How I make money/links from a six year old traffic source.

by yukon Banned
2 replies
  • SEO
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This started out as a PM reply & ended up maxing out the text count on the PM so I thought I would post it here. Maybe others might find it helpful when targeting niche forum traffic.

When I first started out targeting niche forum traffic it was because I was interested in the niche. I found an old abandoned forum thread that was successful on it's own, had a few thousand views, was just buried in the forum & forgotten by everyone. I was steady posting free content (not articles) in that single thread.

What I did was stumbled upon a thread where people were excited to get the content (especially for free), but the same concept can be used on any forum thread that has a lot of views (interested people) & a low amount of comments on the thread. High thread views usually means a lot of people are interested in the subject & a lot of times I see those threads never giving a solution to the original thread subject/question/problem, so IMO that's just wasted traffic that nobody is targeting (easy pickings).

What happened next after I started posting a lot on that single forum thread was I built my first site & gradually worked in links back to my site (links on the same niche forum thread). I kept adding useful downloads on my site that the forum traffic wanted, occasionally posting new downloads directly on the same forum thread, slowly weaning myself off the forum to where I could focus on my site. I still participated in the same niche forum (other threads, etc...) but not as much as when I first started (only so many hours in a day).

Just like any niche/subject there's usually multiple forums targeting the same niche, but If you focus on creating an awesome single forum thread that completely over delivers without asking for anything in return, you'll set yourself up as an authority, as long as your content is worthy. What happens is If a person (traffic) is interested in something (I mean genuinely interested in the niche) they'll most likely join multiple same niche forums & share the link to either your site or at the very least the authority forum thread that points back to your own site.

Now you guys reading this & are into selling to the IM niche, don't get yourself into trouble here on WF by spamming out an old forum thread. There's a huge difference in giving traffic what they want & spamming links, just because a person is lazy. Real/legit self promotion isn't complicated, the key is over delivering something to the niche traffic.

You might be thinking that's a lot of work (forum traffic), anything long term is always a lot of upfront work, what you get in return is an endless flow of laser targeted niche traffic flowing back to the site (years worth of traffic). The forum comes out ahead because you've basically gave them free content to help draw in traffic to the forum for the next 30 years (or however long) by creating an epic forum thread that traffic will share across most of the same niche forums. You only need to be a member of the single most popular niche forum, traffic will take care of spreading the single forum thread over the years.

Think long term recurring income.

I've also learned that I can stop posting on my main money site (approx: 1,000 pages) & only take a small loss in earnings, I'm talking very small loss, maybe around 10% drop in earnings, which to me is simply awesome. Free time to me is worth that very minimal loss in earnings, I'll take that trade any day of the week as long as I'm still banking on that same site. I mean If you had a site that was bringing in $1,000 a week where you were posting new content non-stop every single day, taking a $100 pay cut to stop posting any new content is a no brainer, keep cashing the $900 checks with the established authority site on auto-pilot.

BTW, my niche is an evergreen niche that never goes out of style, yet there's thousands/millions of people that will always find a time in their life that they want to be involved in the niche (buyers). An example of an evergreen niche would be things like woodworking, cooking, gardening, scrap booking, those things never have drastic changes in the niche. Woodworking in 2013 isn't that much different than it was in 1975, an evergreen niche that will last a lifetime which can be a recurring income for a lifetime.

I can't stress enough that thinking long term is the key to long term income online. Authority doesn't require non-stop posting of content, links, etc... it requires a solution to a persons needs (what does the traffic need?) & self promotion without the spammy used car selling attitude. I get plenty of search traffic searching for my non-EMD domain names all the time, so I have a good idea what traffic is considering when they think a site is an authority in a niche. The site has to (not optional) serve a purpose to the traffic to be an authority on anything. A doorway page to Amazon, or whatever affiliate program is not an authority on anything, it's a doorway page & exactly the same reason Google will ban an Adwords account, Google isn't stupid, they know crap when they see it. That won't go well with a few folks here, someone wants ice cream & cake go to Dairy Queen, they want to know my opinion, ask me a question, I usually don't hold back what I think.

When your giving away free content on a forum you don't own, don't assume that traffic isn't buyer traffic, I've proven that theory wrong on my own sites, feel free to do the same. I also have competition that doesn't give away anything for free, they sell the same type of products that I give away for free for hundreds/thousands of dollars per download (not even a slight exaggeration the money involved per download). Why would I give away content when my competition is banking? I give away content for dominating the niche, I make my money from traffic volume, I'm sure I get more traffic than my competition, at one point I was selling the free forum traffic to my competition (traffic flow: forum traffic > my site > competition site). I've started a new site (same exact niche) that will eventually focus on selling new downloads that I create, but right now I'm mainly on auto-pilot with Adsense.

My point is, since I'm the niche authority already, I have no doubts I could load the new pay site up with downloads & push my existing free traffic to the new pay site, after all I've already proved that freebie seekers will indeed convert into buyers while I was getting paid a 20% sales commission on my referred traffic/buyers to my competitions site. So I'm setting myself up to catch both traffic types (freebie seekers & buyer traffic). Why would I want freebie seekers? Simple, they spread backlinks just the same as a buyer would, a genuine site offering real useful content is easy money (long term).

Anyways, that's pretty much how I diversify my traffic, I still SEO just like the next guy, but I never let Google control 100% of my traffic. Looking back, Matt Cutts wasn't BSing in his videos where he says to create useful content for traffic. There's no build it & they'll come traffic scheme, there's build a useful site & promote the site without being a spammer, nobody likes a spammer, even spammers don't like spam.
#make #money #money or links #source #traffic #year #yukon
  • Profile picture of the author Kevin Maguire
    Your PM Could have been a $27 WSO.
    Great post man.

    I personally use a small team of 5 VA's for pretty much the same thing.

    For outsourcing this.
    Find your Niche related forum. Reach out to a number of active members. Offer them a small nominal amount per post to continue doing what they would normally do. In return for regular links-referrals-citations-signatures. Whatever fits the forum best without being spammy.
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  • Profile picture of the author JSProjects
    I LOVE forum posting. I'm constantly seeing traffic from posts that are at least a few years old, and the traffic tends to convert very well no matter the niche.

    Plus, forums almost always rank well in the search engines. I'm assuming a lot of the traffic I'm getting from forums is via people searching for an answer to a problem and finding my post(s). This is REALLY targeted traffic.
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