I created a forum website over 2 years ago, and it's had its ups and downs, but I have no idea how to promote it to get more members. I was told that to affiliate with other sites is the best way... how do I go about doing that?
It really depends what niche the forum is in. Are there other forums in that niche?
Are there blogs you can post on?
I find its similar to promoting a regular website - post on forums, blogs and submit articles with a link to your forum. This should generate more members.
If you want to open it up for posting affiliate links...you may get more traffic as it is getting harder and harder to find places to post affiliate links.
Alot of new people only have affiliate links and it would give them a place to post and visit.
I know that when I first started in 2006 you could post affiliate links on the leading forums and it helped alot....That has all changed now, so it might be an idea.
A number of people have mentioned to me that they once had forums but they had to discontinue them because the spammers and self promoters took them over and they couldn't deal with all of the spam.
Some of those people were under the impression that we don't have to deal with spammer and self promoters because they seldom see any. That is because we work very hard at keeping it under control, and that takes a lot of time and work.
Clearly a person could open their forum up and allow members to post affiliate links. However, such a forum is likely to turn into a spam festival rather than a forum of any useful value.
The spammers would love it. But there would be many people who wouldn't find it very useful or want to spend much time there if it was loaded with spam and self promotional posts.
We allow members to have affiliate links in their signatures, but not in their posts. However members are not allowed to say or do anything in their post to attract people to their signatures. We also don't allow signature spamming in which people make silly posts just in order for their signatures to be displayed.
When people are allowed to post their affiliate links in posts, there will be many people who will only be making posts for that purpose.
It all depends upon if you want a quality forum, what type of members you want as well as what type of traffic you want.
What do I do now?
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