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An Example of a Signature Line on a forum post
It’s a social world now-a-days, with people spending more time in forum’s, discussion groups and in their email program. Did you know that each of these places can send free traffic to your web site?
If you read any posts in a forum or joined in a conversation in a discussion group, I know you have seen them, those small blurbs at the bottom of each post. Perhaps you just didn’t know how to create them.
In this article, I will show you exactly how to build a signature line. From now on, every time you post or reply on a forum, a mini ad will display, directing web visitors to your site. These additional “eyeballs” on your site can add up over time, especially if you are participating and an active and
well indexed forum.
I guess I don’t have to tell you that *good copy* is important. However, discussion of what “good copy techniques” are — is a little outside the scope of this post. I invite you to visit Ben Settle or one of the other copywriters that specialize in teaching you.
Just the mechanics first.
A signature line can look like anything you want, but a Heading, Description and Link are pretty standard. I will use those for these examples.
Before you send in comments about my *good copy*, please know that I am just using simple phrases to demonstrate my point. I expect you to do your own keyword research or copy-writing based on target audience, message to convey and call to action goals.
Some forum’s or bulletin boards allow HTML, and some require BBCode. Don’t panic. It’s really not hard and they are pretty similar. We will start with the HTML version of an example signature line.
<strong>Stop Buying Leads And Start Attracting Prospects</strong> My free videos will show you how to become the <strong>Hunted</strong>, rather than the <strong>Hunter</strong>.<br/> <a href="http://Recommended.byCenay.com/stop-buying-leads">Help me stop buying leads</a>
If this looks a little scary, don’t panic. Just copy and paste from above and edit the parts that are unique to you. This is what the ad looks like *in real life*.
Stop Buying Leads And Start Attracting Prospects
My free videos will show you how to become the Hunted , rather than the Hunter .
Help me stop buying leads
I guess I forgot to put my name in it, as would be proper in any signature line, but I did that on purpose. (I tend to *sign my name* without even thinking about it, so I didn’t want my name shown twice, which would look down right silly, or perhaps even worse, a bit egotistical).
The BBCode is slightly different. Basically, there are only three major differences.
Otherwise, they are almost identical. Here is that exact same ad, written in BBCode.
[b]Stop Buying Leads And Start Attracting Prospects[/b] My free videos will show you how to become the [b]Hunted[/b], rather than the [b]Hunter[/b].
[url=http://Recommended.byCenay.com/stop-buying-leads]Help me stop buying leads[/url]
I probably don’t have to say this, but I will. It’s generally acceptable to have 1 or 2 links in your *sig line*, but frowned upon to have more. Obviously, there are exceptions, but it’s a good rule of thumb.
It’s also acceptable (and might be preferable) to actually display the URL as the final line. If you are in a forum where the members might be printing out the content and sharing it with others, you should show the URL. Clickable links are great, but the address doesn’t print if they send it to the printer.
Yep, you lose a little *link love* when your anchor text doesn’t contain your keywords, but if the content is *likely* to be printed more often than not, show your links. Also note that Google, when evaluating your anchor text’s from all the links pointing to your site, expects to see some URL’s, some “click here” and some targeted keywords… it s a more natural appearance to Google.
To do this, just replace the link text with the actual address.
Hope this helps. Drop me a note if you have any other questions. Feel free to leave comments below on any other tips you would like to share about increasing click rates!
