Had my multiple sites up for over six months now and have tried various marketing techniques. I blew cash and did pay-per-click (PPC). I tried cross posting on other blogs related to the material I am trying to promote. I also tried creating profiles on certain forums and promote my sites. All the while I tried following golden rule -”Be human!”.

Often marketers are viewed as spammers because all they do is promote a certain topic or link. They also use copy that does not tie with the subject being discussed or do not even provide anything back to the community they are trying to influence. I have spoken with a few affiliate marketers who felt that the product they were promoting was their contribution back to the community. I personally think that is retarded. Hello you are selling something. Plain and simple.

So following the “Be Human!” rule can be challenging and a very manual process. Especially if the subject matter does not interest you. I totally get why marketing experts insist that you pick niches that you enjoy because you will be spending a lot of time on the subject. The manual process is really involved since you are trying to push yourself to be relative to the discussion occurring. And I spend a few extra minutes on each post to make sure I do not sound like a eastern bloc spam bot.

My most successful web growth experience has been posting my site’s URL in the signature of each forum post I completed. I search the forums for threads that have a high read count and especially post in stickies since those threads are always at the top and get the most newest forum members. By using this strategy I get eyes reading my link and I get link juice from the forum. On these two levels I benefit from the link I placed in the forum post. I also include a catch phrase before my link in my forum signature. An example would be “I bought my mac from: www.maclaptopshop.com.”

I have confirmed that this tactic works on two levels. The first by researching my google analytics and secondly by the amount of commissions I made. In May and June I made a total of almost $180. Not bad for spending about 3 hours a month. Now I need to scale the tactic and the effort to another level. There other cats making $450 to $550 per month on lame niche products.

Feel free to leave your comments, questions, and feedback about online marketing.

Tags | affiliate marketing, forums, human, marketing, ppc