How to Sell Your Product on the Forums?

How to Sell Your Product on the Forums?

by: Radhika Venkata

1. Your signature file:

Most of the forums allow you to carry a 4 6 lines of signature files with your name. So these files appears below your name when you answer a forum thread.

Most people advertise about their product. Don’t do that. Always offer some free ecourse or trial product. Personally I prefer to offer free ecourse than an ezine because, we feel that we gain more in short course of 7 days rather than a chain of endless ezines.

Second you can offer free product or free trial software or free membership.

Always hyperlink the email or web page link, so simple click will take the reader to the destination page.

2. Use the section กSpecial offers to Forum Membersก Forum:

You may see a seperate forum like กSpecial discount to Forum membersก. Here you can advertise your product or offer special discounts to forum members.

Tips while posting in these type of forums

Add an image of your product.

Use the html code to highlight the benefits.

Hyperlink the web page or product link.

State your discount in bold letters.

3. Seek partners for joint ventures:

Choose a forum appropriate for your product or business. For example if you are selling reseller hosting service then choose web designers forums.

Most web designers prefer to host their clients on own servers, so there will be more chances for you to get partners here.

Tips on seeking joint ventures

Let your partner get equal benefits from your proposal.

Be polite in asking partnership.

Leave the selection or decision making to the person whom you are going to ask a joint venture.

1 or 2 emails. If you didn’t get any response, no more emails. May be he/she doesn’t like these type of ventures.

4. Banner advertising or sponsoring:

Some forums sell advertising space and look for sponsors to sponsor the forum categories. If you want to act as a sponsor, you pay them like monthly or yearly and they put your web site or product link on the forum index, at the sub forum you choose.

This sponsoring is very cost effective way of advertising than banner advertising.

For example, you are selling search engine ebook. You can sponsor the sub forum กSearch engine promotionก in the list of forums. Your ebook link will be placed on that category of forums.

About The Author

Radhika Venkata

Webmaster Resource Directory: List Your product, ezine or web site free!

http://www.webmasterscentral.com/

Subscribe to กiNet Marketing Ezineก to receive solid articles, tips and real facts on Internet Marketing. Get Ebooks with Resale rights Free!

http://www.webmasterscentral.com/subscribe.shtml

This article was posted on January 21, 2004

by Radhika Venkata

One click from answer ?

One click from answer ?

by: Greg Keins

This article briefly describes most popular places on the net where help, advise and answers on required questions can be found. Overview of Search engines, meta search engines, forums, online help boards and more.

1. Search engines

Google.com, yahoo.com they represents one of best known search engines. SEs holds huge databases, for example google currently have more than 3 milliards records, to be able to process this information quantities server farms are used with thousands of computers. Search results contain pages where lookup words were met. Every SE has its own algorithm on what pages best much search criteria but all of them have aim to show most relevant results for user.

SE weighty advantage is that search industry leaders have their databases filled by milliards of records referencing existing web sites on the net, but they require from user to know most part of answer and some search experience to be able to type in correct keywords, otherwise as usually happens with novice users keywords may be really sensible for required lookup, turned out to be not that really used by most internet community in current field. As consequence search results are far from ideal, usually this are sites similar to lookingfor but not that really useful.

Only experience coming with time and hope on search engines will be more intellectual in future seems help. Another way is to spend more time on lookup and parse most of search results (more than first page of results) this will for sure move near to success.

Also exists meta search engines (they don’t have own databases but reuse and combine existing top search engines results together), they provide more optimized results and keep only most relative matches.

Hear is list of most popular search and meta search engines:

Search engines by popularity:

http://google.com

http://search.Yahoo.com

http://search.msn.com

http://excite.com

http://netscape.com

http://iwon.com

http://askjeewes.com

http://mywebsearch.com

http://altavista.com

http://dogpile.com

http://infospace.com

Meta Search engines:

http://ez2www.com

http://kartoo.com

http://surfwax.com

http://vivisimo.com

http://webcrawler.com

2. Forum boards

This is for sure more humanized type of information conception. Any forum board divided into several subjects, where forum users can post questions. Any single question with follow up and answers called thread. Threads keep single post history.

