How to Get Free Traffic from Online Communities

Online communities provide an enjoyable and easy way to increase traffic to your website or blog. And, using this form of marketing can be a highly effective way to get a large number of targeted visitors.

To use this marketing method, you will be focusing on answering members questions and helping them to find solutions to their problems. This is accomplished by offering a link to your website pages that contain helpful information.

To get started, look for communities that focus on topics related to your site. With the hundreds of communities, forums, etc. online, you should be able to locate these easily with a simple search of "(Your Topic) forums" or "(Your Topic) Online Communities" in your preferred search engine.

Once you have located an appropriate site, start scanning for questions or discussions that you can provide answers to, or additional information related to the topic. When providing the link, simply use a short reply such as: I had this problem myself, so when I found the solution, I posted it on my site for others to use, you can find it at....and then provide a link to your site. This is a non-promotional way to get visitors to your site and in most cases, is probably 100% true. You have simply provided a solution to an existing question/problem. When doing this, you can expect your page views to as much as double with just a few simple postings like this.

People are looking for answers, and if you can provide a solution, it's likely that they, among any other interested viewers, will click on the link. Just be sure that the information is relevant to the topic being discussed. Never use this tactic to trick members into visiting your site, this is a sure way to quickly get a bad name among members.

Another great way to get visitors from these types of websites is to start discussions related to your site content. Then, as others add information, you can reply with comments and links to your site that provide more information.

I have read other articles that state that you should wait to do this type of traffic generation after you have been a member of the community, or participant in the forums, for awhile before trying this. I have found that if you are providing a genuine solution, viewers will appreciate the help and not take any offense. They are looking for information and will be happy to get it where they can, even from a new member.