Small Business Essentials

For a complete guide to marketing your website, please check out my updated special feature on StartupNation: 5 Steps to Marketing your Website.

Now that your site is done and live, what is your next step? TRAFFIC! This article is the start of a 3-article series on kickstarting your site’s marketing – for free! Part one focuses on ideas to get customers knocking at your door once you are open for business by using forums. Part 2 is about networking and using your e-mail. Part 3 will discuss press releases and how to make one.

Why forums?

Joining online communities and posting in forums is a great way for you to start networking and talking about your business without the pressure of in-person networking (especially for you social-phobes out there). Forums give you the chance to prove yourself as a knowledgeable person in your field, and as a respected member of the community. Additionally, the high traffic nature of forums make them natural candidates for frequent Googlebot visits, which boosts the PageRank of your site (if you link to it) as well as provides some indirect marketing for you.

Find Forums to Join

The first step to using forums to generate traffic is to find potential forums to join. There are two types of forums to consider when creating your marketing plan:

1. Forums related to the topic of your business.
   Is your business selling beeswax-based beauty products? Then find forums relating to beauty, beekeeping, or natural products.
2. Communities unrelated to the specifics of your business.
   What hobbies and interests do you have outside the actual running of your business? You might want to join a mom’s business forum like the Work at Home Moms, an entrepreneur forum like StartupNation, or a hobby-based forum like the Civil War Reenactors Forum.

Using your business and your hobbies, make a list of potential forums by Googling your topic and adding the word "forum". For example, you could Google "beekeeping forum" if you are the person above who sells beeswax products.

Use Criteria for Efficient Time Management

If you jumped right in after section one and looked for available forums, you probably noticed that there are millions out there. How can you decide which ones would be the best use of your time? You can start by judging the list you created above against these criteria:

• Site traffic and frequency of posting.
  Give a greater priority to sites that have a higher traffic load. More traffic and frequent updates means that more people will see your message, and the Googlebot probably visits the site more often that it would visit a smaller site.
• Page Rank.
  Check a site’s page rank with this page rank tool, and order your list according to each site’s page rank. Make sure that you have at least a few sites on your list that are PR5 or higher; a couple of PR6 to PR9 sites are worth 20 PR1 sites.
• Use of signatures.
  Do not waste your time on sites that either don’t have signature capabilities, or that prohibit the use of company information and URLs in your signature.

Forum Etiquette

While there are many positive reasons to promote your new business and network through forums, I always remind clients of the downside. That is, everything you post online ends up on Google and could be read by potential new clients. Keep that in mind when you are posting in forums, and remember to stick to proper forum etiquette. This includes:

• Follow the rules of the forum.
  Read and abide by the site’s terms of use and posting policies.
• Don’t spam the forum.
  Do: Use your signature. Don’t: Blatantly spam the forum with wording and links designed to sell people something. Typical offenders start topics just for the sole purpose of linking to their latest product, reply to every thread in their area of interest with "Call me so we can talk more!" so that they can prospect directly through the forum, or reply to every thread with a marketing angle.
• Make sure your signature goes with the flow of the site.
  Look around to see if most people have signatures that are plain text, rich text (with live links), or banner advertising, and match your signature to the rest of them.
• Contribute to the community as a whole.
  Don’t just participate in threads you start – get involved in any thread you feel you can make a contribution to.
• Read first, and then jump in.
  Get a feel for the site by reading through some past threads. Once you have tested the waters, join in by introducing yourself and saying hi!
• Stay positive.
  Don’t get involved in flame wars online. Do reread every comment you make before posting, asking yourself, “Would I say this to someone in person?” to judge whether or not you should click commit on your response. Remember to maintain the same pleasant attitude you would take with your customers. Above all, conduct yourself in a professional manner.

Establish your Presence

Just like any interaction, you have the ability to set the tone from your very first post. Start out positive and make it your goal to always stay that way. If you have chosen your forums correctly, you will also have the ability to make a signature – a tagline that is attached to every post you make. Here are some guidelines I use for my own signatures:

• Keep it short and focused.
  Instead of "We sell designer handbags at a discounted price. We maintain warehouses in 5 locations, which allows us to ship to any destination quickly.", try "DesignerHandbags.com – Great prices, fast shipping!" (Review our copywriting article for some additional help in creating a tagline.)
• Use a link.
  Some boards allow you to use standard HTML in your signature, which means you can link to your site like this:
  <a href="http://yourdomain.com/yourpage.html">your link title</a>
  Others restrict you to BB Code, which means your link would look like this:
  [url=http://yourdomain.com/yourpage.html]your link title[/url]
  Test your signature by viewing one of your posts to make sure it works and displays properly.
• Change your signature regularly.
  Use your signature to announce specials or new products. I use mine to announce new site launches or link to recent blog articles. You can also use it to reflect current marketing campaigns. For example, if you were a culinary supply warehouse and your goal was to push grill supplies at the start of summer, your signature might go from "CulinaryDepot.com – Your first stop for all your kitchen supplies!" to "Ready for summer? Get your grill supplies and outdoor picnic items from CulinaryDepot.com".

Maintain your Presence

Posting regularly is important to maintaining your status in the community. When your business, marketing plan, offerings, etc. change direction, don’t forget to change your profile in the community to reflect your new status!

I hope this article has helped you to understand how you can use forums to give your own site a traffic boost. Stay tuned for tomorrow’s article, where we’ll discuss how to increase your traffic through networking and e-mail.