Person looking for help posts message describing problem and usually within one day some body with god will helps. Most forums have possibility to turn on auto notification for new responses, posted by email. Once posted your issue in few or more forums, checking newly email messages will keep up to date with problem resolving. Good sign for forum is number of messages per unique thread, more than 100 is good, as more visitors will see your request as soon you will get required help.

Hear is few popular help forums:

http://www.htmlforums.com

http://www.wordforums.com

http://www.suggestafix.com

3. News groups

News groups is coming from that early times when internet was not worldwide available.

They were available mostly through bulletin board systems and terminal connections.

Now this is forum type help resource but advantage is there are a lot of news groups on many subjects and all messages archived since at least 1994 year. So there is pretty much chances that you will find already existed same problem with few possible solutions.

There are few web interfaces to news groups, most handy for me was Google:

http://groups.google.com

4. Documentation

Every product, service or tool coming with user manual and documentation.

This was always best and most smart way to get issues resolved but major problem is time required to get acquainted with often tens or even hundred manual pages. Not rare cases when person just missing so much time.

5. Online help chat

This is so called human 2 human service. Most major web portals support this type of service for its own needs, example is ebay auction. Any answers get resolved immediately via online chat by ebay support person. Only problem is that ebay works only with its registered users and support only ebay concerning issues.

Online help is best possible service for present day, it reduces lookup efforts from hours or even days to minutes. For today I found one such place and meet there good and prompt support

http://webhelpboard.com

Conclusion

From described above seen that guaranteed direction is original manuals that usually foresee most common issues and pitfalls but it is for sure require enough free time. From the other side human 2 human services online help chat is easiest and most prompt service existing today.

About The Author

Greg Keins, SEO expert

(free reprint article thus far original content unchanged)

[email protected]

This article was posted on January 16, 2004

by Greg Keins

How to Build a Forum That Doesn’t Fall Apart Two M

How to Build a Forum That Doesn’t Fall Apart Two Months Later, Part 1

by: Robert Plank

If you can get a big enough following from customer lists and newsletters you might want to start your own forum. But I always see people trying to start a forum and it falls flat on their face, mainly because they make it too big and they never promote it.

The main reason is because nobody eats in an empty restaurant. Don’t setup a กmultiple topicก forum like phpBB where it allows you to partition the thing off into different subjects. You have to start small, get enough traffic to that forum for THAT type of forum to become selfsustaining before you build bigger.

By that I mean start off with a blog.

This blog (and eventually your message board) HAVE to have a niche. You can’t just have a general purpose hangout message board, or have it based on something really vague like กMarketing,ก or กFinance,ก or กComputers.ก Instead go for something specific like a Copywriting message board. Or a message board about home loans. Or a message board about digital video.

You supply all the posts, and any user กpostsก will just be comments to this journal. Don’t require any sort of signup in order to post.

Give people an option to sign up for email updates but DO NOT use the autoresponder built into the blogging software. Instead use a separate autoresponder script. Why? Two reasons:

1.) You can write a quick teaser message that will entice more subscribers to read your posts than any boring automated notice could.

2.) This way it will be easier to move subscribers over once you graduate from a blog (keep reading).

(WordPress works great for this and is free.)

Start off allowing anyone to post, but once you start getting traffic to that page and the blog spam starts rolling in you will either have to require approval by you for a comment to go through or require the poster to type in a code to prove they are human (youกve seen the kind).

It will be easy to get SOME traffic to the blog, if you keep most of your entries to it in article format, because then you can submit these articles to ezines and the article directories with a link back to the blog.

Keep the blog format going, be SURE to post regularly and if possible write content in advance (Post To Future) so that if you miss a week your content will still be updated as if you never left. If you feel ambitious setup RSS feeds for the blog and submit to the feed directories.

Continue posting until you reach the point where after you make a post, you receive comments from 1020 different people within a day or two of the post. This 1020 has to happen without any emails being sent out, or any kind of active promotion.

