Forum marketing is one of the most popular and profitable ways to advertise your website. Although it can be very time consuming it can be well worth the effort in the long run. If you believe in the law of give and you shall receive then online forum marketing is for you. The key to successful forum marketing is to emerge yourself in the forum and answer the posts as honestly and as insightfully as possible not referencing your signature link at all unless there is a real reason to, for example, when someone asks for a product recommendation.

Forums were started as a means of organizing a group of like minded individuals into a single location for informed discussions. There are now perhaps thousands of forums available on the internet and they cover every imaginable topic. Some will have only a couple of thousand members while others will have tens of thousands of members. Although not originally intended as a place to market products and services they are in reality great places to do so.

Here are some of the reasons why:

1) The traffic at forums is highly targeted. If you visit a forum for European car owners, for example, you can easily market products and services related to Europeans cars to visitors and members of that forum.

2) You are allowed to have a signature file. You’re signature file tells the world who you are. Most forums will allow you to include a hyperlink to your website.

3) Most forums are free to join.

4) A special offers section. Some forums have a special offers section where members can sell their product or service to other forum members at a discounted rate. Most forums who have a special offers section charge only a nominal fee of ten, twenty, or thirty dollars to list your offer. The offer is then sent out to a large group of targeted prospects.

5) Forums are search engine friendly. Search engines love fresh, unique content and forums are filled with it every single day. This means that a simple one line post that you made to answer a question could lead to a sale by someone searching the search engines for an answer to that same question.

6) You can actually use the threads in these forums to give you ideas for articles and web content. If you’re really saavy you can then sell these articles or content you created out of the forum threads and sell them back to other forum members through a special offer. (Threads are discussions on the forum related to a topic posted by a member)

Forum marketing is perhaps one of the best free promotion tools available on the internet and the only thing costs is your time. There’s really no reason whatsoever not to join one. As you become more experienced with forum marketing you may even find that beats all of your other forms of marketing.

An online forum is a way to hold an ongoing discussion by multiple users over time. The term has also been used when referring to the software application that creates the forum. Other names for an online forum are message boards, discussion groups, forums, and electronic bulletin boards.

Online Forum Software features

Today’s forum software will allow more than one forum to be created which act as a discussion room focused on a specific area of a larger topic. These individual rooms contain the threads started by the various group members. You can compare the structure of a forum to a school. Each room covers a different topic, i.e. math, English etc. and the school structure holds each of these classes in one building. Online discussion forums are structured in much the same way.

Forum software can be grouped into two general categories. The type that allows visitors to make anonymous posts and the type that requires visitors to be registered in order to view or make a comment to a forum thread.

The type that requires a visitor to register usually only requires a valid email address in order to join the online discussions going on within the forum. Some additional features of this type of forum software may allow for personalization of the forum skin, signatures and/or the users’ avatar or image associated with their username. The forum software that allows anonymous posts usually does not allow any type of customization to the user interface.

Forum software applications are available in a wide range of programming languages like PHP, JAVA and Perl. There are different features available and depend on the type of programming language used and whether the posts are stored as text files or database entries. The features available range from the basic text-only to the use of things such as emoticons, which are little smiley face type, images that can be inserted to a post.

Some online forum software packages allow administrator to setup filters and automated scripts that will remove any undesirable words such as cursing, or strip any hyperlinks placed within a forum thread. This helps to prevent abuse of the discussion group.

Discussion Group Administrators and Moderators

The administrator of an online forum has privileges that no other member should have. Some of those privileges allow administrators to edit, delete, move or modify any thread on the forum. Forum administrators also have the ability to close the board, make major changes to the forum such as changing the forum theme, add or delete discussion groups or sub forums within the main forum as well as remove, add to or ban members from the forum.

Moderators are usually given privileges by the administrators and are usually delegated the responsibility to oversee or “moderate” specific forum areas or topics. The moderators of a discussion group help the forum administrator by editing, deleting, and moving threads as needed. They also act as hall monitors warning members for any offenses to the forum posting guidelines. The presence of responsible moderators can enhance the quality of an online forum.

Online Forum Users

The members of any online discussion group usually have the same basic abilities. They can make comments or posts into existing discussion threads, start new threads, and assign an image or avatar to be posted with their name. Depending upon the forum software, users may also be able to send and receive emails or personal/instant messages from other forum members. Members can also create their individual forum signature where they can add a link back to their personal website if they wish. This practice also leads to abuse by members making multiple posts just to increase the number of links to their website.

Forums usually require a member to check in to view new discussion threads or see any posts to threads they are following. However, many modern forum software solutions allow an e-mail notification sent to users to notify them when a reply or post is made to a particular thread.