_____________________________________________________________ 8 Tips for Starting and Maintaining a Successful Online Forum By Vishal P. Rao _____________________________________________________________ Note: If this shows in your browser, simply click "File" in your browser and select "Save As" and make sure that file type is text (.txt) Links in this article do not show as active because this is a text file. Why text (.txt) format? Text files are much easier to download, don't require much disk space, and easier to print. ======================================================== THE CENTER FOR INTERNET MARKETING RESEARCH AND EDUCATION http://bizinfo.manila.ph ======================================================== Hi, This is Ave Ramel, the Coach of the Center for Internet Marketing Research and Education, exponent of internet marketing since 1999. This article was evaluated by your Coach and made available for The Center's archive for new subscribers. After mastering this article, proceed to our Internet Marketing Knowledge Base at http://bizinfo.manila.ph/knowledge-base As a favor, please forward this article to all your friends you want to help and who would like to earn income from the Net. Cheers, Ave Ramel, Coach P.S. Start your home business online with this global opportunity - the world's first instant powdered green iced tea P.P.S. You can do your business in 32 countries using the internet. Proceed now to http://freeonlineschool.manila.ph/resensa ================ YOUR NEXT STEPS: ================ Internet Marketing Services: 1. Get Coached - personalized coaching, at your most convenient time and place Proceed now to http://bizinfo.manila.ph/coaching 2. Hire A Retainer-Consultant for your corporation or marketing campaigns Proceed now to http://bizinfo.manila.ph/consultancy 3. Add one profit center to your company minus the overhead costs - your own internet marketing arm. Proceed now to http://bizinfo.manila.ph/outsourcing Available on the Web: 1. Internet Marketing Knowledge Base - the archive contains selected and annotated articles, lessons, and ebooks, including secrets, tips and tricks, categorized into the following general subjects: - Advertising - Affiliate Programs - Beginner and Web Design - Customer Relations Management - E-mail Marketing - Sales Conversion - Search Engine Marketing - Search Engine Optimization - Strategy and Tactics - Web Promotions This includes The Net Marketing Review (newsletter) containing researches, latest updates, and strategies that are analyzed and tested by The Center. Proceed now and download free stuffs like this article at http://bizinfo.manila.ph/knowledge-base 2. Do-It-Yourself for ... Beginners or Newbies Intermediate Students Advanced Students Professionals Proceed now to http://bizinfo.manila.ph/school 3. Proceed to your Coach's Weblog located at http://aredconsult.blogspot.com and discover secrets, tips, and tricks _____________________________________________________________ 8 Tips for Starting and Maintaining a Successful Online Forum By Vishal P. Rao _____________________________________________________________ Nothing promotes a business online better than staying in touch with prospects. The more interactive the continued contact, the more of a relationship that is built with a potential client. This business principle of continued contact and business relationship building has given rise to the popularity of online business forums, and of course, "theme- related" online forums. Online forums quickly establish empathy, set forum owners up as "experts" in the eyes of visitors, and serve as a promotional vehicle for other products and services that forum owners seek to sell. While online forums are popular and the perfect method of relationship building, starting a forum and maintaining one can be challenging, especially in the beginning when members can be "few" and "far between". The challenge for most new forum owners is to get beyond the initial start up phase and move onto a phase where the forum members themselves promote the forum simply by posting. Although each forum is individual and personal, a few general guidelines should be followed or at least kept in mind when starting and maintaining an online forum. These are as follows: 1. Take care when choosing the type of forum and forum scrïpt or software that will be used. The forum should be easy to access, easy to use, and come with "visitor-friendly" features. All visitors should be made to feel welcome and find the navigability of the forum, user-friendly. Forum scripts and software, especially "free" varieties, may be overburdened with ads from the parent company and lead to a poor experience for visitors. Some recommendations: http://www.phpbb.com http://www.vbulletin.com 2. The forum should have a good number of interesting and focused topics. The content should reflect the interests of the target audience, and every care should be made to have well-written and informative content that is updated regularly. This not only helps attract new members, it keeps older members from losing interest and defecting to other forums. 3. The forum should be Search Engine friendly. High activity forums, like popular blogs, provide a great reason for Search Engines to visit them frequently as they are brimming with fresh content all the time. Dynamic urls, session ids, etc. used by most forum software can be very detrimental to the forum health from Search Engine point of view. When selecting forum software, chëck if they are Search Engine friendly. Open source software like phpbb, have mods (modifications) developed by third party sources, to enhance the forum in many ways. Here's a great mod for phpbb to make it Search Engine friendly: http://www.able2know.com/forums/about15132.html 4. The forum needs to have a clear list of rules, a disclaimer, and most of all, good solid moderation. Visitors will quickly become frustrated with forums that have no clear guidelines, or feature rude, obnoxious, or overbearing members. Good manners are required as much online as offline. 5. Promotion, especially in the early days, will take considerable time and effort. Forums can be difficult to start (members generally are "shy" when there are only a few present), and the more posts that take place, the more individuals will join. This is a "snowball" effect of forums, so marketing must be done consistently, day in and day out, until the forum becomes more self-sustaining. 6. The owner of the forum should take an active interest in the forum and Show this interest by contributing regularly. Above all else, people join forums where they feel they will learn from the owner of the forum, and if the owner is nevër around, they quickly losë interest in the forum. 7. The forum should be targeted, yet diverse, encouraging older members to contribute, without making newer members feel uncomfortable. Cliques can develop in forums, and this type of behavior should be discouraged by the owner and moderators. Every effort should be made to answer questïons or comments by all members as quickly and thoroughly as possible. 8. As with all other Internet related ventures, care needs to be given as to hostïng and maintenance of the forum. A forum that is always experiencing "downtime", will losë members quickly, and a forum that has many coding mistakes will quickly frustrate visitors. As with Web sites, "cheap" providers of hostïng and maintenance are not always "better". All in all, online forums can be a great way to generate income, develop a good reputation among clients, and provide entertainment and instruction for many individuals. Like with everything else, however, they take marketing savvy, and a great deal of time and attention to detail. The old saying, "You only reap what you sow" really applies to the world of online forums. About The Author Vishal P. Rao is the editor of Home-Based-Business-Opportunities.com - A website dedicated to opportunities, ideas and resources for starting a home based business. He is also the owner of the Work-At-Home-Forum.com - an online community of folks who work at homë. ============================== Let Me Help You Get Customers: ============================== AREDCONSULT SERVICES AND SOLUTIONS I. 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Business processes that can be outsourced include submission of your website to search engines, email campaigns, mailing list management, product upsell and cross-sell, website content build-up, weblog content, link exchange with other websites, customer relations management, etc. http://bizinfo.manila.ph/coaching http://bizinfo.manila.ph/consultancy http://bizinfo.manila.ph/outsourcing ======== CONTACT: ======== Ask Aredconsult online for any internet marketing questions: http://www.aredconsult.com/ask-aredconsult.htm E-mail: mastermind@ask-the-expert.com Production Office: Tel. # 728-9613 or leave voice mail Corporate Address: Rm. 404 Parchouse II EDSA, Guadalupe Nuevo, beside Sogo Hotel 1200 Makati City, The Philippines ***Trust in the Lord with all your heart***