I have been using this forum linking strategy for a few years now and can confirm that it is a very effective technique. I have to admit that I’m a little hesitant to give this one up but I wanted to reward the people that actually do read my blogs.
What I do is browse popular forums that relate to my websites. If I have an SEO website then I look for other SEO websites. I look for old threads where someone has asked a question that nobody has answered. Instead of using the forum to answer the question I then write a blog on my website that I’m looking to get backlinks for. In that blog I have the answer that the person on the forum is looking for. I jump back over to the forum and post a link to my blog with a little “hey I think this blog might answer your question”. BOOM! I just scored a forum backlink that isn’t going to get removed for spam. I also get awesome organic traffic as anyone else that reads that forum thread from here on in is going to click the link.
The secret to this technique is acting like you just stumbled upon this blog, don’t let up that you read it! If someone finds out what’s going on your link has a higher chance of getting deleted for self-promotion.
More effective than the traditional method of using forum signatures to promote your site. I find that forum signatures tend to be nofollow which has no SEO benefits whatsoever. Links contained within the actual forum discussion area are more likely to be dofollow and have a higher chancer of being shared.