Until you reach this point stay with the blog, it means you haven’t reached critical mass yet and any attempt to change over to a more complex kind of site will never work.

Once youกve got those 1020 spontaneous posts you can go ahead and make the move from a blog to a forum. But be very very careful. There are a lot of things that can go wrong, especially if your forum doesn’t กunfoldก properly, which is a technique Iกll discuss with you in Part 2 of this article…

About The Author

Robert Plank

Free (humorous) video for you about how to promote an affiliate program without seeming spammy. Take a look: http://www.affiliatebattleplan.com/Rewrite.html

[email protected]

This article was posted on August 09

by Robert Plank

10 Commandments To Maximizing Your Time In Forum P

10 Commandments To Maximizing Your Time In Forum Participation

by: Nelson Tan

1) Gain an idea/keep in touch of what is happening in the Internet Marketing scene (strategies, product, news).

2) Help others as well as yourself to solve a กhow toก problem whenever it crops up. This applies to the universal law of กGive before you can receiveก.

3) Promote your product or other products with your affiliate links when you recommend solutions.

4) Create a sense of trust and bonding among fellow marketers in which real friendship can be establish over time (a sense of belonging).

5) Share and learn from others through a mutual exchange of experience.

6) Get a wordofmouth recommendation to a proven product or service from people who have tried it instead of spending time to analyze various products on the Internet.

7) Give and receive encouragement and motivation to/from fellow marketers.

8) Participate in Joint Ventures to expand your business.

9) Give special offers (discounts, giveaways etc.) that are only available in the forum.

10) Give free products only to members of the forum.

About The Author

$100 Giveaway: http://www.freshresources.com/100dollarfree.html

Free ecourses: http://www.internetmasterycenter.com/freeecourses.php

Justin Koh & Nelson Tan are the architects behind Internet Mastery Center (http://www.internetmasterycenter.com) and Fresh Resources (http://www.freshresources.com).

[email protected]

This article was posted on August 06

by Nelson Tan

The Value of Forums

The Value of Forums

by: S. Housley

There are literally thousands of online forums that cover a wide range of topics. Forums provide individuals, who share a common interest, with a meeting place for open discussion, and a great gathering spot for กwater coolerก talk. When used properly forums can be an excellent business tool and resource. By providing well thought out, helpful responses posters can develop a reputation as an industry expert. Establishing a reputation within forums will eventually lead to solid business contacts and relationships.
Forums, online discussion groups, can be found on many websites. Companies, individuals or groups often have their own webbased forums, which are a good source of technical information or just general discussions. They can be closed for private use only or open to anyone to post messages, which are usually sorted within different categories, or topics. Posting to forums is obviously effective when an immediate answer is not required. Forum can be found by searching for topic or subject with the word กforumก or กforumsก. Forums are a great way to participate in a community that is discussing a particular topic, or communicate with a group of people interested in the same topic.
Rules & Regulations
Before you post to a forum its important that you read the Charter or description of the forum and determine what is appropriate. It is probably not a bad idea to monitor a newsgroup for a few days prior to posting. Understanding what is accepted or not accepted in each newsgroup will go a long way in befriending the participants.
Forum Etiquette
Spam is generally frowned upon, if you require information on general forum etiquette Iกd encourage you to read the article at: http://www.smallbusinesssoftware.net/etiquette.htm . Rules and etiquette can vary from one group to another, so don’t assume what is acceptable in one, is acceptable in another.
Some forums require that you register and provide contact information in order to post a message or respond to messages. The registration is typically simple and requires that you submit general information. An email confirmation is required in order to confirm the information; once the confirmation is responded to posting privileges are granted. Some forums do not require registration and you can post anonymously.
What to Look for In a Forum
Because time is valuable it is best to frequent forums that have a lot of traffic, this will ensure that any posts receive maximum exposure for little effort. The most recent posts should be have current dates and it should be clear that there is regular activity on the board.
Moderated Forums
Some forums are moderated, which means posts are approved prior to being made public. This means that if you post to a moderated forum, there will likely be a delay between the submission and the posts appearance in the forum. Moderated forums tend to have a lower กnoiseก ratio and have less offtopic posts. The downside to moderated forums is that like moderated newsgroups they are usually less popular because of the lag time between posts.
Signature Line
Most newsgroups allow for posters to include a signature on any posts. This is your opportunity to mention your products and services. Use this as an opportunity to tell other forum visitors what you want them to know. Be sure to provide an url to your website, as the link will not only refer potential clients but it will help search engine ranking.
Finding Forums
Forums can contain generic information or be very topic specific. Try the following resources to find forums that meet your needs.
Forum Directory http://www.smallbusinesssoftware.net/forumdirectory.htm
Forum Directory http://www.forumdirectory.com
Forum Search http://www.forumsearch.tk

