There are four general categories of ways to spend money in internet marketing arena. Before you spend another penny, think about which category you fall in and which category investment falls in. Make sure they match.

*** Four Categories of Investment ***

1)Education - learn how to do something

2)Tools - generally software you need such as hosting, autoresponders, testing software, etc.

3)Marketing - money you invest to drive traffic to your site

4)Opportunity - a "business in a box" that is ready for you to promote. May include a product with resale rights and a web site template.

*** Three Categories of Internet Marketers ***

1) Newbie - just learning. Frequent victim of Information Overload.

2) Intermediate - has a site that makes some money.

3) Advanced - Making a good full time income from internet.

If you are a newbie, you should be investing in education. You need to learn how this business works before you spend your hard-earned money on anything else.

Look at it this way: How would you know which tools you need, which opportunity is legit or what kind of marketing to do if you haven't learned how things work?

If you don't understand business you will fall prey to great copy writers. You will be convinced to buy things you probably don't need.

Definition

There are so many answers to these questions…Though I can assume that all answers can be simplified to two basic answers: “Yes” and “No”. Really opposite, isn’t it? Why so? I can guess that answer you give depends on experience you gain. Let us try to get an objective answer and let us start with definition. Well, what is a forum? Britannica says: in Roman cities in antiquity, multipurpose, centrally located open area that was surrounded by public buildings and colonnades and that served as a public gathering place

What are keywords here? Multipurpose, open, public gathering place. On Web public gathering places are used to generate a huge amount of traffic…Hmmm…Traffic is a magic word for any webmaster. What is all noise about? Ah, it’s just you crying… -I want a Forum on my Site! -Stop. Wait a minute. We have a definition only and know nothing about other features of this Roman relic, which managed to get second wind with appearance of World Wide Web.

Forum Features or What I Can Gain With It

Let’s clarify this.

Traffic is not only a useful feature but also one of most important. Traffic on Internet can be easily converted to anything you want… additional earnings in most cases. We are all rather materialistic, ah?

What does a forum actually do? It just makes visible traffic site already has, makes this traffic stronger by allowing some sort of interactivity. If a simple site (by way, I haven’t seen such sites for a very long time) can be compared to a monologue, a site with some feedback forms – a dialogue, then a site with a forum implemented is a fully operating discussion. The tangible appearance of community which already exists – this is what launching of a forum is.

Let your permanent visitors talk not only to you but to each other. Establishing a place of communication – putting into life basic idea of Internet, isn’t it really great and inspiring? And it’s rather profitable, by way… Though before you start counting your earnings from ad space of forum pages, I think you should put some efforts into breathing life into it; in other words, you should promote it and make it really popular.

Another feature of forum is that it will allow you to be always informed on thoughts of your website visitors. And you won’t need to make any kind of surveys or polls – just look through fresh posts every day.

An easily spoiled and almost impossible to restore reputation is of great importance within commercial world. How can a forum be of help with this? It’s easy. Any Internet user looks not for products only but for living support and probably product community as well. The place where he will be able to discuss all topics of interest related to product with both a support team and other customers. A living forum is best evidence of company’s prosperity.

Search Engine Rankings can also be improved with a good forum. As a forum unites your target audience, whose members share same interests, it is logical to assume that all posts of your forum members will relate to your keywords in some way. This will stimulate Search Engine Spiders to improve rankings of your site. Should I explain why it is good?

Forum Promotion Basics

The best and worst thing about a forum is that a true forum lives its own life with a minimum of external interference. Indeed, it is best when forum is a living community, though admittedly when it’s only a starting community, it is one of most efforts taking and exhausting of things.

When should you start building a community with your forum? A long time before you actually launch your forum. Why? A forum – is only a place surrounded with colonnades in Roman times and with some links in present time of World Wide Web. People are Lego breaks of community, not their armchairs.