I'm just there commenting with randoms so I get more blog readers. I'm not really about that =/
But if it's positive and really beneficial then I'll give it a go. Need to find a design/illustration type forum. Might just go dwell on aoi.com a bit.
Last.fm has been quite useful for promoting A Future in Noise- the only big music forums I could find were Music Banter, which I have an account on and definitely need to participate on more!
Emceefarm
Member
I belong to quite a few forums. As I blogg about the horse business, I belong to both horse and entrepreneur forums. I can't always be on them so I have to budget my time. I have my own business to attend to also.
What forums have you found to participate in?
http://www.24hourcampfire.com; http://archeryaddix.com; http://www.bowcast.com; http://forums.bowsite.com; http://www.sagecreekforums.com
How have you found forums in your niche?
There are 4 that touch on it: http://www.24hourcampfire.com; http://www.bowcast.com; http://forums.bowsite.com; http://www.sagecreekforums.com
What techniques are you using to build your profile in the forums you're visiting?
Building the blog, and increasing my knowledge base. Then, I will regularly hit these forums for new ideas and to post the information that I have.
I have been searching for hotspots. I have found that for my NFL football niche, Bleacher Report is a great one. Some are bloggers, perhaps the majority, and others sign up in order to comment. The best thing is, B/R is a place where people readily comment and interact. In fact, I have been getting better in general at identifying hotspots. User friendliness, and participation rates are kind of easy to assess if you pay close attention.
Anyhow, I just became active in B/R yesterday and already have a full roster of friends and have commented nearly 50 times, and people respond rapidly and often.
I try to be cordial to everyone, even the "haters" who want to use foul language. In fact, I like to use the policy that everyone is my friend. People that disagree when commenting, I friend. I think that nice guy approach works really well. Also, invite disagreements! And respond cordially. Thats it.
I've been a member in WordPress forum for a while when I met this task. That forum gives me most of my traffic. I'm not a WP expert so I only hang around with new WP users. But I'll try to find more forums soon. I like forums.
Go Blogger (dot) net - Tips to Help Blogs Go Profitable
I found this lesson incredibly helpful. I already post on four forums, one of which is very big and active, the other three are much smaller and unfortunately pretty quiet. They are the best of what I've been able to find in my niche. Anyways, I thought I was doing everything right by posting comments and advice, but this has made me see how to take my forum activity to the next level. Thanks!
I decided to search out forums on menopause as menopausal humor is the focus of my blog that has the most followers.
I joined two, but in looking through them I do not see anyone else looking at menopause in a humorous light. Kind of makes me wonder if I'm in the wrong place.
Yesterday, when I did a search for forums in my niche, I was a little bit disheartened after I clicked on the first site. I discovered a recipe that I had created and posted a couple of years ago to a different directory. I could tell from the writing. I guess once you post to the internet, it's out of your hands. My question, which is based on the article that said you had to lurk for awhile before participating in a forum, should I claim the recipe as mine or should I let this one go?
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