Get traffic for your website - episode 4 - get more traffic from web communities and forums
Welcome to episode 4 in my series on how to get more traffic for your website. In this episode I'll be talking about using web communities and forums to increase your traffic.
Every genre you could possibly consider writing about has a community presence somewhere on the Internet - they may vary in size and relevancy but they do exist. The benefits of targetting specific communities are similar to those explained in my last episode when I spoke about how to get more traffic from niche news sites.
Why web communities are worth targetting
It's a simple case of looking at the demographic - when you're targetting a community that fits your niche you're already talking to the right people. This means that if you stand a much better chance of converting users to be regular readers. The other bonus is that active forums have users who like to participate - so converting these people into readers would help ensure that your articles have a decent stream of comments.
How to get more traffic from forums and communities
As with all communities you need to be an active participant to get the most from them - being a new user and starting blatent self promotion threads will get you a bad reputation and possible banning. So you need to spend time starting normal threads, replying to current ones and getting your name/face known. Most forums allow you to have a signature so it's worth promoting your site there too.
How to write threads to promote yourself without getting in trouble
Once you've got your name known you can start promoting yourself subtly. A great way to do so is to ask questions; "what makes you the most money online?" and link that to your thoughts on the topic. Therefore you can incite genuine discussion and promote your site at the same time. You can also link to your site as a resource to answer questions that other users have asked. I.e. if someone asks "how do you make money online?" you can link them to a post of yours explaining exactly that. Organic backlinks and hopefully a few users sent your way who liked your content.
A benefit that doesn't include traffic
Spending a lot of time around normal community members (who maybe aren't bloggers/writers themselves) allows you to gather an understanding of what regular users want to know. The questions they ask can give you a near never-ending supply of ideas for content. What's more is that it's content that real users want to read, rather than writing things that you *think* someone should like. Furthermore if they're asking the question on a forum, how many others are asking that question to Google? If you can become an authority on the topic and get your answer somewhere near the top - win.
I'm not going to lie, it can be really difficult to use communities/forums to your advantage but it is possible. I found some of my favourite blogs this way - who is to say your blog couldn't be one of them? The popularity of the genre will largely influence the amount of visitors you can get though targetting the forums but it's a great way of targetting a niche specifically and aiming to convert the right demographic.
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