Are You Getting Enough Free Traffic?

Free traffic from forum's is something you absolutely be taking advantage of. Forum's are one of the best methods of free traffic generation. Take your time and research 3-4 forums in your target market. Simply do a search on your target market and add the word "forums" at the end. When you search your target market, looking for several forums, typically the forums that populate the first or second page of the search engine are the most popular.

While researching the forums you have chosen, scroll down to the bottom of their home page to view their "stats". The stats will define data such as membership quantity, how many members are online, how many threads, and total post's etc. You want to target the larger forums for obvious reasons, those are the one that will give you the most free traffic. From your research select 3 or 4 forums and sign up. Log everything you do as you sign up,very critical, either on paper, a text file, Excel, whatever it takes to keep track of what you're doing. You want records that are readily available of your sign-up details.

Now that you have now joined several forums you want to start visiting them on a regular basis, initially every day. Typically there will be a catagory for new members to introduce themselves, start there. Introduce yourself and ask members to view and critique your site. By doing this you are achiving three initial goals, getting some free traffic, possibly some constructive citisism and ideas to improve your site, and lastly, creating a presence in the membership. After just a few days you should be starting to receive regular visits to your site from members who have seen the value in your site from an audience of like people. After you get comfotable in the world of forums start a thread that is a bit controversial, a topic that you know will have two very distinctive opinions to your topic. In other words, if you are posting and starting new threads in a forum targeted at the same market you're in, and you're creating some controversy here and there, these visitors are now free targeted traffic.

After a week or two of posting regularly to your 3 to 4 forums in your target market, you will have developed a "presence" within the forums. Now explore offering you forum members a "freebie" at your site to bring more traffic. Search for a free download in your target market that is highly defined to a very specific part of your market. The idea is to offer free very detailed information on an aspect of your market. The detail adds value to your visitors.

OK, an example. You have a dog grooming site, offering products and information about everything to do with dog grooming. Offer your visitors a download detailing the best way to bath a dog. Ideal water temperatures, how often a particular breed should be bathed based on coat length and skin sensitivity. The best types of shampoos and/or conditioners to be used based on coat type and length. I'm sure you can see where I'm going with this, offer detailed information to your visitors that they will see as very valuable. Any visitor to your site is there for a very specific reason...they have a dog, and they are very interested in how best to groom him or her. Along with your products, you are offering free information in how best to apply that product.

Now you have something new to mention/offer in your forum postings. You also have some new controversy to create based on your new free download! Start a new thread "All Dogs Should Be Clipped In The Summer". I think you can see the interest and emotional response something like that will create. Try to respond to each post you receive from your controversial thread to keep the thread alive. There is no doubt you will become as engaged with the topic as your poster's, but never forget the goal...each time you post, reply, or start a thread the link to your site is right there for all to click on and provide you lots of free traffic.