Forums are great place to hang out online and participate in discussions online with other members of that forum. A forum can be classed as an online community where people go to have discussions on a particular topic. People also join forums to share their knowledge and also to gain more knowledge about something that you wanted to know about.

Before I started blogging, I used to participate in forum discussions on some top forums online. I met some great webmasters, bloggers and also some newbies as well. I even owned a small webmaster forum once, but of course that was before I discovered my true passion in blogging.

If you are a blogger then forums can be a start to your successful blogging career.

I recently started forum posting again and it has helped my blog in more than one ways.

Here are my 5 reasons why you should be active on forums if you are a blogger.

[box type=”red”]Forums Boosts Your Ideas[/box]

Blogging is about writing and for you to write then that means you have to have an idea about what you are going to write. This is where your ideas will have to flow if you want to write a great blog post.

Using forums to boost your blogging ideas, this is one of the main reasons why forums play a big part in your blogging career. Getting ideas for your next blog post is like almost completing half of the post. Coming up with ideas to write/blog about can be quite challenging at times. But once you start to use forums located in your niche then this make is easier.

All you need to do is browse through categories of interest and see what problems the members are having. After that you can do some research so that you can come up with your next blog post.

[box type=”yellow”]Targeted Traffic Can Come From Forums[/box]

After coming up with your idea for your next blog post (as mentioned in the point above) you can now get traffic from the forum to your new blog post. If you are a member of that forum for a good while and also an active member then this makes it even easier for you to get traffic to your blog.

Take for example: a new forum member wants to boost their new blog, what you can do is to tell this newbie that you are going to write a blog post specially for him/her about boosting their new blog from the very first day that they created it. This person will be very excited and appreciate the time that you would have take in creating that post to help their situation.

This will be targeted traffic back to your blog because you are targeting a persons problem and this is what every successful blog needs. TARGETED TRAFFIC!

[box type=”green”]Forums Helps To Make Sales[/box]

So now you know how to come up with blogging ideas and also know how to get some targeted traffic to your blog, its time to turn that targeted traffic into money.

This is one of the most simple process to making money with your blog. Once you have built up your blog traffic, lets say to 500 daily visitors then marketing can be the easiest thing you have ever done to make money online.

You will have to find products that your visitors are interested in. On forums, people are always looking for tools, ebooks, products or even services that will make their site successful. As mentioned in the point above about getting targeted traffic to your blog, you can get traffic to your blog and make money if a forum member wants to find out about a product. What you can do is research about that product, or if you already have the product using then you could write a review about it, inform this forum member and leave your affiliate links in the article back to the product.

Forum members often look for services to help make their blog better. Why not offer your services for a price? I have done this and it has helped me to make money in the past and it still is up to this very day.

[box type=”gray”]Use Forums To Build Your Backlinks[/box]

Most forums allow you to leave links in your signature back to your blog. This can be great for getting traffic back to your blog and most importantly, backlinks.

We all realize the changes that Google has been constantly making in order to provide search engine users with the best search results’ backlinks are still important when it comes to ranking in search engine results. The more backlinks that you have pointing back to your blog then the better your traffic will be.

This calls for your activity on forums. You have to be a guru poster if you want to build up backlinks for your blog. As I said, the more backlinks then the better your blog traffic will be.

[box type=”blue”]Use Forums To Relax And Rest Your Mind[/box]

At times bloggers may go through a phase called the blogger burnout. This is a phase where a blogger’s passion for blogging may die out, for just a little while.

During blogger burnout your thinking ability for blogging is weak. You have no idea as to what you should blog about next. You fail to make blog comments or publish a new post. You may not even visit your very own blog for a few days.

The worst part about it is that you may not recover from such burnout and stop blogging.

Forums can help you to recover from this blogger burnout. You can visit forums to meet new members, visit their blog and also find guest bloggers during this burnout. All you need to do is relax your mind so that you can find that longing for blogging again. Visit other members site so that you can be enthused to start working on your blog again.

[box]What’s Your Take About Forums[/box]

• I would like to know what is your purpose for using forums?