Forums. What are forums? Online forums? An online forum is an internet community that gathers to discuss, ask questions, provide answers, network, and generally support fellow community members in a given niche.
So how do you use forums to drive traffic to your sites?
Do what I do. Follow these steps:
1) Join every forum that has traffic and members and is related to your niche.
2) Go into the profile area of each forum and create a forum signature for yourself. Just your name and main web page. Nothing more. No sales pitch. Nothing.
3) Go into the introductions section and introduce yourself. Something like this: Hi, my name is Sean Mize. I am a newbie at ______ and am interested in sharing in your community.
4) Log out and come back tomorrow.
5) Tomorrow begin to surf through the posts, answering any posts that you see that ask questions about which you know the answers. If you have a question yourself, ask it.
6) Do this everyday for one hour and you will be amazed at the traffic you will generate in a month or so.
Note: Because it is a community, the clicks will not start the very first day, except for curious people. The real traffic happens after you become a fixture, one they can trust.