Online forums

Nearly all readers will be familiar with online forums. Online forums are topical discussion websites dedicated to a particular category or interest. There are online forums for every conceivable topic from sports to hotel management to search engine optimization. You can garner a lot of useful information from online forums dedicated to SEO, but you can also be led down the wrong path if you're not careful. Some of the techniques you read about in online forums may be frowned upon by the search engines. We've learned about black hat techniques, and in online forums, you'll encounter both purveyors and advocates of these forbidden methods.

Every possible black hat technique ever conceived will be either described or offered in SEO forums: automated content, automated comment posting, link farms, and worse. We've learned, however, that all of the automated shortcuts you'll discover will qualify as black hat or gray hat and are to be avoided.

When participating in online forums, consider the reputation of the speaker. Most online forums have some grading system and some even have a trading score to monitor how trustworthy participants have been in business transactions with other forum members.

With that in mind, here are some forums where you can learn more about Internet marketing and SEO.

Warrior Forum

The Warrior Forum is one of the largest Internet marketing forums on the Web. It is located at http://www.warriorforum.com/. The forum is divided into two sections: the free forum and the War Room. There is a one-time fee of $37 to join the War Room. Free members can read and post on the main forums, but you must be a War Room member to access the War Room forum, post a Warrior Special Offer, create a Warrior Forum blog, start a Warrior Forum group, or start a thread in the Warrior joint venture forum. War Room members can also send private messages to other members without restriction. Free members must make 50 posts before they can send private messages.

To give you an idea of how popular the Warrior Forum is, there are often around 1000 users viewing the main Internet marketing discussion forum at one time. This is the part of the forum where you will learn the most about Internet marketing. The Warrior Special Offers section is the section where War Room members can post their own e-books and other products for sale at a special price for Warriors. The products offered in this section must be a better deal than what is offered to the general public. This can mean a lower price or extras that are not normally included with the product.

The Warrior Forum also has a section where Warriors can advertise their products and services at their regular prices. This is the Warrior Products & Services section, and you can find complete websites for sale, classified ads for products, and service advertisements by Warriors who offer writing, programming, or other services. There are also sections in the forums to discuss ad networks, offline marketing, copywriting, AdSense, search engine optimization, and other Internet marketing topics.

Digital Point forum

The Digital Point forum is located at http://forums.digitalpoint.com/. This is another popular forum for the SEO and Internet marketing community. There are boards for the major search engines: Google, Yahoo!, and Microsoft, where you can find information about the specific search engine you are trying to target. Some of the other boards on the forum include general marketing, search engine optimization, social networks, link development, pay-per-click advertising, and affiliate programs. You can also find information on running an e-commerce business, designing websites, and content management.

The most popular section of the Digital Point forum is the Buy, Sell, or Trade section. If you want to buy websites or domains, this is a good place to start looking. Be careful, though, because there have been some instances where either the buyer or the seller has been ripped off. It's a good idea to use an escrow services when purchasing a domain or website, especially if the price is high.

The Keyword Academy

The Keyword Academy forums provide a lot of great information, especially to those who are getting started in SEO. It costs $33 per month to join, but there is a one-month free trial and there are a lot of useful tools included in the membership that make it worth joining. The forum itself has sections on topic (niche) selection, setting up a website, creating content, building links, monetizing your website, and analyzing traffic.

The tools that come with the membership include a series of how-to videos and an e-book for beginners that walk you through the process of setting up and promoting your first website. Members also get free access to a keyword research tool that makes it easy to find keywords to target that will be relatively easy to get ranked in Google.

Keyword Academy members have access to a guest posting system that makes it simple to submit guest posts to other members' websites or receive guest posts on your site from other members. This is a good way to help build up backlinks for your website, and all of the content is required to be unique, so you can receive some quality content for your own site as well. Each site is independently owned by a Keyword Academy member, and each owner has the ability to accept or decline the articles submitted to them. If you have a website in the system, you are never required to accept an article that doesn't measure up to your quality standards.

You can find the Keyword Academy at http://thekeywordacademy.com.

SEO Chat forums

The SEO Chat forums located at http://forums.seochat.com/ have sections for discussion about each of the major search engines. There are also sections for search engine optimization, content management, affiliate marketing, keywords, e-commerce sites, and local search. Other topics include pay-per-click advertising, Google AdWords, HTML, SEO tools, analyzing website statistics, and testing SEO strategies.

SEO.com forums

The forums at http://forums.seo.com/ are fairly active and there are sections for industry news, SEO basics, SEO-friendly design and development, advanced SEO, social media, analytics, article marketing, e-mail marketing, and advertising and affiliate marketing. There are boards for the three major search engines and a place to request a review of your website.