Time to analyze another traffic generation strategy: using forum signatures. At the bottom of this post you will find links to all the previous parts on the series, and stay tuned for future ones, we are going to cover literally all of them!
The concept: Online forums are as old as the Internet, and despite being around for a long time, they are still a popular destination for Internet users that want to get specific questions answered, find solutions for their problems, or simply to socialize with other people that are interested on a specific topic.
Most of these forums also allow their members to create a custom signature containing hyperlinks, that will appear at the bottom of each of their posts. Now if you consider that some popular forums get hundreds of thousands of visits every day, you can see how a catchy link below your posts could end up sending some traffic to your website.
Does it work?: Yes if your blog is new or has a small audience. The traffic won’t be huge, but it will be real. Provided that you hand pick the forums where you will participate and use signature links, this traffic might also be very targeted.
When I started Daily Blog Tips I was pretty active on Digital Point, one of the most popular online forums for webmasters. I remember that my signature links would send 20 to 30 unique visitors every day to the blog. Not an impressive number, but every little bit helps when you are starting out (plus there is some SEO value on the links as well).
How to get started: Head to Big-Boards.com, a site that lists the largest online forums divided by topic, and select some that are large, active and relevant to your niche.
Register an account on these forums and start participating on the community. Remember that you need first to give before you get something in return. This means that you should contribute to the conversation and add value where possible, and not just spam posts around. This should be easy after all, because I suppose you would have endless things to say on your niche.
Aim to write a minimum number of posts daily, and make sure to give your opinion on the hottest threads around as well (because they will receive/send more traffic).
Over the time, as the number of posts that you have on the forum increases, you will start to see some traffic flowing from your signature links.
Over to the readers: Have you used forum signature links to generate traffic to your blog or website? Has it worked? Do you think this method is worth the time you need to spend on it?
Website Traffic Series
- Part 1: Web Design and CSS Galleries
- Part 2: Blog Carnivals
- Part 3: Leave Comments on Other Blogs
- Part 4: Faking A Website Sale
- Part 5: Pulling an April Fools Prank
- Part 6: Using Forum Signatures
- Part 7: Putting A Blog on Your Static Website
- Part 8: Adding a Forum to Your Site or Blog
- Part 9: Buying Targeted Traffic
- Part 10: Email Signatures
- Part 11: Put Your URL On Online Profiles
- Part 12: Email Bloggers to Showcase Your Best Content
- Part 13: Faking a Hacker Attack
- Part 14: Promoting Your Content on Social Bookmarking Sites
- Part 15: Promoting Posts That Link to You on Social Bookmarking Sites
- Part 16: Promoting Your Content on Social Networking Sites
- Part 17: Using Article Directories
- Part 18: Exchanging Links with Partner Sites