Community forums can serve many purposes for the successful internet marketer. There are thousands online on just about every topic you can imagine. Some are very busy and can have lots of members as well as a high Google page rank.

Here are a few of the ways you can use forums to your advantage:

• Your forum signature appears on every post so the more posts you write, the more links to your website(s)
• Many forums have classified sections so you can utilise this to advertise your products / services
• Talk to the webmaster / admin about link trading or displaying your banner. Forum ad fees are often very reasonable
• Chat with like minded people and get some visits to your website
• Get information about your niche
• Some forums offer revenue sharing
• Some forums allow you to feed your blog(s) into your control panel

Forums: A Social Marketing Goldmine!

Not only can you meet people, sell your wares and learn about your niche but forums offer a great opportunity for off-page SEO for your own websites.  Don’t abuse them or else you might get banned but follow the rules and be a valuable member of each community you join and you can definitely reap some rewards.

Have a most outstanding day.

Dana Prince
Internet Marketing Blog
www.SeanSEO.com © 2009

If you’re looking for ways to sell and ways to promote what you’re selling, Squidoo lenses are great tools. They’re a lot like HubPages.  These sites allow you to set up a robust looking page with all sorts of tools to help you promote including:

• polls
• pictures
• text boxes
• sticky notes
• eye catching headline boxes
• RSS feeds
• links
• and more

Not only can you use Squidoo lenses as a free online tool for link building to your other  websites but you can also monetize them.  You can add affiliate links, Google ads, Amazon links and images and more. While HubPages lets you use your Adsense ID to get paid directly, Squidoo pays you via PayPal when you reach a specified payout level.

Having a tool kit of promotion and monetization tools is a great idea. If you’re article marketing, you know that most sites won’t let you put affiliate links into your resource box. You can, however, put a link to your Squidoo lens which could contain calls to action or hoplinks.

Squidoo also has a great user community so encompasses monetization, article marketing, off-page SEO and social media.

Have a most outstanding day.

Dana Prince
Internet Marketing Blog
www.SeanSEO.com © 2009

What is one of the main activities you are always doing as the owner of an internet business, whether it’s large or small?

Put Yourself Out There

The answer is advertising and promoting. You are always trying to get people’s attention in some way. But how about just talking to people and getting yourself out there? How often do you do that?

If you are like most internet business people, you have probably forgotten how to actually just chat with people, whether it’s as a member of an internet forum or via a social networking site. And yet it is one of the best ways of getting yourself out there and getting your name known.

And the funny thing is, once you start doing it, you will find that you start getting approached for advice by other people. ‘Oh I checked out your website,’ they’ll say. ‘What can you tell me about…’ and on it goes.

Benefit From Just Talking

I have found this quite an interesting situation to be in. It’s amazing how just chatting with people – even offline, and even about things other than your internet business – can lead to all kinds of interesting situations. Before you know it, you will find that people you don’t know will start asking you about all kinds of things relating to your internet business, and you won’t even have to make an effort to start selling things to them, since they will already know you, trust you and be aware of your presence.

That’s not to say you shouldn’t still be advertising online, of course. But your internet business may well fare better if you combine advertising with simply chatting with people and getting along with them.

So start making a name for yourself today. Think about how you could raise your profile and your internet business will benefit just the same as you will.

Have a most outstanding day.

Sean Rasmussen
Internet Marketing Blog
www.SeanSEO.com © 2009

Ryan from HubPages popped by in our last post when we talked about using HubPages to promote your product and site.  Ryan reminded us in comments that free sites like HubPages are looking for unique content.

Content Pays

The more content you’ve got out there pointing to your site, the better! But in your quest for online success you might come across online content spinners that take your articles and mix them up with the idea that you can submit the same article to multiple places.  You might also think it’s ok to take one article and send it to 35 article directories. Be very careful of this type of philosophy.  While you might be able to get some backlinks and traffic, you could also get your online wrist slapped. Sites like HubPages and E-ZineArticles want solid, unique content so could simply reject your articles as well.

Maximum Google Juice

There’s a testimonial right on HubPages every time I log in that talks about Google Juice. Sites that will publish your content for you want to be unique otherwise it dilutes their Google juice online so do yourself a favour and take the time to bring something unique to the table when posting online.  While a little bit of regurgitation could save you time and effort, if you don’t provide enough value to the reader and take the time to put effort into your off-page SEO efforts you won’t get much out of them.

Have a most outstanding day.

Dana Prince
Internet Marketing Blog
www.SeanSEO.com © 2009

If you’re interested in promoting a product or service online, you need all the free IM  tools you can get!  Today’s featured tool is HubPages.  Here’s what I like about this self-promotional and monetizing tool:

1. It’s like a free article site except that you don’t have to give anyone the right to re-publish it elsewhere.  While other article directory sites can give you great backlinks, they can get you the duplicate content wrist slap because other sites are promoting your content.
2. It has great SEO potential with the ability to put your RSS feeds, your links and tagged photos plus get you indexed in search engines for your targeted key phrases.
3. You can earn money through ad sharing from HubPages via Google Adsense and other publishers as well as put various affiliate links in the pages.
4. HubPages has a social aspect as well with the community that posts there which can help you get more exposure for your hub!

The more you have in your marketing arsenal, the better.  Tools like these can help you get noticed, get subscribers and make sales!

Have a most outstanding day.

Dana Prince
Internet Marketing Blog
www.SeanSEO.com © 2009