About The Author

Sharon Housley manages marketing for NotePage, Inc. http://www.notepage.net a company specializing in alphanumeric paging, SMS and wireless messaging software solutions. Other sites by Sharon can be found at http://www.softwaremarketingresource.com , and http://www.smallbusinesssoftware.net

This article was posted on May 20, 2004

by S. Housley

4 Easy Steps to Better Online Customer Support

4 Easy Steps to Better Online Customer Support

by: Bina Omar

Customer support is very important when you’re running a business, whether your business is on or off the net. If your customer support is hopeless, youกll soon find your customers running away from you and worse, telling others to stay away too.

If you’re like many of us out there, the last thing you want to do is to spend the whole day replying to customer support emails. Here are 4 easy steps to help improve your customer support and at the same time reduce the time you spend replying to queries. The trick here is to help your customers help themselves before you help them.

Step 1: Start with a Knowledge base / FAQs

The first step to your support system is to set up a knowledge base or, if you have a quite straight forward product, a Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) section. This will save you a lot of time. Your customers will also be happier since they can find answers to their questions immediately. If you’re just starting out, it is still a good idea to set up a knowledge base/FAQs. Just sit down and think of all the possible questions that your customer would ask. Maybe not all. Start with a few and you can always add more to it as time goes by.

Step 2: Set up a Forum

A forum is a great addition to your customer support system. The forum should be the second place your customer would turn to for help. A lot of people associate a forum to discussions, moderating, a lot of work and a headache to maintain. This is only true if you use a forum as a discussion area.

Instead, you should use it as a customer support tool. Just create different forum categories for eg., pre sale questions, member questions, one category for each product. A forum is an excellent way to provide customer support because:

There is a search function for the customer to find related posts

You could easily set up a forum for free. Most good web hosts now has a one click forum installation function.

You don’t have to worry about your replies being caught by your customersก email filters

If you get a question youกve answered before, just give them a link to the answer in another post.

Usually, other forum members are willing to answer a question that theyกve managed to solve … for free.

Hiring extra help is as easy as adding a new moderator.

Step 3: Install a Ticket help desk

Not all queries can be handled via a knowledge base and a forum. Sometimes there is a need for your customers to send you private information such as usernames and passwords.

When a situation like this arises, you will need a way for your customers to send you the information without others being able to see it. One of the best ways to handle this is to set up an online ticket help desk.

A ticket help desk system will allow your customers to create a user account and log a ticket into your system. They can then send whatever information they need to send. You can even allow them to attach files. Most good help desks will also allow you to prepare prewritten responses for repetitive queries.

Again, a good web host would also have some kind of help desk script installation available at a click.

Step 4: Use a good email software

And finally, you have the good ole email. Which should be the last thing your customers resort to. After implementing the above three systems, you will find a remarkably reduced amount of emails you need to reply to. Customers are getting wiser. Most know that emails are seldom replied to. So, they would only resort to this as a last resort.

Don’t make a mistake of putting your email address on your web site. Use a form. With email filters rampant on the net, also remember to inform your customers that your email may be trapped by their email filter.

There you go. Just set these up and youกll find your customer support a lot easier to handle.

© 2004 Bina Omar

About The Author

Bina runs the WebSite Workshop that provides tools & training to help newbies build web sites. Subscribe to Binaกs ezine กWebBriefcase!ก & get your free course on กHow to Make Your Own Web Site in 7 Easy Stepsก mailto:[email protected]

This article was posted on September 08, 2004

by Bina Omar

Is Google Gunning For Directories?

