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Home::Viral Marketing
Formatting your forum signatures for best exposure
Author : Dax Christopher
Online forums are now a common feature on the Internet. Some
websites have even broken the traditional definitions of a
website and feature only forum, where the main index page is a
list of forums and active discussions (an example at
http://www.buildtolearn.com). These websites offer content not
in the traditional form of static webpages but dynamic user
submitted posts and content. With an active community
continuously contributing to the content of the website, the
website develops into popular place for the latest news and acts
as a grapevine for forum members.
In addition to participating on forums and gaining new knowledge
from other members, forums are an excellent place to promote
your websites. This is done through the forum signatures
that most forums will allow each member to have. These forum
signatures are automatically attached into the post made by the
member. Forum signatures have traditionally been used in
mails and then in electronic mails and then in
bulletin-board/newsgroups discussions. It is no surprise that
the signature system also progressed into the online forum and
is widely supported by popular forum software such as VBulletin,
phpbb, Invisionboard, etc.
Your forum signature can be a useful tool to do a bit of
advertising for your website and products. Most forums will have
some regulations on forum signature lengths or forum
signature formatting. Common forum signature formats that are
approved by mature forums are text-only forum signatures and
specifying a maximum of number of lines in the forum signature
(see an example of forum signature rules at
http://www.buildtolearn.com/showthread.php?t=206 ). Always abide
by the forum rules and especially in the forum signature rules
as many forums are particular about members not joining their
forums for the specific purpose of spamming their links through
their forum signatures or posts.
So, as a contributing member to the forum discussions, you have
the priviledges of including your forum signature in your
posts. How do you ensure that your forum signature is read and
not ignored like the tens of forum signatures of the other
members who have posted in the same discussion? How do you use
your forum signature for maximum benefit?
Here are some tips for optimizing forum sigatures:
1. Do not post more than 3 links. Anything more than that is
certaintly viewed as spam and most people will ignore your forum
signature.
2. Do not post something like: " http://www.buildtolearn.com -
Webmaster community ". Instead, if possible, post your link with
"anchor text". The word "webmaster community"
should be the link enclosed by the tags. This would
benefit your link in SEO.
3. Include more than just a link. Be more descriptive around
your forum signature and links. For example, use something like
"Over 10,000 members in the best webmaster community"
(with link from the keyword 'webmaster community'). Or something
to entice the viewer to click through to your website, eg.
"Submit articles to our article library
and stand to win $100".
4. Use at most 3 colors in your forum signature. It is a good
idea to highlight the keyword/link with color such as blue or
red. Leave the rest of the text in black.
It takes some experimenting to find the best forum signature
format for each forum. With these 4 tips in mind, your chances
of improving click-through rates from your forum signature will
increase tremendously.
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