SEO Training Series – traditional forums can be a better way to get those links and Link Up
If you were to listen to the commentators of the last decade, then you might be forgiven for thinking that social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace are the only way people could communicate online. It almost seems that before these two sites is all I could do was send emails and telephone each other. But this network a great disservice, because long before social networking was a great look and flourishing network of like-minded people to communicate and collaborate in many different ways.
One of the most common methods of interaction that is growing today is the 'forum'. Forums are essentially forums where people can start a "thread" and others who contribute to it, or simply start a discussion on the topic. Due to the enormous variety of topics in the world and the large number of people with access to the Internet, there is an almost unlimited number of forums that may be part of, some more popular than others.
Forums can be very beneficial to our search engine marketing because they can perform two functions in our search. First, it can be a great place to get links (and links to our ranking in search engines) and secondly, through social interaction that can potentially find new leads and new customers.
But Adding links to your posts on the forum in general is a big 'no' in many forums, both social networks, has to be a little smart about it.
A section of the site that most forums have in common is the "signature". This is a section of code that is added to each message that you do and in many cases, you can add links to it. A word of warning – frowning in some forums to add signatures and principles worth getting involved at the first forum and get a bit of a name for yourself before adding. In fact, many boards to enforce a rule that you must have available a number of observations before the allow you to add any type of signature to your posts.
The thing to remember is that when you are taking part in any forum, you are actually a guest in your system and if you do something that goes against their rules or ethics, are very much his right to remove from the server. There is another thing to watch out – the 'no follow' tag.
The world of Internet forums is divided almost equally between those who love the visitors and their linkages, and those who do not. It's a chicken and egg, because those who actively encourage you to post links on their sites end up getting lots of visitors and therefore lots of links to themselves – the increase in popularity, but also get a great amount of spam.
But those who do not like leaving links, or just make it really difficult to do so will lose out on a lot of traffic. At day's end, it really depends on the theme of the site and if money in any way. Some who do not like leaving links sometimes give each link an attribute that was introduced some years ago, the "nofollow".
This attribute is introduced as part of a normal relationship and is notified by the code rel = "nofollow" tag near the anchor.What this does is tell search spiders (the routines that search engines send to browse the web) that the relationship is about to see should not be followed, in effect, be ignored.
Now, many SEO experts disagree as to whether this actually means a link using "nofollow" is completely useless and some are evidence that you really do make a difference and not be ruled out entirely, however most will agree that if we are to look for links to make a greater effort in those that do not use this attribute.
So now we just have to find ways to discover whether it is nofollow or not and, fortunately, is easy, see the source of the page you are viewing will play. If you are using Internet Explorer or Firefox this is easy, simply click on the menu 'item' and select 'View Source'. You are presented with what may seem a lot of code with fear, but all you need do is press 'Ctrl-F' to display the "find" command and do a search for a link on the page. Then just search for 'rel = nofollow ". If you find it and you're just looking for links below, you can spend, but you stay because you are interested in the issue – Check it out a bit more.
You see, it's really not worth being too demanding with these sites because they do not allow links probably have a greater value. Are less likely to be full of spam and therefore more value on social networks in general. It may also be allowing links after giving a little back to the community.
That's it, that does not link building lark is clean cut and easy to quantify as many would have you think, but worth investigating and could be achieved not only some decent links affect your ranking, but can make a plenty of worthwhile links.
Tags: enabling links, seo training, SEO training series., social networking, traditional forums
