Squidoo Tips: Build Traffic, Sales & Promote Your Squidoo Lens Using Forums
Ranked #110 in Squidoo Tips, #10,028 overall
Using Forums To Promote Your Website or Squidoo Lens
A forum is a basically an online message board, where people read and write about topics of interest, sharing their ideas, experience and information with eachother. Even Squidoo has its own forum (SquidU) where you can discuss your love for Squidoo, talk to other lensmasters and even meet the new ones! If you're not already an active member of SquidU, I suggest you become one.
Forums are powerful promotional tools and form the basis of my promotion, forum promotion is fun, interactive and rewarding. Forum promotion not only brings in traffic, but also provides backlinks to your website (or lens) allowing your Google rankings to also increase. Another benefit of forum promotion is being able to promote multiple lenses at once.
Forums are powerful promotional tools and form the basis of my promotion, forum promotion is fun, interactive and rewarding. Forum promotion not only brings in traffic, but also provides backlinks to your website (or lens) allowing your Google rankings to also increase. Another benefit of forum promotion is being able to promote multiple lenses at once.
Contents
Forum Promotion:
Fun, Easy & Effective.
Why Promote On Forums?
Forum promotion has lots of advantages. Such as:
- Reach - Forums allow you to reach thousands of people, all interested in your topic.
- Knowledge & Ideas - You can share your knowledge aswell as get ideas for things to add to your lens.
- Promote Multiple Lenses- You can promote multiple lenses within the same category easily.
- Building Backlinks- You can help build backlinks to help your search engine rankings. Before long you can have thousands of links.
- FREE- Forums are a free way to promote your lens and make sales.
To Do List
-Read This Lens
-Find A Forum Using This Lens
-Sign-up!
-Lurk The Forum
-Make Quality Posts
-Build Reputation
What Makes A Good Forum?
- Active Community - You need posts to reply to and people to communicate with, make sure the community is active. That includes active admin/moderator.
- Signatures - You want the site to allow signatures, this is where you are going to put your link after all!
- DoFollow - You want the site to have DoFollow on signatures, otherwise your getting no love from the search engines.
- Found In Google - Make sure the forum is on Google for your keywords.
- Open Permissions & No Spam - It's important you can browse the forum while not logged in (otherwise Google can't crawl your signature) also make sure the forum is spam free!
- PageRank - Least important, higher page ranking will help your lens in Google and also means that Google crawls the forum more often. Always choose the highest PR forum, unless a lower PR one is more active!
Why Do People Join Forums?
Forum Etiquette: Maximising Your Success
These things will help increase your reputation in the forums you join, which will prevent people from ignoring your posts and arguing with you. Use all of these tips to get the most out of your forum promotion.
- Profile Information - Fill out all your profile information, this includes avatar, bio and linking to your Squidoo lenses where possible (at the very least always in signature).
- General Posting - "I agree, lol" is not a valid post. Keep your posts interesting, funny and avoid using ALL CAPITAL LETTERS (see, its annoying).
- Read The Rules - Of course you don't want to get banned, most forums have the same rules these days, but a quick read of the rules never hurts.
- Avoid Flame Wars - Don't argue with people on forums, no matter who they are, from time to time your going to run into people just looking for a fight. These people are promptly banned, no need to damage your reputation.
- Respect The Admin - Goes without saying, its their forum so respect them and their rules. Also includes moderators and members with high reputation in the forums.
- Lurk The Forum - Don't jump straight into the forum, you may aswell be on a suicide mission. Take time to study the forum, who are the top members? What kind of discussion do they focus on? What are the most popular topics?
- Don't Hijack Threads & Stay On-Topic - I see this everyday (even on SquidU) and it's a one way ticket to losing respect. Don't hijack someone's thread and ask your own questions (unless it continues and adds to the same discussion), start your OWN thread! Also make sure all your posts are related to the original post.
- Be Active- Post regularly, depending on the amount of time you have free. I currently participate in 15 forums. Some I check everyday, some once a week. Make an effort to make a certain number of posts every visit.
- Keep Track - Make sure you check back on all the threads you posted in, in case somebody asks you something. There are email notifications that can do this, depending on the forum. Also make sure to post in recent discussion, if its a week old, leave it.
- Pictures - Don't post pictures in massive resolutions that take ages to load, your safest option whenever you include pictures is to use the link to the image, not the image itself.
Also label the image appropriately:
[56k] = Not recommended for dial-up users (big picture)
[NSFW] = Not Safe For Work, anything people don't want to see at work.
