For those who have not heard of a forum they are websites that discuss a certain topic or a number of related topics. The discussion usually starts where someone posts a question and other members then offer their input to help answer the question.

Forums let you as an affiliate include a link in your signature. You can use that link to promote your favorite affiliate program.

You build up a reputation with frequent posting in these online discussion boards. The more posts you have the more people will click on your links. If you want to make money it is important to be one of the people who are giving answers to the questions.

Many answers given on threads are short and uninteresting. That gives you an opportunity if you write longer and more helpfull answers. People reading your reply will find it more interesting and be more likely to click through to your link. Finally it is important when posting not to advertise which is considered spam and bad form.

So if you want to make some serious commissions from forums it will take an investment in work and time. It is easier to post on discussion boards than it is to write long blog posts or articles though. Even so I recommend using a mixture ot the three in your marketing efforts.

Here is a basic step by step plan to start driving traffic to your affiliate sites and making money from forums.

1. Find 10 to 15 high traffic forums related to the product you are promoting. To find out if it has a lot of traffic you can use Alexa to find the sites traffic rank. If it has a rank of less than 10 thousand then it should be getting enough visitors to be worth your time.

The warriorforum and digitalpoint are the two highest traffic sites dealing with the topics of marketing and making money online.

2. After you find some good high traffic forums set up your signature links. I recommend against using a direct hoplink to promote. Instead you should send them to a website or a blog to pre sell the visitors. The landing page you choose should have either a signup form for email follow up or adsense so you can have more than one way to monetize the traffic.

3. Once your signatures is set up to your landing page start posting as frequently as possible to each forum. If your time is limited only post on each site as much as you can but I recommend doing so at least daily. The more entries you have done the more traffic and money you will make over time.

4. After 4 to 6 weeks of regular posting you should see some results. Your reputation on the discussion boards should be well established and your posts should be getting good clickthrough rates. In addition over time more people will be viewing your posts because it will be indexed and ranking in the search engines for keywords bringing in more potential customers.