Starting a Business Online: Promote Your Website via Message Boards

The use of message boards has evolved. It’s no longer operates as just your virtual sounding board or merely composed of threads and posts. Online business owners have learned how to utilize them as additional avenues for promoting their products.

Why Use Message Boards

Message boards or forums do have a variety of uses for you. First they can save you a lot of costs as the majority of them are completely free. Second, they can help build your credibility increase your level of authority. It’s not unusual for other members to come to your for advice if they discover how knowledgeable you are in your niche. You can also use these message boards to increase traffic and even your website page rank.

How to Promote in Message Boards

1. Know the rules first. One of the foremost reasons why many get kicked out and banned is because they forget to abide to the rules. Usually, you’re not allowed to create a signature or share a link to your website unless you have posted X times in the message board. Of course, you’re not allowed to spam either.

2. Take advantage of the URL in the profile and signature. Sometimes you don’t need to create text links in posts. All you have to do is share your website’s link right on your profile or in your signature.

3. Establish relationships. Message boards are all about relationships. You’ll be respected if you can obtain their trust. They’ll listen to you if you show politeness and friendliness. It may take a while before you can build relationships in forums, but once you do, you’ll find it much easier to convert these leads into customers.

4. Choose your message boards. It’s convenient for you to promote your website or even products, as well as display your expertise in your niche, if you pick the right message boards. Many of them are niche oriented, so find the ones that pertain to your topic and expertise. If you’re selling dog shampoos for example, it would naturally make sense to attend to those message boards frequented by animal lovers.

5. Include keywords. Make your thread or post visible in search engines by peppering your targeted keywords in your posts or threads. This is tricky, though, as you don’t want to make them forcefully added. That’s why you need to pick your threads and posts properly, so it would be search-relevant.

6. Participate regularly. How can you become friends with other forum members or build your authority if you only post once in a blue moon? You don’t have to spend the entire day on message boards, but make it a habit to spend at least 30 minutes to an hour there per day for best results.