Best Incentive Affiliates – The Best Of The Best!

3 Types Of Incentive Websites – #1 Forum Traffic

Posted on 12. Oct, 2008 by $haz in General

Incentive website owners have asked me many times how they can increase their website traffic and the first question I ask them is “where does your traffic come from right now?” A majority of these users have answered that most of their traffic (if not all) comes from forums such as www.anything4free.com or www.freelunchroom.com. I have concluded that there are 3 types of incentive websites; by types I refer to the ways they get traffic:

Forum Websites

Pure Traffic Websites

Both Forum and Pure Traffic Websites

This post will talk about forum traffic. I will slowly build on things incentive website owners should know about the industry and the traffic it gets.

Forum websites are the types that get 90% of their traffic from forums such as the ones mentioned above. These websites normally have to give promotions every month, give “free greens” as they say (basically means that the first user does not have to complete offer requirements, they can just start referring other users who complete them), and basically give themselves up to the mercy of the users from the forum. What I mean by give themselves up to the mercy of the users from the forum is that they have to make sure a majority of their users are happy, because if even one goes on and rants about how horrible they are, it effects their traffic as other users worry if the incentive website is trustworthy. This market is already over saturated; forum users can find another incentive website besides yours.

There are many things that I dislike about the traffic that comes from forums. First, the traffic is very poor. I have skimmed over threads of users who think that referring users to incentive websites is a real business. This means that the campaigns that users like these complete are garbage because they are just in it to get paid, not actually try out the initial campaign. Don’t get me wrong, there are plenty of users like this outside of forums, but there are a majority of these users in the forums. This hurts in the long run as fraud becomes an issue and the higher level affiliate networks do not accept you because of this.

Second, forum websites are at the will of the forum. Imagine if the forum collapses one day, where will their traffic come from? Imagine if they get banned from the forum, where will their traffic come from? Forum websites rely too much on something they do not own. Most of their traffic comes from a place that they have no ownership of. This is very dangerous and can cause a website to fall off the face of the earth if anything happens to the forum or to them in the forum. Remember, if the forum traffic is slow, your traffic will be slow.

Last, the idea of giving promotions really bothers me. Why would they need to give an extra incentive to anyone who wants to take part in their incentive website? Is their website not good enough for users to complete without a monthly promotion? Satisfied users will not dump a great incentive website which gives no promotions for another incentive website that does give promotions. It seems as if forum websites have to have promotions every month or else all their users will shift over to the websites that have some. Not only do they have to have promotions, but they have to have the best promotions. Promotions cut into profit and make websites vulnerable since they will lose traffic if they are not held. I believe that a network should rely less on promotions and more on satisfying their users the old fashioned way; amazing support, great conversions, and reliable payment structures. In other words, make users see that the incentive website is just as amazing without the promotions. Incentive website admins should say to themselves, “what sets me apart from these other incentive websites?” The website should stand out to the users and make them come back.

This is what a forum incentive website is. If you are a forum website, please comment on how your experiences in the forums are and what other information you can provide. In a later post, I will talk about the pure traffic websites. I believe that if an incentive website wants to know how to gain more traffic, they will need to understand the category they fit in, as well as the other categories. Once the categories have been discussed, we can move on to the way to obtain more traffic. I don’t think forum traffic is bad, I just think it’s bad if you rely on 90% of it. Never put all your eggs in one bundle.

Remember, if you want more traffic posts and tips, I want to hear comments on posts like these. Sign up and let me hear what your thoughts are.

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Tags: 3 types, Forum traffic, Incentive Websites