Participating on forums for clicks

Marketing
1

I’m wondering if anyone has advice on what works best for getting clicks when posting in forums.

I am an active member on a few programming forums where I contribute by answering questions. I do this as I genuinely like contributing and never really ‘push’ my links on anyone (unless I have an article relevant to the post). I otherwise only have a post signature with my link.

I guess what I’m asking is is it better to post in response to existing threads, or is it better to be a conversation (thread) starter?
What works for you?

2

Just look at the “advisor” strategies. They have more links then a spam box. So it must be working for them, right?

Johnathan

3

Only post a link to your website in topics that are related to the service you are offering.

If you blindly link to a unrelated topic with a link the post will get removed or you will get banned.

4

its best to do both…start new thread when you wanna share something or ask or need some clarification and response to existing threads when you know or have an idea of the thread discussions…

5

You are never going to get many click throughs from forums as people don’t generally go to forums looking for external links to click.

The ones you’d get at least one click through on are where you provide a link to a page that specifically answers a question that someone has asked. Those are the only times where you have a legitimate reason for including a link in the body of your post rather than just in the signature.

The other way you are going to slowly build traffic to your site through forum participation is if you answer lots of the questions that people are asking and a few of them then decide to follow a link to your site to find out more.

The biggest benefit for your site that you can get from forum participation is to find out the sorts of questions people are asking so as to be able to place answers to those questions on your site. Then when other people want answers to the same question they may find your page instead of having to go to a forum to ask.That has a far greater impact on visitors to your site than adding links to the forum.

6

Maybe it’s just me, but I don’t think that’s the right reason to be participating in forums. Does everything have to be click through rates and SEO? Bah, I hate that stuff. People who post here mainly to lure people to their websites are not very popular. It’s kind of like going to a friend’s house for dinner and then finding they really just want to push Amway products on you.

I don’t mean to be antagonistic. This is just my honest response to your legitimate question. :slight_smile:

7

First of all don’t think posting on forums will get you a lot of clicks. Secondly I wouldn’t start any posts unless you really have something good to say. People don’t just want to help out all the time, they also like to learn new things.