by Dave Brown
Although posting on forums can be a great way to send some I've mentioned before that you should only post an But if your ad is in your signature, then you need to make Typically, when you respond to a post by someone else on a Here's an example of what I mean. ----- And here's some more of my response. > Here's the original message Here's why this is important. Your signature goes all the How many people that read your response will continue to So I recommend deleting the original message from your You always want your signature to appear immediately after Moving on. I've also mentioned that you shouldn't And here's why. Let's say you post a message on a forum about how to Let's ignore the fact that you're targeting the wrong In this case, you may be creating more competition for One last issue to think about when including links in your So far, I've been talking about how to effectively
free traffic wherever you want it, you have to do it
right. Otherwise, you won't get much worthwhile traffic at
all.
advertisement in the signature of your forum postings.
Don't make the message an advertisement.
sure people *see* your signature. This is obvious, but
many people make it difficult to see their signature.
forum, the original message is, by default, included with
your response. Often, people will type their response and
leave the original message below their response.
Here's a response to some message that someone else
posted.
> from the person who I'm responding
> to.
-----
way at the bottom of the message. This means that it will
be below the original message that's included below your
response.
read the original message as well? Most probably won't.
This means they'll never get to the bottom of the message
where your signature is. And if that's beyond the bottom
of the screen, then your signature may as well not be
there at all.
responses. If you want to respond directly to something
that someone else posted, then just include the part
you're responding to *in the body* of your message. This
way, your response will appear under the original
message.
*your* message.
advertise off-topic products in your signature. This is
especially true if you're posting on forums related to
internet marketing.
improve your search engine rankings. But in your
signature, you post an ad for herbal health supplements.
audience. There's another problem with this. A lot of
people who read your message may be looking for good
affiliate products to promote. So they might click your
link just to see if this might be a good affiliate
program.
yourself. You're giving people a link to an affiliate
program that's (presumably) working for you. Usually, I
would prefer to keep a good affiliate program to myself. I
don't need more people competing with me.
signature. This complicates the picture a bit.
advertise products to other people. But there's also
another good reason for including links in your signature.
You may want to advertise to search engines.
Here's what I mean by that. Whatever you post on a forum So your posts on forums could actually serve as incoming You should base your link title on keywords that are You can see that your approach to creating a signature for P.S. If you missed the first article on marketing to About the Author
Dave Brown is a self-taught marketer and software
will probably be indexed by search engines eventually. And
if there are links in your post, then the search engine
spiders will follow those links.
links to your own web sites. If this is your purpose, then
you may want to formulate the title of your link a little
differently.
appropriate for your web site. For example, if I'm selling
a product that cloaks affiliate links, I would probably
link to it with something like "cloak affiliate links" or
"cloaking affiliate links". And I would use the *same*
title for this link *every* time I posted it to a forum.
forum posts will be different depending on what your
purpose is - to advertise to people or search engines. So
make sure you know what your purpose is, and link
accordingly.
forums, you can read it now at
http://www.dave-brown.com/articles/forums1.html.
developer. He also publishes the uncommon and uniquely
original newsletter on making the most of your life - A
Fresh Perspective. You can learn more at
http://www.dave-brown.com