Is Google Gunning For Directories?

by: Roy Thomsitt

Why is it that webmasters are so quick to blame Google if their website falls down the search rankings, or out of the rankings altogether? Can it never be their own fault?

I read an amusing forum post headed ขWhat’s up with Google?ข. The writer had a website just 2 months old, which had only had 2 visits from Googlebot, a Google robot. The poster was a bit grieved, and was blaming Google.

It seems they had extrapolated their own situation into one they had witnessed with other webmasters on another forum. They were also upset, this time by Google’s latest update, as their websites had been badly hit. Of course, the drop way down the rankings had seriously affected their income

About The Author

Roy Thomsitt is the owner and author of http://www.changedirection.com.

[email protected]

This article was posted on August 17

by Roy Thomsitt

ขTop Seo Guruข discussion forum, especially for SE

ขTop Seo Guruข discussion forum, especially for SEO and Internet Marketing Experts

by: Paavan Solanki

Topseo.org announces the official launch of its exclusive ขTop SEO Guru Forumข for SEO and Internet Marketing Experts from India to discuss latest happenings on the search engine optimization and Internet marketing industry fronts.

Topseo.org is a self inspired group of Indian SEO Experts and Internet Marketers today announced the official launch of the Search Engine Optimization and Internet Marketing Forum ขTop SEO Guruข.

This forum welcomes webmasters, website designer, software programmers, editors, writers and seo inductees to participate in the online and off line forum activities.

Our Forum also invites moderator to moderate various subjects featured in different forums like SEO, Internet Marketing, Search Engine Optimization, website marketing, Web Promotion, Google, Yahoo, Link Popularity, PPC, SEO Jobs, SEO News, SEO articles, website review, search engine forum, seo blogs and bloggers, banner Marketing, Affiliate Marketing, Search Engine Spiders & Technology, SEO Tools & Internet Marketing Software, RSS Feeds, XML Feeds, Atom Feeds, SEO Content Writing Forum, B2b B2C Portal Marketing and related issues, SEO Tips and SEO Spamming Issues, SEO Articles, SEO News, SEO Interviews Forum, SEO Books & Tutorials, SEO Seminars, Conferences and Fairs, BPO Forum, SEO Training and Corresponding Courses, HTML Coding, Java Script & Software Programming, SEO Meetup Group India Forum etc.

Earlier the meetup group had turned in to a subscription based model thus restricting new members from turning it in to a cohesive, yet diverse group.

It was then that the need for a new meetup group was felt as an option, for Indian SEO and Internet Marketing Meetup Groups which sought new tools and discussion platforms to pursue their member interests in all its earnestness.

ขOur SEO Forum is all out to help SEO community from India to discuss and deliberate on all issues involved among the meetup group members serve their interests in the most satisfying manner, from India,ข quipped Forum Web Editor Mr. Paavan Solanki who heads Internet Search Engine Service Provider Targetseo.com and is the founder member and moderator of the Top SEO Forum.

SEO Forum carries sections under bpo, seo jobs and internet marketing training and how to begin your career & SEO Business & Global IT Industry.

To join immediately, visit this link http://www.topseo.org/forum

About The Author

Paavan Solanki

About Topseo.org

Small is beautiful they say. And we are just sprouting, one can say at Topseo.org, a non profit group of enthusiastic and keen SEOs and Internet Marketing Experts from India.

The organization aims to provide knowledge, business resources and discuss issues for search engine optimization, internet marketing and IT Industry in India.

Coming days will see a sea change in the overall scenario, all around us. In fact, with ambitious plans that will be circulated among members, the Forum seeks cooperation form all those belonging to the industry and serving common interests. At present, more than 20 SEO and Internet marketing experts have enrolled in Topseo.org.

So, what are you waiting for? Join today, and see a brighter search for tomorrow at http://www.topseo.org/forum and community.

