How to post links in Forums

One of our trainees at the eCommerce course this Thursday asked me to send some more information about building links – especially in Forums, so I’ll put it here for everyone to benefit.

And the point is?
Remember the most important thing – what you want to do is put links on other sites, that link to your site. The sites where you may do this include forums, commenting on other peoples blogs, writing your own blogs elsewhere, article sites, PR sites, and profile pages on social sites and on-line directories. There were some long lists of these in the notes from our first internet marketing course.

Remember when posting links to do it nicely. Although you want the link for its own sake, you also represent yourself in a public way when you post around the web, so try to add value wherever you are posting. If posting in a forum, ask or answer a legitimate question which has some relevance to your field. Even answering an old question is OK - there will still be other people reading it, and the link back to your site counts just as well and helps your rankings to improve.

Finding a good forum to post on:
Search for “Your Keyword” and “forum”, and register for one or two that look popular and relevant. When you join a forum you can normally create a profile with a link to your web site, and a signature in which you can put your name and a link to your web site. The signature will automatically be put at the bottom of all your forum posts.

Writing a Hyperlink:

Most hyper-links are in html – and written in this format:

<a href="http://www.channelcomputing.co.uk/keyword-rich-page-name.html">Your Keywords in Anchor Text here</a>

This shows up on a web page like this: Your Keywords in Anchor Text here

If there is a “text editor” on the page where you are writing there is often a button with a symbol like an 8 on its side (chain link like web link), which you click to turn some words (your anchor text) into a link. If that is there you don’t have to write the full HTML version, because it produces the same thing.

However when posting in many forums they don’t let you use html, but something similar called “BB Code” instead. This stands for Bulletin Board code. The equivalent link in BB Code looks like this:

[url=http://www.channelcomputing.co.uk/keyword-rich-page-name.html]Your Keywords in Anchor Text here[/url]

Now you can probably see this will do the same thing as an html link, but is formatted slightly differently.

The easiest way to create your own BB Code link is to use this web page: http://www.seabreezecomputers.com/html2bbcode/ Paste in your HTML link and it will create the BB Code for you put in the forum.

(When I am looking for that site I always search for this: “convert html to BB Code”, and it comes up top.)

So Which style of link do I need to do?
When posting on Forums it is worth looking around to see if they use BB Code – most do. However if you are in any doubt about which format of link to put in, I suggest:

1. Trial and Error.
2. Use the “Preview” button if there is one to preview what your post will look like before you actually save it.
3. If you’re still not sure just put in the raw URL like this: http://www.channelcomputing.co.uk/search-engine-optimisation/web-site-traffic-building-and-seo-services.html.
   Although it doesn’t have the benefits of keywords in its anchor text it is still a good link, and most forums and web pages will automatically detect that this is a link and turn it into one.
4. Just get on with creating a few links and don’t worry too much if one or two don’t work, just move on and try another one!

OK Good luck, let us know how you get on!