Work At Home Information

I’m writing this post because there’s a particular forum that I am a member of, and it has nothing to do with internet marketing whatsoever. It is a gaming site, specifically, it is about digital rights management and gaming, yet,  as the site grows in popularity, more and more people join simply to market their stuff.

We’ll have a user join the forum, create a signature with their commercial links, and then just start posting nonsense on the forum that has nothing to do with any of the topics we’re discussing. Does this make any sense to you at all?? If you’re a sane person and not a spammer, then it shouldn’t make one iota of sense. If you’re one of these spammers, maybe you think that if you just get your link before the largest number of people, that it will pan out for you in the end, even if some of your links get deleted.

Well, I have news for you: it doesn’t work! For one,  sure, it is partly a numbers game, but this is within a larger contextual sense. If you are promoting snow blowers to a bunch of gamers, how many of them do you think are actually going to buy from you? Practically none.  I’ll grant that you may get one or two, but you are also creating a bad reputation for yourself and in the end, that’ll sink you.

Because here’s what happens on that forum that you just took the time to register for, go through the captcha process, create your links, etc. The membership is going to look at your links and your nonsense posts and form the unkind opinion that you’re a spammy jerk. They’re not going to like you, and the admins will boot you out on your ass.  Your links are gone, poof, bye bye, an often in less time than it can take for someone to actually see them and click on them.

Furthermore, there’s also a ripple effect. Let’s say you’re selling snow-blowers and a forum member that you spammed is now in the market for them. He might find your site while searching Google. But guess what? He’ll recognize your site…it’s the site of the spammy jerk…I’m not gonna buy from a spammy jerk, and he’ll move on. He’ll also tell his friends of the forum, who may or may not be looking for snow blowers that he came across the site of the spammy jerk, and you’ll lose more sales.

Do yourself a favor: only post your links where you’re sure they are welcome.  A forum related to your product might well accept your commercial links….but send a message to the forum admins first to make sure that it’s ok before you do it. You’ll save yourself a lot of hassle and you’ll ensure that you have a good online reputation.

As a footnote, not all internet marketers are spammy jerks, and most spammy jerks are unwitting spammy jerks.