[email protected]

This article was posted on September 13

by Paavan Solanki

To Strike While the Public Domain Iron is Hot, You

To Strike While the Public Domain Iron is Hot, You Must First Find the Iron!

by: Charles H. Smith

Surely you have heard of Ted Turner and Walt Disney, but do you know what they have in common? Both of these men started companies based public domain materials. Walt Disney updated or modernized characters from Grimmกs Fairy Tales, and Ted Turner founded Turner Classic Movies using many public domain movies.

With public domain materials rapidly becoming a very hot commodity these days, your competition for these materials gets more demanding daily. If you go to Google.com and search for Public Domain, there are over 40 million sites resulting from this search. So, how do you weed through these millions and millions of sites to find actual materials in the public domain?

Your search for these materials has just been simplified. We have compiled a toolbar containing almost 200 direct links to public domain materials and 7 public domain search engines into a free public domain toolbar. Imagine; if you will, searching the Library of Congress, eServer or Project Gutenberg; among others, directly from your toolbar. Simply for your convince, we have included a few links to old book resellers to the search bar. With your keywords in hand, this feature has proven extremely valuable in locating original public domain manuscripts or books for scanning and editing. Although, some of the public domain materials are donated and have special terms and conditions for using the material in commercial websites, your due diligence and discovery of the special cases is warranted and advised.

Because this Internet Explorer toolbar receives automatically updates from PublicDomainForum.com every time you launch it, available to you are the freshest public domain links available. As links die, they are removed. As new links are found, your toolbar is updated.

How do you get this great tool? This free toolbar is only available to registered forum members of Public Domain Forum. Visit us online and register for our free Public Domain forum. After you login to the forum, you may download this terrific tool.

About The Author

Charles H Smith

http://www.publicdomainforum.com Public Domain Blog http://www.publicdomainforum.com/forum Forum and Toolbar.

This article was posted on April 14

by Charles H. Smith

11 Quick Tips To Drive More Return Traffic To Your

11 Quick Tips To Drive More Return Traffic To Your Business Website

by: Christoph Puetz

Sometimes you need a kick start to get of the ground when promoting your new business website. Use these 11 tips to get started. A combination of several tips will most likely guarantee return visitors on your website. Return visitors most likely mean more sales.

1. Build a solid business foundation before starting. Create a business plan (this should be document revisited every quarter), marketing plan, client profile, and a site map for your web site.

2. Be very consistent. Brand your company and stick to it.

3. Create acceptable and easy to understand policies the build trust: Customer Service, Code of Ethics and a Privacy Policy.

4. Network locally to bring people to your site. Start with the local chamber of commerce as an example.

5. Place your websiteกs URL address on all your printed business literature business cards, brochures, newsletters, letterhead, invoices, ads, etc.!

6. Offer added values that are related to your business and the ideal client (target group). A solid resource database helping clients getting most out of your services could be a good start. Maybe offer products. A FTP software for a web hosting client makes perfect sense as they can use it to conveniently upload their files to the hosting web server.

7. Add a ‘recommend This Site to a friendก script on your site. If someone visits your site and knows someone else who may appreciate it, this feature will email the pageกs link to the recipient. Easy access to a tool like this could increase กword of mouthก advertising.

8. Setup monthly chats about related topics or install bulletin boards (forums) to build a relationships and community. This will attach customers to your business. Invite industry specific folks to a chat so that they can answer customer questions. This is a perk nobody can resist.

9. Teach classes in colleges or schools or speak to groups about subjects relating to your products and services. Students suddenly turn into customers and/or spread the word ….

10. Conduct periodic contests and announce the winners on your site. As a web host you could have contest for who has the best web design on your servers. People like to show off. Use this behavior to attract new clients.

11. Participate in online forums as an expert. Do not SPAM the forums with your advertising messages. Use the signature to quietly promote your services. Once people see you as a valuable member with lots of information and start trusting you, they will start trusting you their business.

This article can be published by anyone as long as a live back link to http://www.webhostingresourcekit.com is provided. (this note can be removed as long as a link from the authorกs resource box is provided)

About The Author

Christoph Puetz is a successful small business owner (Net Services USA LLC) and international author.

