With millions of web sites competing for people's attention it can be hard for potential customers to find you. Starting an online community may be just answer you are looking for. There are many advantages to having your own forum including:

1) Repeat visitors.

Although it's great getting first time visitors, people who visit on a regular basis are more likely to buy from you because they know and trust you. A message board will bring people back to your site over and over. People come back to check for replies to their questions and to read new messages.

2) Selling advertising space.

A busy message board is a great place for advertisers to advertise. Most message boards are divided into specific topics which means targeted advertising. There are many ways you can use and sell advertising space. You can ask for bids at ebay, you can use an advertising agency to handle advertising for you, use Google Adsense, promote affiliate programs or your own products.

3) People will bring their friends.

There is nothing more effective then word of mouth advertising. If your online community is lively and interesting people will invite their friends along to join in discussions too.

Tips on starting your message board:

Google will show Maggie 534,000 resources on "bread baking". Unless she fails to find what she wants on first page, or top 10 results, she will never find your website listed 124th in results. (Actually, if she does not find what she wants in top twenty or thirty results, she is likely to refine her search to "easy bread baking" or "home bread baking").

How do you get into top 10 results so Maggie can find your website? You might have heard a lot about "search engine optimization" and "ranking analysis" and "algorithms". It all sounds very complex, but it really works on a simple 1 – 2 – 3 principle.

1.A search engine will show Maggie only resources (websites) it has on record. So make sure to submit your site to key search engines and directories. You do not need to hire somebody who will charge you big dollars to do this. Nor should you fall for any of auto-submit software or services. This should be done by hand, and anybody can do it. You can do it yourself.

2.The search engine will rank highest those websites it feels are most "important". This means you have to show that your website is most important. There are a few simple things you can do. First, make sure you have content. Text content equals importance on Internet. Links, both coming in and going out, are key. Connectivity equals importance on Internet. Get listed in major directories (DMOZ.com, Yahoo.com, Zeal.com, JoeAnt.com, etc.), as this also is a measure of importance.