Maximize Your Online Money Making Potential - Don't Forget About Forum Signatures

I recently mentioned how you can make passive AdSense income by taking advantage of revenue sharing websites. One thing mentioned in that post is that online forums are a big part of the revenue sharing world.

That thought prompted this post - Don't forget about forum signatures as a potential money making method. Almost all forums allow at least one link in your signature and many allow several. Don't let this use of Other People's Sites (OPS) go to waste! It's FREE MONEY.

First, make sure to familiarize yourself with the forum rules before getting spam happy with your signature. Some forum moderators are a bit communist in nature and will ban anyone, anywhere, for anything. These sites help make us money, the least we can do is play by their rules when we're on their websites.

Once familiar with the forum rules, pick a few links you think will work well on the site and give it a test run. Remember: In the online money making world, sometimes it takes some tweaking to find out what works (no, not that type of tweaking). If a link isn't converting, try linking somewhere else.

Here are some tips for choosing what type of links to use in your forum signatures:

• Make sure affiliate links are allowed before using them. Using affiliate links where they aren't welcome is a shortcut to getting kicked off the island.
• If affiliate links are not allowed, don't despair. If you have a personal website or small business, promote that. Use the signature space to build backlinks to your own sites. Don't have a site yet? Heck, you could even you signature space to sell the junk from around your house (bye bye ebay fees!)
  
• If affiliate links are allowed, only promote quality products and services and make sure they are targeted to people who frequent the forum. Links to Omaha Steaks probably don't work very well on a vegetarian forum (for some odd reason) so if your links aren't at least somewhat targeted, you're probably better off spending time doing something else.
• Active niche forums will work the best. Let's face it, some forums just don't cut it. You want an active forum with plenty of member on a focused topic. Don't waste your time on the lame-duck forums unless the goal is to build backlinks.
• If you are using the forum signature to build backlinks to your own websites, start with forums that have a high Google Page Rank. Google's Page Rank still carries a lot of weight and having links from several PR sites will do nothing but help your search engine ranking position (SERP). Note: If you are in the process of building backlinks, check out my previous post about an extensive list of blogs that have a high Page Rank (so you can post your link in the comments).
• If you are using the forum signature for affiliate links, the forum's active user base is much more important than the Page Rank.
  

Hopefully this gives you some ideas on using forum signatures as one more method to generate cash online. It's a small method, but it works and you can make extra money using it. And like I've said in other posts, it adds up. It all adds up.

We might not be able to get rich overnight, but we can take steps in the right direction every day. It'll add up and one day we'll wake up and be there.

So get to it already!