Forum Posting- Best way for traffic.

I think forum posting is one of the worst ways to promote a site. Well, at least in the context of how it is promoted by some as such a great method. Two hours a day is a lot of time to spend promoting a site. You could get much better returns by optimizing your site for search engines, writing articles, spendig some money on advertising, creating free resources, etc.

Posting on forums as a promotion method is a little like runing on a treadmill - you keep working but you don't really get anywhere becuse the posts are continually sliding out of view. So you have to keep running continually to keep the content up where people will see it. Better to spend your time on something a little more permanent. If you're going to write, write articles instead. Or save your time and shell out some money on advertising.

I've got a few hundred posts on a related forum and it doesn't even show up in my referrer logs. If I had a lot more spare time to do this and was really desperate for traffic the trickle of visitors might be worth it but not under normal circumstances. I also think it's important to target the right audience and word your signature in an enticing way.

I think it depends on what your site is also. I have some sites that are very useful for webmasters and having them on the forums I use brings a lot of traffic. If nothing else, it is a backlink for every post that's crawled.

For some of my sites, almost all of my targeted traffic comes from forum postings. The sites that I include in my signitures are always related to the type of forum that I am posting, so that they will pique the interest of other forum members or guests.

i think, forum posts with link in signature may help new sites to get listed soon. otherwise it may take a long time for new sites to be indexed by search engines.

I get a lot of traffic from forum postings, but very little conversion since most people visit my site out of curiosity not to use my service. I enjoy posting in forums, but I definately don't do it for the traffic. A backlink here and there is nice, but the information I have received and learned from the forums I participate in is priceless.

However, if you have a webmaster related site and you post on webmaster forums, then I think you may have a much higher conversion rate. The same goes for any niche forum you participate in. If your site directly relates to the forum theme then I can see a greater benefit from frequent posting.

i have a lot from traffic from forum posting....I have added a signature...which helps in linking to my website.

Definitely don't spam. But if you participate in a forum, you should definitely have your link in your signature. Even if it doesn't affect your SE ranking, your credibility in that forum may lead others to follow your link.

Of course, this should be combined with other methods of driving traffic to your site. Generally, nothing is extremely effective when used by itself. Too often I see people trying to use one magic pill to get people to come to their site. Try a couple of different methods every day.

yeah, I wouldn't say forum posting will get you to where you want to go with your website. As each post is only going to bring maybe 0.2 visitors or so on average, that's NOT spamming!

it is googd for getting feedback on designs and getting link to your site so it can be indexed, but the links really won't help GooglePR.

I definitely think that forum posting are areal source of direct and indirect traffic.Direct traffic is self explainable and indirect traffic is when you develop a good relationship with some posters then they themselves will post positive replies which will help more people to get to your site

Forum posting is a lot of hard work and the payoff is very small.

Traffic from forms sigs generally don't convert into customers since most are just checking out my site out of curiosity. However, I have acquired business partnerships from people I have met on forums and that in itself makes posting worthwhile. I also get feedback on my site which only helps me to make it better.

It depends greatly on the size of the forum & niche. I mean A LOT.
For example, one forum in adult category, brings in huge amounts of traffic.
If i post -1- video link there, it might result in 60-70gb of traffic. Unfortunately, video links are "junk traffic", they come, watch & leave.

Put the signature links brings more high quality visitors which actually surf and might click advertisements.

MY forum is webmaster related so I post to other webmaster related forums and it has been geting me some good targeted traffic

I am currently forum posting to advertise my forum, i have registered in ALOT of forums to do this and it isnt easy but the outcome will be worth it.

I get a lot of traffic from forum posting and that's why I usually try to make good posts. No one will visit a site where the person advertising it tlks liek dis.

It also depends where you're posting too. Smaller forums tend to bring me better traffic than large ones.

Plain page hits won't help. The page views matter most. If traffic from forums is staying on your site for a considerable time, you should continue doing it. Relevant traffic is what will matter in the long run.

This is a great post. I actually joined this forum today to 1) LEARN and 2) get feedback on and grow my websites. I have heard plenty about how forum posting and signatures are great ways to get quick visitors to your site. The easiest FREE way to get targetted traffic, if you ask me.

Hello...

I myself love forums as this does bring me some visiters but like someone said, posts run into the second page and no one sees them which is true it is only one avenue to pursue as thier are many more. Good Seo work and reaching front pages will bring in some also. To get visiters and sells you have to target that audience and have what they are searching for, and/or being convienently at the right time and place helps also.

thank you
malcolm

Yes is a good idea, and i can give you some numbers... every 100 posts will get you around 200 hits a month.
I calculated this number by posting into big forums as namepros/sitepoint/digitalpoint

I mean 200 real & uniq visitators
However, i think that you can also do a post every 1 minute, no?

Ummmm.... well, like I said, it depends on what kind of quality you're looking for I'm writing this post in 2 minutes but it's pretty crap. The post above, which was IMO pretty good, took about 5-10 mintues. I know some people who frequently spend hours writing really good quality forum posts.

ETA: if you want to really measure the ROI you'd have to include the time it takes to browse the forum, read the posts, and find threads to respond to. Then your time investment starts going up.

Well..i was talking about 100 crapy posts

Now, don't get me wrong... but I am talking about giving short/precise answers to people who have something to ask )

Ermmmm.... well, I still don't think that crap posts are a great way to promote yourself

I think this post pretty much sums it up: Time Distribution for Effective Online Marketing. It recommends spending 10% of your time participating in online communities and 40% of your time developing content.

Now, obviously, I strongly believe that online communities are a great thing to be involved with. You can learn so much from interacting with peers, and there is a promotional side-effect. Worth 10% of your time, not 40%.

Investing money is ok, but for a starter, forum sigs are ok.
Another good option is submitting a website to free older directories.

sarpras;201770 wrote: Participating online discussion forums drive lots of traffic to my website.

I am spending daily 2 hour for forum posting.

Can you describe your experience in forum posting?

I agree with that because I get traffic from my posts than in my submissions.

spending time on forum posting is worth.... Yes

I dont' think posting in forum is a good way to promote traffic.
As I know,many people will not click the link of your signature unlese the content of your post is very good,
Maybe you make a post with your link,It has some effect,but it's easy to be thank as spam,and the result is serious.
The backlink from post have some effect on pagerank,but not more.

You could hire some posting service..

I think that forum posting can bring you a bit of traffic if done properly

Also try other ways to generate traffic. Like my mother taught me... "don't put your eggs in one basket"

Hmm... i think it is dependent on your site, the forum, and really want you hope to achieve.

Personally i find this sort of 'marketing' useful in some situations. For example, i do a lot of work for businesses in the car industry. I will get a good story together and announce it on a related forum, perhaps forum members can sign up for something, or get a discount. You only need to hook 1 person on a forum and it spreads like wild fire.

In another case, a client who was dedicated to one auto brand set up his own forum for enthusiasts of that brand. Needless to say, most who need something for their car will get it from him now.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guerrilla_marketing

Usually I get alot of hits if I post in the right forums but not alot of people signing up. Its good if you are just starting a website and have very little money but there are definately better ways. But its free and that saves alot of money.

I think that you can start runing SEO but no forum posting in this situation.