This is the second in a series of list building tips that I hope you'll find informative. In this installment, I'm going to be discussing list building and forum blogs. I'll go over why they're good to post to, what benefits you'll get from doing so, how to go about doing it and when you should. Put all of that together and you should end up with a relatively effective method for driving traffic to your squeeze page and increasing the number of subscribers on your list. Ready? Let's begin.
Let's start with why forum blogs are good to post to. Let me preface this by saying that not ALL forum blogs are good. Some won't help you at all. Some, may even be more helpful than posting to your own blog. But why? The answer is authority.
If you take the Warrior Forum as an example, if you do a search through Google for just about any topic related to Internet marketing, more often than not, you'll find the Warrior Forum pages at or near the top of the search results. The reason is because of their authority as recognized by Google in this area.
Having said that, the problem with forums, as far as using their authority to your advantage, is that most of them, if not all, do not allow you to use the forum for advertising purposes. Certainly the main sections of most forum have a no advertising policy, as does the Warrior Forum.
But - and this is where you can take advantage of their authority - the Warrior Forum DOES have a blog that each member can use to post content that can be a little more promotional as long as the bulk of the content is informational in nature. No, you can't post a sales letter on your blog, but you can talk about a subject at length and then make a pitch for a product at the end. If the content is good, the small promotion at the end will be acceptable. In the case of building a list, this is a perfect vehicle. At the end of your content, you simply put "For more info, sign up to my newsletter."
You will find that you may actually get more subscribers from doing this than from posting articles to your own blog simply because the forum in question has more authority than you do. In other words, you're piggy backing off of somebody else's success. Hey, if they allow you to do it, take advantage of it. Just make sure you post relevant information that isn't a blatant sales pitch.
The benefits from doing this are clear as day. You reach more people because your blog entry has a better chance of being seen than if you made it on your own blog, unless of course your blog has equal authority with Google and other search engines. Good luck with that.
Since I've already covered basically how to do this, the last item on the list is the "when" or "how often." That is going to greatly depend on the forum and what you're trying to accomplish. Personally, I wouldn't make more than one blog post per day. You really don't want to make it look like you're just there for the free lunch. Contribute to the regular discussions as well. Be a regular forum member as far as participation and you'll find that even making one blog post a day won't be seen as excessive.
Bottom line is simple. If you're posting at a forum that has good authority, you'll reach more people with your blog posts and in the process drive more traffic to your opt in page.
It's a simple tactic but one very few people really take advantage of because they think it's not worth the effort.
Trust me - it is.
To YOUR Success,
Steven Wagenheim
Want more great list building tips? Check out my review of Paul Myers' Profit Plan VI at http://stevewagenheim.com/blog/internet-marketing/review-of-paul-myers-profit-plan-vi.html and pick up 162 ways to build a large and responsive list.
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