Other Important Tips
- Saying Thank You - Try say thank you were possible, be sure to read the rules on the forum though. Some forums dislike "thanks" posts!
- Early Posting - When you first join, off-topic discussion is a good place to start and eventually start welcoming new members in the introduction section. These are often the two easiest places to post. Helping your post count and backlinks.
- Post Count - Unfortunately post count matters alot on forums, don't speak your mind too much or direct people directly to your lens before 50 posts.
- Post Quality - People are more likely to click your signature if they look up to you or see you know what your talking about, focus on helping others and answering their questions.
Nobody Knows Who You Are, So Tell Them!
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Forum Finder
I've Done All The Hard Work For You.
I've gone out and investigated forums on every category, just for you! You'll find forums for every topic in Squidoo. Some forums may appear more than once as they cover multiple Squidoo topics. If none of them suit your niche exactly, then by all means use Google to find another one, because you want to focus on your niche . Or if you think a great forum is missing, recommend it! Use the links listed below to quickly jump to your desired category. (About Me, Duels, Local, Non-profit, Shopping and XXX are not included for various reasons)
Whats Your Topic?
- General Forums
- Animals & Nature
- The Arts
- Cars & Trucks
- Books
- Business
- Computers, Gadgets & Tech
- DIY & Hobbies
- Entertainment
- Food & Cooking
- Green Living
- Health & Medicene
- Humor
- Movies & TV
- Music
- News & Politics
- Parenting & Kids
- People
- Pop Culture & Celebs
- Religion & Spirituality
- SEO & Affiliate Marketing
- Sports & Recreation
- Travel
- Video Games
- Work At Home
General Forums
- MyLot
- MyLot has discussions on every topic you can think of, sign up and get discussing. MyLot offers the best backlinks and easiest traffic of any forum.
- General Forums
- Talk about anything and everything.
- News Forum
- Stay informed with the latest news.
- The Site
- Highly Active & High PageRank.
Animals & Nature
- Pet Lovers
- If your lens is pet related, promote it here.
- Mother Earth News
- Best nature forum around, doesnt allow signatures though. You have to do active promotion! (I suggest finding another active forum that suits your nature niche)
The Arts
- Devian Art
- Art forum, more towards computer generated artwork.
- Concept Art
- All about Concept Art.
- Pulse Music
- Covers all music genres.
Cars & Trucks
- AutoMotive Forum
- NoFollow forum, however depending on the section, most threads get viewed at least 1000 times each. Meaning great exposure!
- Beyond Car Forums
- Highly Active, friendly and ethusiastic community.
Books
- Book and Reader
- Friendly active book forum on book discussion.
- Online Book Club
- More focused towards writers, but also has a large interest in already published books. Also .org domain (helps slightly in google)
Business
- Small Business Forum
- Focuses on small businesses.
- Home Based Business
- Focuses on home-based businesses. (requires sign up to see anything, but still gets great coverage.
Computers, Gadgets & Tech
- Computer Forum
- NoFollow but again lots of regular visitors that will see your lens link.
- Computer Haven
- Your haven for computer lovers.
- Coolest Gadget
- Talk about phones, computers, self-made gadgets, gadget related news and technology chat.
DIY & Hobbies
- DIY Discussed
- Focuses on home renovation.
- Hobby Fanatics
- Talk about your favourite hobby!
- Hobby And Special Interests Forum
- Massive list of hobbies, massive traffic!
Entertainment
- All Metal Forums
- Talk about metal music.
- Music & Instrument Discussion
- General music and istrument discussion great forum for instrument lenses.
- Games Forum
- Discuss all video games here!
Food & Cooking
- Best Recipes
- Post your best recipes.
- Taste
- Add something tasty.
- Kitchn Cooking Recipes
- Doesn't allow signatures, but lots of traffics and visits and you can freely make a topic about a recipe (direct it to your lens) Easy promotion!
Green Living
- The Environment Site
- Good traffic and high Pagerank.
- The Environment Room
- Mainly focuses on green news. If your lens is on more recent green issues it will shine here.
- Green Living
- Doesn't allow signatures, but some posts recieve upwards of 1000 views, its worth at least posting your lens once.
Health & Medicene
- Health Boards
- Biggest health board around, covers every major disease and illness.
- Pysch Central
- For all your mental health lenses.
- Body Building
- Promote your physical fitness lenses here, INSANE amount of traffic and activity on this forum.
- 3 Fat Chicks
- Weight loss forum.
Movies & TV
- Movie Forums
- Discuss the latest and greatest movies.
- Box Office Mojo
- The biggest and best movie discussion forum. Discuss upcoming movies, award nominations and movie rumors!
