I’ve actually surprised myself, not a week after completing my first Squidoo Lens, I’ve just completed lens number two, Why You Should Join Forums. The reason for the second lens was to promote my forum Where Bloggers Meet. This forum used to be attached to the Wassup domain, but I felt that it was important enough to warrant it’s very own domain.

It took me most of a day to get it up and running properly as I had to overcome several problems, the greatest one being that it wouldn’t let anyone join. It probably would have been better to upgrade it before I moved the forum rather than later. Don’t you just love upgrades?

Anyway, she’s up and running and looking for new members. If you haven’t joined yet, now is a great time to get into it. Why should you join?

For those of you who are wanting to get a better PR, a forum may be one step in your journey to improve your ranking. It is fairly easy obtaining a reciprocal link (where you exchange your link with another site) and a lot harder to achieve a one-way link (where another website links with yours without requiring a reciprocal link). Most SEO experts agree that Google holds one-way links as highly important and will usually give a site with lots of one-way links a higher PR. The reasoning behind this is that if a lot of sites are linking to one particular site then that site must be pretty important and hence warrants a higher PR.

How do you get these prized and highly sought after links? One such way is by joining forums. Of course the best forums to join would be the ones with a high PR as well as those with a high member base. Once you have joined the forum the first thing you have to do is to adjust your signature, which is found in your profile. That signature will contain the link to your blog and every time you leave a post on a forum that link will be attached to the bottom of it.

Before joining any forum, just like when blog commenting, one must maintain the proper Forum Etiquette, especially when joining mine

Forum Etiquette

The first thing to remember once you have joined is that you are in someone else’s domain, his or her “virtual home” so do not abuse the privilege. Most forums have rules, please read and follow them at all times. As far as posting goes you may take note of the following guidelines.

• Make your questions (and responses) as clear and intelligible as possible. Watch your spelling and punctuation and refrain from using “online chat” lingo and abbreviations as these tend to look less professional and may confuse many users not used to the net or if their primary language is not English

• Your post should have a relevant subject, as this is the first thing someone will see. “Runtime Error 429 ActiveX component can’t create object” will attract more viewers than”Please Help” title.

• Don’t post in a forum where you don’t have something constructive to say, this is not polite and is a waste of their time as well as your own.

• Don’t just go posting without first giving a lot of thought to what you about to say. Remember your posting is a door way to your site. If you write a lot of garbage no one is going to visit your site. You may gain a better PR but you have just thrown away a huge potential customer base. If you post something intelligent or are able to solve someone’s problem you will be amazed how many visitors this will send your way

• Remember to be polite at all times.

Forums are especially important and can send the most traffic if it matches your niche, if you have one, providing that your interaction on the forum shows that you’re someone who know what he’s talking about.

So, now that you know what’s required of you as far as etiquette goes, why not go out there and start joining some forums, especially mine.
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Forums have always been a great source of information, as well as a unique way of socializing with others on the Net. If you’ve ever had a problem to solve and you decided to do an Internet search via Google, Yahoo or one of the other search engines, more likely than not you would have found the answer in a forum.

Forums are also a great way to publicize your blog through your signature, a method that I have used with great success. Once you become a forum member you can edit your signature by adjusting your profile in the User Control panel. There is only one thing that you have to remember if you want people to take notice of you, and to perhaps click on you ’signature’ link, and that is that your comments have to be well thought out and provide content to the original post, much as if you were commenting on a blog. It’s also best to be an active forum member as this gives your links more exposure increasing the likelyhood of people visiting your blog.

I’ve decided to start my own forum, Wassup’s Bloggers Forum, and hopefully we can build it into a forum of some renown. I say we as it can’t be done without you, members who are willing to contribute to the quality content of the forum.

There are three very good reasons why should you join this forum?

1. Added exposure for your blog
2. It is orientated around bloggers so it is more likely to interest bloggers of all persuasions
3. It is brand new and so it has the potential to evolve into a forum most suited it its members. Sometimes when employing someone it’s better to train them from scratch so that they do not bring any bad habits with them. Using this analogy I will be taking on members ideas and criticism to mould it into something that all bloggers will enjoy.

If you haven’t yet joined any forums then this would be a good time to start. Those of you who are forum professionals, you may want to join for that extra exposure and to add any ideas you may have to improve it’s overall quality.

I wait in anticipation for a great influx of members.