Promotion forums have existed on the internet for a long time and many users have spent time on them hoping to increase activity on their own websites. The idea behind promotion forums is to help you advertise your website, blog, forum or business to other interested users but one major flaw has always meant that they don’t always work as intended.
Why is that? Well, let’s consider the users that would typically register on a promotion forum. These users will primarily register to advertise their own site but are looking to join new sites? Probably not and these are the majority of users that will view your advertisement on a promotion forum. There will, of course, be some users from time to time that like certain sites that have been advertised and view/join it but this is a rare occurrence. But is using a promotion forum completely useless? Let’s see.
What can promotion forums help with me?
Services – A large proportion of promotion forums will have services available for users. These services will usually help with various different aspects of your site including content creation. How can this help your site? Well, let’s say that you have just started a forum and it’s lacking in content from users that aren’t your staff. A package service could help you add some unique content to your forum which would make it much for appealing to potential visitors that may have been reluctant to join your forum.
Promotion – It’s in the name of course. Promotion forums can help you get the word out to different users about your site. That’s the main purpose and there will be several different ways that you can do so including most likely a promotion forum to create a thread about your site and advertising opportunities on the site itself to increase your site exposure.
Feedback – Feedback is always welcome for your own site and one place you will be able to get heaps of it will be promotion forums. Usually, promotion forums will have an official review service that allows you to get a detailed review from a staff member regarding your site. Additionally, with so many webmasters in one place, getting feedback from the community will also help you find out what’s great about your site and how you can improve it.
Exchanges – You should focus your time on promotion forums on meeting other webmasters. This can help you to start on some exchanges between sites (usually only effective for forums and blogs) that help both sites. For example, exchange some forum posts to help your community look a little more active to visitors.
Staff – If you are looking for staff members for your site, then promotion forums are the perfect place to look. These are communities of experienced webmasters and internet users who will always love to help you with your project. These users will be site owners themselves so will know exactly what is expected of them and how they can you with your site.
Why don’t promotion forums always help?
Like I mentioned at the start of the article, promotion forums aren’t actually that helpful in regards to promoting your site. The problem here is that you’re only advertising to other webmasters who might only be interested in growing their own site. I’m not saying that they are completely pointless as there will sometimes be one or two users that are genuinely interested in your site and that can be worth the time that is taken to promote on one of these forums. But just make sure not to rely on promotion forums for your only exposure.
Furthermore, your use of promotion forums can affect your page rank. This is due to changes to how Google treats links posted on external sites especially sites that may not be relevant to your niche. Advertising my admin/webmaster blog on a promotion/admin forum won’t hurt me but advertising your blog on plants on a promotion forum might have an adverse effect on your page rank.
What can I use instead?
There are several different methods to get the word out about your site including:
Social Media – There is nothing more important than having a social media presence for your site and brand. A great thing to do is to engage with other users with your social media account which can help increase exposure for your site. Interested users may click on your profile and then visit your site. Additionally, make sure to keep an eye out on specific keywords as users may be having trouble with a certain thing that your site could help them with.
Informing users/friends – Been a member of a forum or community for a while and got to know some great members? Let them know about your site and you might get some new users for it! You could also inform users on other forums by simply putting your link on your forum/blog profiles. But make sure that these are high-quality sites as this will mean the backlinks are of a higher quality.
It’s always helpful to join and be a member of a promotion forum but just remember that you should never rely on one solely for promoting your site. If you have any questions or issues, feel free to leave a comment below or send us an email.
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By Smokey 5 years ago
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By Lammchen 5 years ago
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By TimeRider 5 years ago
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By Demon_skeith 5 years ago
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By Xyphien 5 years ago
Great article! After using promotion forums for years, your observations are spot on. Services and exchanges are the most useful in my eyes, then the SEO may have helped in the past. You’re right that it is no longer the case for most people. I still think a few of the big ones are great for ideas, feedback, services, etc, but they’re not as helpful as most people anticipate. The most important thing is recurring users, and that is unlikely to come from promotion forums.
I think its a pretty cheaper option to promote our websites/Articles/products/services/blogs on forums but you said it right that it may not work on all occasions but still the chances are higher as we will receive a wider coverage for our promotions on forums due to the presence of members from different countries.
This is an informative article. I have not used any promotion forum so far to promote my website but that sounds a good idea. But you have mentioned it well that it might not work all the time. I have used social media to promote it and it has given a decent response though not as expected.
Well, I have used forums to promote and they were actually better than social media. Most of the users on facebook are just the type of ‘click here to like’ visitors who wouldn’t really contribute in a real forum. I have also tried joining some specialized groups, but the noise to good content ratio is so disastrous, I’m, better off with forums.