Forum Posting

Before anything else, I'd like to say that it's good to be back! It's been a while since I've been here. If you're going to look at the last post I made, it was way back in December. I had to stop because things have become a little bit busy at work. Even playing Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3 has been eating my time; you know, tournaments and stuff like that. Come on, I don't just do SEO all the time.

Anyway, as a return post, I'll be talking about something that I've been seeing while I'm doing some interaction with my fellow SEO people online. If you're going to look at my Tweets, you'll notice that I haven't touched it that much since that Tweet to ElevatorLoft. As I've said, I've been a little busy. Some people that I've encountered online through blogs and forums are talking about what the best link building strategy is. I've talked about blog commenting before; this time, I'll be talking about forum posting.

 

One of the reasons I've joined forums is to look for answers. I wanted to communicate with people who have a lot more experience in the field than I do. After all, that's the point of joining a community, right? Well, apparently, there are some who are joining forums to grab that opportunity of leaving a backlink through their signatures. I wouldn't blame them, though. It's allowed, so why not take advantage of it, right?

Click the image to see what I meant

There's a huge problem with that, though. If you were in a heavily moderated forum, those kinds of posts and spammy signatures can be used against you. The moderators can kick you out of their forums just to avoid the chances of their place becoming a spammy hell. It's good that there are still forums out there that talk about our niche, i.e. Internet marketing, SEO, and anything related to those, that have strict moderation. Kudos to the Site Point Forums for being one of those awesome forums out there. It's just sad to see some of them ending up being in a downward spiral towards being a community full of people spamming with posts that don't make any sense or are repetitive.

Here's the thing: when you're participating in a blog or a forum, you should genuinely do it without thinking about the opportunities of being able to leave backlinks that much. That's not the reason why you're doing that in the first place. Let's take away your SEO from you, and you happen to randomly encounter a blog that's asking for something about a thing you love. I bet you're going to leave a comment as long as this post. Well, maybe not THIS long, but you get my point. If you're going to share a link, you have to make sure that it's going to answer the question, or support the point of the post.

In a forum with a bunch of your friends in it, you wouldn't disobey the rules of the forum, would you? If the forum doesn't allow signatures with links, don't you even dare do it unless you really want to be kicked out that bad. If the forum doesn't allow you to advertise through your signatures nor your posts, don't do it. Just follow the rules, add value to whatever is written there, and you'll be good to go.

Oh, and one more thing. If a forum has a search function, use it. Don't just make threads like you're the first one who has asked a very generic question. There could have been people who have asked the same question that has already been answered ages ago. Maybe you're going to say that you couldn't find the answer there. Well, revive the thread and ask the question again. It would be better if you're going to add something new, like some sort of a comparison of what was then with what things are now.