1. Meet People

Do you love to garden, do wood-working or build model airplanes? Visit a forum on any niche topic and you'll meet others who are also interested in that topic.

2. Share and Learn

Help others by sharing your knowledge and learn from those with new and different experience.

3. Increase RECOGNITION

Repeated posting is a great way to get your name out there.

4. Enhance Credibility

Become known as an 'expert' by providing thoughtful answers and suggestions to questions posed on the forum.

5. Boost Traffic

As you become more widely known as an expert, your name and URL will be mentioned elsewhere on the web, which then brings more visitors to your site.

6. Improve Site Ranking

More visitors means better page rankings at Google and higher search engine listings at all the major search engines - which in turn means MORE traffic still!

7. Create Information Database

Any product or service sold generates a set of commonly asked questions. Post answers on your forum and then send people directly to the specific answer on your site. (Having them go to your site will also help boost your page rank and bring in still MORE visitors!)

8. Reduce Workload

Regular forum participants will answer questions that others have posted, thereby reducing your workload.

9. Gather Information and Feedback

Need new ideas for products? Post your own questions to find out what your forum visitors most want and need - then use that information to:

10. Promote Products

Display ads for products related to your forum visitors' interests at the top and bottom of every page. Ads can be for your own products or for merchants with whom you are affiliated. Post new messages when you have a new product that your visitors will be interested in.

Those are just the obvious reasons - I'm sure you'll discover many more benefits when you become master of your own forum.