There are several important things to consider when you are preparing your posts to a niche forum. Keep these tips in mind and you will increase the effectiveness of each post and thereby increase the traffic to your own web site.
· CHOOSE YOUR AUDIENCE. Presumably you’ve chosen your forum carefully already so that the people who are members of the forum are those who are interest in the subject which you represent. Don’t waste your time talking about Internet marketing if the forum is about raising roses and expect to get much of a positive response
· INDIRECT APPROACH If you join a forum of your peers and present only an advertisement for your own company as your contribution to the subject, you are also wasting your time and that of everyone else in the forum. First you should prove that you have something of value to contribute to the groups. If that contribution is recognized, then people will visit your web site because they trust your information.
· DON’T FIGHT THE TIDE If you’re in a forum promoting the use of pay-per-click, it seems pretty pointless to post about the benefits of newspaper classified advertising, yet some forum posters seem to take delight in being critical of one or more facets of the forum. There is room for discussion, but ask yourself whether this forum is the proper location for your particular post.
· RESPOND TO QUESTIONS OR COMMENTS ABOUT A POST Often a frustrating experience in a forum will be to read page after page of questions from forum users with no effort being made to answer the questions. Unfortunately the lack of response, particularly in mature forums is because the questions have been asked and answered previously and those answers could be found with some effort on the part of the questioner. On the other hand, sometimes it is useful to review previous information, perhaps even state it in a new way.
· REPETITION Try to find a fresh way of making every statement you post, even while you are posting the same thing. This keeps your signature before forum readers. It helps in the learning curve for readers too. If you simply repeat the same words over and over not only do they lose their effectiveness but you are not presenting new information so you become boring and the forum becomes boring as well.