Using Forums to Promote Your Blog: Part 2--The Basic Steps
Let me tell you the steps I’ve taken in using forums to promote my blogs:
1. Go to a search engine and type in your keyword, plus the word “forum.” Let’s say your blog is about archery: you would search, “archery forum.”
2. Visit the forums you find and choose which ones you want to join. Here are some criteria to consider before joining:
*Relevant discussions: you want to join forums with discussions related to your blog’s topic.
*Posting dates: an active forum should have at least a few new posts every day. If the latest post was a year ago, you’re obviously on a forum with little activity (and little value to your blog).
*Signatures: Ideally you want a forum that allows you to put your blog address in your signature. See if other members have signatures with their website addresses.
*Links/Link Policy: Look for forums that allow you to insert links in your posts. Unless it the moderation is very strict, they will allow you to insert links (I'll be talking about this in further detail in part 3).
3. Participate in the forums you’ve joined:
*Respond to a few threads.
*Create your own new thread/discussion.
*If you have a blog post that answers a specific question on the forum, insert a link to that article/post. But use this privilege wisely—your goal is not to see now many links you can put in the forum, but to put appropriate links when the opportunity arises.
4. Repeat this process. You can continue to join forums you find with step one. You can also search different keywords to find more related forums.
Those are the basic four steps. Next post I'll give you more details.