However, forum writing can be extremely time consuming so you want to make sure you know what you are doing.

Here are some important tips about forum writing:

1. To start, do a simple Google search for your niche and then just add the word "forum" to the end. For example, “Teaching Forums” brought me to several teaching forums that I now post in on a regular basis to help promote my ebook on teaching strategies.

2. When you enter these forums don’t waste your time with forums that are not very active. You want to find forums that many people are posting in many times a day. A quick look through a good forum and you’ll know right away how often people are posting by simply looking and the # of views per posts and when the last post was. Remember, you do not want to waste your time with writing posts in forums that no one will read.

3. Set a certain amount of time aside each day to write your posts. There is a very good reason why I stressed in tip# 2 to not waste your time, because forum writing (and reading) can become very time consuming. Not only does reading and writing posts take time, but also it can become quite addicting. An active forum becomes like a community and you can wind up spending much more time chatting with your community than actually trying to generate traffic so be careful. Also, other people posting will have links to great products that you want to look at and then the World Wide Web takes over and you know the rest. Therefore, it is important to set aside a certain amount of time each day and limit yourself to that time. I suggest an hour in the morning and an hour in the evening, but that’s just me. You need to find the time that works best for you. Don’t forget to use your computer desktop and your “favorites” to help speed up the process of forum writing.

4. It is important that you are not overly aggressive when writing in forums. You don’t want to come across as blatantly advertising. In fact, most forums, even internet marketing forums, prohibit blatant advertising. However, even if they did not, most people would be turned off by it, remember forums are communities. You don’t want to just barge into someone’s community and start trying to sell them something.

5. Give help first, then point them to your product. If a person is asking for help in a particular area. Offer help first, give them a few tips on what they can do to solve their problem and then point them to your product. This will go over much better than just telling the person that you can only help them if they buy your product.

6. Point people in the forum to your freebie. You should be giving something away for free on your site, whether it is a free chapter of your ebook, an e-course, or a newsletter. You should have some way of capturing your customer’s email address and freebies are a great way to follow up with potential customers. Once they have opted-in to your freebie you can have your follow-up email campaign do the work for you...Of course email marketing is its own subject entirely and no one does it better than Jimmy D. Brown (http://www.money-teacher.com/GetMessagesRead.htm). The point is though, when you answer someone’s question in a forum, simply tell them that they can “learn more from your free 5 part e-course at www.yoursitecom" For example, when answering peoples questions on teaching I make sure to tell them that they can learn more about a particular strategy by signing up for my free chapter at http://www.teaching-teacher.com

7. Make sure to take the time to write posts that have nothing to do with your product and have no intention of trying to draw in customers. You may think this is a waste of time, but I definitely don’t think so. Remember, forums are communities, and you will gain much more respect from your community if it doesn’t appear as if you are always trying to make money off of them.

8. Finally, change your sig file every so often, especially if you sell affiliate products. If someone was happy with one thing they bought through your link, they will likely buy through you again.

Forum writing is the single best way to get the most targeted traffic possible and it is often times completely free. Forum writing should be part of your everyday life in internet marketing. There is a definite and direct correlation between forum writing and sales.

Copyright 2004 Adam Waxler

Adam Waxler is a middle school social studies teacher and ebook author. Adam also owns and operates The Money Teacher web site and publishes The Money Teacher’s Weekly Newsletter. http://www.money-teacher.com

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