Forum-Sites.com

David Lim, the driving force behind FatBuys.com has added an online forum to his site.  FatBuys is all about finding the best coupons, discounts, and deals on the internet.  A very valuable resource, definitely worth a look.  This is a great use of an online forum to increase the activity of a community that has developed online.  Those of you with websites that don’t include a forum might think of forums as a great way to add more interactivity to your site.  It helps to make customers and potential customers feel like they are part of your project.

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Many collectors of different items belong to clubs based in their own communities. This is a good way to find new items or make a few bucks selling some extra items that you no longer want or need. This is true whether you collect Star Wars, Disney, or Sports Memorabilia. Online forums can help out the collector and the collecting club in two ways.

#1 - With the rising price of fuel and other things associated with driving, using an online forum to handle or replace a club meeting is a very inexpensive alternative. Members can register and post their updated want lists and keep in contact with fellow club members.

#2 - If you have an existing club, starting a companion online forum would be a great way to enhance your club. Now, instead of having to wait for that once-a-month meeting to catch up with other members, they’d be able to communicate as soon as they found a hot new item or came across some info that might benefit another collector.

Collecting clubs are just one more niche group that can be benefited by the proper use of an online forum.

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To get traffic to your website, at some point you may need to do some advertising or link buying. Link buying has been around almost since day one on the internet, though looked down upon by some search engines, if you do it correctly it can bring a windfall to you in terms of traffic to your site. One way to get a large number of links is to buy a spot in the signature link of an active forum poster.

In terms of online forums, a signature is a piece of text or HTML code that appears at the bottom of every post you make. Different forums have different restrictions on signatures, some don’t have them at all, some don’t allow links, while others leave them open to pretty much anything. What you would do to buy a signature link is find a forum that is related to your website’s niche. Look for someone who is an active forum poster and has hundreds if not thousands of posts. Offer to buy a link in their signature. If the offer is accepted, as soon as they edit their signature file inserting your link, you now have an additional hundred or thousand links. All links would come from the same site (the forum), so there is much debate as to their value in terms of page rank, but in terms of traffic they can bring you a stead stream of visitors all targeted to your site’s subject matter.

Signature link buying is a great way to establish a site’s name as well as get targeted traffic.

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Get A Free PR2 Link To Your Forum

Would you like a free link to your site? What if it was a link that had some PageRank too? You can get a free PR2 pixel advertisement that links to your site by going to Kalsart today. Just click on get link and follow the easy steps and soon you’ll have a little graphic image that links right to your website. Free links are great to find and we’ll keep a lookout for more.

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It is certainly not a new advertising method, but a different sort of advertising has been brought to the attention of some people lately. Themed sponsorship is when the very theme of a website is sold or taken over by an advertiser. This can sometimes be a very cool idea and sometimes not be accepted by viewers of the website in question, especially if the website is a tight knit online forum.

Here is an example of a recent theme sponsorship change at an online forum:

Original theme that was in use for quite some time:

and here is how it was changed once an advertiser paid for theme sponsorship:

Now, that is quite a difference and you can understand that as effective as the change was in getting the new sponsor noticed, it may have also ruffled the feathers of some of the members of the community. It did create quite a discussion between those that liked the theme change and those that didn’t. It is hard to tell, unless you are the sponsor itself, how effective such a marketing campaign can be, though it definitely gets the sponsor’s name out in a way that it can’t help but be noticed.

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Here is a valuable tool related to online forums. This is a search engine devoted entirely to online forums and message boards. Now, if there is information you’re looking for from a forum, you have a specific search engine to use to go and find it. This way you don’t have to weed out links from your search results that are not from forums. You can search by post, topic, or forum. If you have a forum, it may pay to make sure that you are being listed in their results. Twing.com - Check it out!

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There has been a long standing computer rule when it comes to the information you read in an online forum, be very wary of it because anyone can say whatever they want… true or not. Here is an example of a major financial news article that cites customers reactions in online forums while analyzing the current financial markets. If a company/organization like this can use that info, why can’t you?

There is a lot that can be learned by reading through posts at quality online forums. Don’t get me wrong, there is still a bunch of junk that you have to wade through, but solid information is there. Apply it to marketing trends, use it to determine if a business opportunity has any legs, see a downturn in popularity in an issue or market before it hits the mainstream. Use forum discussion info to your advantage.

Locate online forums using our Active Forum Directory.

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Whether we’re talking about romance, friendship, or business contacts - authentic relationships can be formed through message boards. Like any online transaction, this one involving your time and sometimes emotions, when investing we need to double check and investigate the authenticity of those that run the site as well as those we are communicating with. Never take someone’s word at face value online, people mis-represent themselves regularly. Sometimes this misrepresentation is harmless and sometimes it is part of a scam.

Through frequenting an online forum and sharing ideas with like minded people, it is easy to see how one could make a meaningful social contact. Some people tend to be more open and honest when communicating anonymously. Real friendships, and even romance, can and do occur semi-regularly. Some of these relationships never move on to the three-dimensional world while others do with both success and failure. Sometimes groups can meet online and then successfully meet in large groups offline as well.

Business contacts made through online forums and message boards can also be quite viable. People from different industries, regions, and experience levels can sometimes offer the exact input we need to get a business idea running, or reinvigorate a stalled business. Other people’s views from the outside are usually not as clouded or distracted as our own, and they can sometimes see our situations more clearly.

Whether using an online forum or message board for social or business purposes, approach it with some trepidation. Remember that not everyone you meet is exactly who or what they say they are. The value is there if used correctly.

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Most successful forum sites that you know of are setup primarily as message boards right from the homepage. While this is one of the best ways to organize a community, it is not the only way to run an online forum. Many companies have and will experience a certain amount of success by integrating an online forum into part of the structure of their web presence.

A retail company can use an online forum as a way to stay in touch with their customers. This is a great idea for a number of reasons, including that these are already people interested in their products so you might as well cultivate relationships with them and the fact that by establishing a community for these customers you can continually hit them with advertising and special offers.

A news company (example) can use an online forum to get feedback from its readers. This also encourages new readers to visit as they feel their opinions and views are being treated respectfully and wanted.

The same can be true for a blog or other type of online news source. Installing a forum can turn your website into a community and encourage repeat visitors. Once people participate just a couple of times in an online discussion they will continue to come back to see if anyone has responded to their questions or remarks. A successfully run online forum then starts to feed off itself and can grow rather quickly.

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It appears that an overeager sales manager of an Infiniti dealership in New York somewhere accidentally (or on purpose) released information on an Infiniti forum that the company was waiting to reveal. This is a semi-common occurrence on many corporate forums and represent one of the many dangers of the internet when related to business. Infiniti was planning on unveiling their redesigned model soon, but because of this one guy’s mistake part of the design is already out and being viewed by the public.

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