There are many advantages to being a member of an online forum.  One of the greatest benefits is the use of forum signatures.  A forum Signature is exactly what it sounds like, it’s a “mark” usually text or an image that is left after all of your post in a forum. How is this beneficial you ask? Well think of it this way; let’s say you make 200 posts on a forum. That’s 200 places where your signature shows up. Now lets say your signature includes a link to your website, that’s 200 different places where you link is viewable throughout the forum. Basically all I am trying to get across is that forums are a great way to advertise.

Now a day’s most forums allow each user to have up to four different links within their signature. Here is where another opportunity arises.  You may only have one website that you wish to promote, what about the other three spots? Well if you don’t have a use for the link space don’t just let it go to waste. You can always sell signature space to the highest bidder. The more post you have on a forum the more people you expose your signature to. This means that people with very high numbers of post forums are able to sell their link at a much higher price. 

If you are interested in promoting a new website placing the link in your signature can prove to be a great start of.  An established site such as a well known form gets spidered pretty quickly by the search engine bots.  So promoting a new website by using a forum signature helps the website get indexed quicker. In regards to Search Engine Optimization you gain a great deal of backlinks by posting in several threads. Every signature link is noted as being a potential backlink, which in terms helps build PR.

Another advantage to having a forum signature on a forum that you are active in is that people who respect you as  person due to your quality post; will often visit your site just because you have proven your self as someone who would have a quality website. A great idea is to promote websites that are actually related to the forum you belong to. For example if you have a gardening site it would be a good idea to spread the word about your “seed facts” website.  A forum user or visitor is more inclined to visit a website that shows some interest to them then say a site that does not.

Another great tip when promoting a website be sure to use a text link, not an actual image. In terms of SEO it is much better to have a link as just plain anchor text than it is to be flashy with a nice graphic. 

Now that you know all about forum signatures and how they have been proven to be excellent resources for webmasters, it’s about time you caught on to the trend.