- Meta Critic
- Talk and critique the latest movies, doesnt allow signatures, but has very high traffic, so slip the odd link to your a lens (great for a movie review lens!).
Music
- Pulse Music
- Covers all music genres.
- Music & Instrument Discussion
- General music and istrument discussion great forum for instrument lenses.
- All Metal Music
- Dicuss metal music here!
- All About Jazz
- Highly active Jazz forum with a massive PR7! Allows DoFollow signatures.
- Rap Music
- For the rappers out there.
- IDM - Electronic Music
- Everything related to Techno and Electronically generated music.
News & Politics
- VNN - News Network
- Discuss the latest news.
- Politics Forum
- Discuss politics in every country, posting of links is very common to quote sources and research, so its very easy to post your lens.
- Argue With Everyone
- Political discussion forum, mainly focusing on the United States and its policies.
- Political Forum
- US & World politics forum, gets alot of traffic but signatures are NoFollow.
Parenting & Kids
- Natural Parenting
- Raising a baby or family naturally? Discuss birth, nutrition and health.
- Bub Hub
- Discuss anything related to raising kids and giving birth.
- Be Tween Talk
- A Place for Tweens and Tween related interests.
People
- Personal Development
- Discover yourself and develop as a person, another high traffic forum with the downside of NoFollow.
- Love Forum
- Discuss love tips, advice and dating.
- Plenty Of Fish
- Highly Active Forum with lots of traffic, but no signatures allowed.
Pop Culture & Celebs
- Fan Host
- Discuss your favourite celebrities. No signautures but you can easily link back to your lens as a source.
- Japanese Forum
- Discuss Japanese Pop Culture.
- Fan Forum
- Celebs, Tv Shows, Movies & Celebrities.
Religion & Spirituality
- Catholic Answers Forum
- Discuss anything Catholic.
- Free Thought
- Open discussion about religion and spirituality.
- Buddhism
- Discuss all Buddhist related topics.
SEO & Affiliate Marketing
- BRL WebMaster Forums
- Active members, lots of discussion, also doubles as a work at home forum.
- WebSite Babble
- Babble about your lens!
- Digital Point
- Regular SEO news and updates available on Digital Point.
- Site Point
- High PR, heavy traffic and lots of discussion.
Sports & Recreation
- Sportal
- Discuss sports including basketball, golf, football, rugby, tennis, cricket, cycling and many others! No signatures allowed but massive traffic and you can again easily quote back to your lens.
- Football Forums
- Focused completely on Football (soccer).
- Talk Tennis
- Talk about anything and everything Tennis related.
- Baseball Fever
- Talk and discuss Baseball.
Travel
- Virtual Tourist
- Share travel tips and locations, great promotion for your lens.
- Lonely Parent
- Discuss travel locations and trips.
- Traveller's Point
- More great travel discussion.
Video Games
- Game Spot
- Most popular PC gaming forum around
- PSU
- Playstation 3 Discussion Forum.
- Team Xbox
- For all you Xbox lovers.
- Learn 4 Good
- Discuss a wide variety of games.
Work At Home
- MoneyFanClub
- Discusses all the latest in making money online.
- Get Paid Forum
- The greatest GPT and get paid discussion forum.
- Why Do Work
- Work at home discussion, lots of traffic and daily posts.
About Me
Whos The Lensmaster?
Lensmaster SammySpam has been a member since March 8 2008, has rated 714 lenses, favorited 20, and has created 22 lenses from scratch. This member's top-ranked page is "How To Earn Free NX Cash For MapleStory". See all my lenses
Thanks, Comments or Questions?
Got Something To Say? Post Your Questions and Comments Here!
submit
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Reply
- shepardc shepardc Nov 13, 2009 @ 10:43 am
- Great lens! You not only explained, but you pointed me in the right direction. Thanks especially for the list of forums to choose from! 5-Stars!
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Reply
- skiesgreen skiesgreen Nov 5, 2009 @ 8:29 pm
- Wonderful tips and information 5* fave and lens rolled
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Reply
- Big_Joe Big_Joe Oct 21, 2009 @ 9:29 pm
- Great Lens, Thanks for all the info
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Reply
- deztinee deztinee Oct 8, 2009 @ 3:00 pm
- Great job on how to promote your business on forums. 5*! Your lenses is also on my feartured lenses! Good work!
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Reply
- moneymaker1008 moneymaker1008 Aug 29, 2009 @ 8:12 pm
- Great lens! I would also add wahm.com to the work at home forums.
- Load More
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