There are advantages and disadvantages of forum posting. The advantage is that if done correctly, you can get targeted traffic to your website. If done wrong, you will waste precious time chatting and getting zero result when you can be building your business.

If you want to maximize your results with forum posting, here are some rules you need to take into consideration to make forum marketing the most profitable for you.

1. Find a forum with high traffic.

Obviously you do NOT want to post in forums with very low traffic. If you do, your exposure isn’t great. You need to find a forum that has millions of page views per month. You can easily check that out by going to www.alexa.com and finding out the traffic details.

This increases the odds of you exposing yourself to the right people. However, there is a big exception. Make sure the forum you are posting to are moderated, otherwise it will probably be filled with SPAM, which is going to be a total waste of time for you.

2. Let people know who you are.

The internet is cold and anonymous enough. Forums are like a community and letting people know who you really are makes the forum seem more personal and less cold. If you are trying to build business relationships, don’t you want to gain the trust (and business) of your potential customers?

Instead of using some cute name like “StudMuffin629” it’s better to use your own name and even posting your photo or logo if it is allowed. This is a great way to start branding you and your brand.

Besides, posting your photo has been proven to increase responsiveness to your posts. In the cold anonymous world of the internet, they make you seem more real to others who read your post and that allows them to have more of a connection.

You allow them to feel that they talking to a real person. And remember, relationships are extremely important to your internet marketing success.

3. Post a signature file and include a link to your site.

This is a no brainer. This is free advertisement that you are allowed when you make a contribution to the forums. This allows other viewers of the forum to know how to get into contact with you.

Don’t be shy with it, some strange people think that having a signature link is unethical. There is nothing wrong with it. Think about it this way, when someone gave an insightful answer for you, don’t you want to know how to contact this person?

Besides, most people in forums are there to network and in business anyway so why not take advantage of it? In my view you are doing a disservice to those who want to know more about you if you don’t post a signature file.

These are just three of the seven strategies you should implement for your forum marketing. The last four is going to be continued in the sequel to this. Maximize your forum marketing productivity and use some of the strategies I’ve presented here if you haven’t already.