Guides, Tutorials, and Articles for small businesses http://www.webhostingresourcekit.com

This article was posted on December 23, 2004

by Christoph Puetz

Seven กMust Followก Rules While Participating In M

Seven กMust Followก Rules While Participating In Message Boards

by: Radhika Venkata

Participating in message boards (forums) discussions is a great way of self promotion. It costs you nothing. Not even a penny. All you have to do is allot sometime for this type of promotion.

Before you getting started you need to know some must follow principles. You want your time to be profitable for you. Right? So what ever time you are gonna spend should bring you some profits.

What are those principles?

***1. Target your promotion:***

If you are search engine optimization expert, then you will be benefited by search engine forums. People coming to those forums need help in their web site optimization. If you are willing to share your knowledge with those people, you will gain their confidence and needless to say few customers too.

***2. Always follow the forum rules:***

In some forums or some areas of forums self promotion is not allowed. At the same time, some subforums are alloted to post your product advertisement. So read carefully before posting your product details anywhere on the forum.

***3. Use signature files:***

Almost all the forums allow signature files. These may be less than 4 lines or less than some 250 characters. This varies from forum to forum. So be concise with your wording.

Most IMPORATNT advice is always offer something free in your signature file. Free report on how to increase sales, free email course on how to design a web site that pulls orders or any topic that focuses on your web site theme. This always beats keeping your product price in your signature file. You can built your optin list too.

In signature files DON’t hide URL with กClick hereก as link text. Let people accustom to your web site name or your product name. If you just use as กClick hereก instead of กSEO tips and tricksก, it looks dull and less interesting.

***4. Change the heading while answering a question:***

If somebody ask a question like กWhat are web site promotion methods?ก.

In reply you can change the heading to what ever you want instead of ‘re:What are web site promotion methods?ก

You can keep an interesting heading to make your post prominent from others. Like กFOUR best methods to start with…ก or กAdvertising with out spending a penny.ก etc. These type of headings certainly attracts peopleกs eyes.

***5. Give respect to others opinions:***

Don’t say harsh words even though you know what other person saying is wrong. Be polite. What you want to say tell it clearly and concisely.

If you don’t know a topic still you want to comment on that, add กin my opinion…, as far i know…ก etc. Point out to resources if you know any.

***6. Follow up the thread:***

If you start participating in a thread, then check the box that says กEmail Notificationก. When ever somebody replies your question, email will be sent to you. So you can post a reply or follow others answers and opinions.

What is the use of this? =You may end up with learning something from that discussion =It could be a topic for your next ezine article or ebook or a report =You can get to know of people of that thread

***7. Every day allot some time:***

Save the forum URLs in your favorites folder. Everyday try to visit them regularly. By this you can know the what is going on around you. You may know good resources and free information links that are useful to you. If you come across any information that is useful to you save them on your computer.

About The Author

Radhika Venkata Subscribe to กEbookBiz Magazineก which is completely focused on ebook business and Internet Marketing. Receive FREE Ebooks with Resale rights every month!

http://www.ebooksworld.com/freetosell.shtml

Webmaster Resources: List Your product, ezine or web site free! http://www.webmasterscentral.com/

This article was posted on November 14, 2003

by Radhika Venkata

Profit From an Online Community

Profit From an Online Community

by: Stephen Bucaro

What if you could setup a website, then lay back and collect money while web users build your website for you? Surprisingly, there are many ways to do just that. Examples are websites that let users post classified ads, articles, links to ebooks, and message forums. This article focuses on starting and profiting from your own online community.

You could start a general topic online community, but itกs better to focus on a specific topic. Some popular forum topics are: celebrity gossip, child rearing, relationships, free lancing, and home businesses. Having a specific topic gives website purpose, and attracts people interested in that topic.

Users like an online community because they can communicate even though they may be geographically separated, and they don’t have to be online at the same time. Newcomers can read past messages to catch up on the conversation, and join in when they’re ready.

An online forum is profitable to the owner because they start out with a targeted audience and by monitoring message threads, the owner can fine tune the websiteกs advertising to the very specific interests of the Community.

The most challenging part of starting an online forum is to attract people to the community. youกll need to set up some threads and have some friends start discussions. People are attracted to a community that has a large number of active discussion threads.

After joining and participating for a while, members will tend to stay because they make acquaintances with other members. After the community reaches a certain number of members, it will become selfsustaining without much effort on your part.

One decision you need to make is whether to provide synchronous or asynchronous communication. Synchronous communications, for example a กchat roomก, allows members to communicate in realtime. Of course, the members have to be online simultaneously, and users with slow dialup Internet connections will not be able to keep up with the conversation.

Asynchronous communications, for example a กmessage boardก, means members leave messages that others can respond to later. With asynchronous communications, users will be able to put more thought into their messages before responding.

Some online communities provide both message boards and chat rooms. This allows individuals to break away from a message board thread and engage in their own realtime conversation.

Your online community can be moderated or unmoderated. In a moderated forum, before messages are posted they must be approved by a moderator to make sure that they conform with the communityกs rules and policies. In an unmoderated forum, messages are posted directly by the users without filtering.

There are several options between fully moderated and freeforall totally unmoderated. For example, a new memberกs messages could be moderated for a short trial period, after which they would be allowed to post directly to the forum.

The chat room or message forum could be left basically unmoderated, with occasional spot checks to make sure that everyone is conforming with the rules and policies. Or they could be left unmoderated with no action taken against members who violate the rules unless someone sends a complaint to the websiteกs operator.

You will need to establish clear rules and policies as to what is acceptable by the community, and the sanctions that will be imposed on those who violate the rules. What kind of things are unacceptable for users to post? Personal attacks, bigotry, and profanity should not be allowed. Will you allow offtopic messages? How far offtopic?

Get all new members to agree on the rules and put a link to the rules on all pages. Also provide a form that makes it easy for members to report violators.

Have clear polices for what the penalty will be for violating the rules and deal with the violator as quickly as possible. Start by emailing the individual and politely request that they review communityกs rules and policies pages. If that doesn’t stop the violations, enforce the penalty.

Many web users conceal their true identity and use a pseudonym instead. They pretend to be who they’re not and this is prone to abuse. Sometimes this results in the exploitation of minors. There is not much you can do to learn members true identities, but you should verify the email address of new members by sending a message to which they must respond.

Enforcement of the rules could involve subjecting their messages to approval before posting, suspending their posting rights, or banning their membership in the community. Email them, letting them know that they are being penalized and why. Let them know what they need to do to get the penalty lifted.

If you want users to have confidence when they join the community, you will need to post a clear privacy policy. It should describe what personal information will be collected and how personal data will be used. Put a link to the privacy policy on all pages.

You should maintain a topic about the website itself where members can talk about bugs, rules they would like to see, or features they wish for. Here, new members can post questions about how to use their computer, the web, or the community website, and receive help from more experienced users. Visit that topic regularly yourself.

One decision you need to make is whether messages be archived and for how long? Will you archive all messages, including ones that are just frivolous chat or gossip and are not worth saving? Will you allow members access to the archives? Will you be the only one who can delete messages or will members have the authority to delete their own messages?

You can start your message forum on a site that offers free message boards and as your community grows move to your own Web site. Below is a list of some websites that offer free message boards or free message forum code.

Boards2Go (www.boards2go.com) provides free message boards hosted on their servers. There is nothing for you to set up. Boards2Goกs message boards can easily integrate to your websiteกs layout. Your visitors will never know they left your website. All configurations may be made via our web interface administrator area.

Web Wiz Guide (www.webwizguide.info) provides free ASP forum code, and The Free Country (www.thefreecountry.com) Provides Free PHP Forum Code.

Copyright(C) 2005 Bucaro TecHelp.

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About The Author

Copyright(C) 2005 Bucaro TecHelp.

To learn how to maintain your computer and use it more effectively to design a Web site and make money on the Web visit bucarotechelp.com To subscribe to Bucaro TecHelp Newsletter visit http://bucarotechelp.com/search/000800.asp

This article was posted on February 21

by Stephen Bucaro