Earning Money

This is the third installment of a four part series all about a forum. If you have not kept up so far, please go back and read the posts all about picking the right forum software and growing your forum.

Now that you are doing what you need to do and getting your site really rolling, the next thing that you need to determine is how you want to make your money from this site. There are numerous ways to earn from owning a forum and I am going to be very simple when I say that the more ways that you use and the less of Google you use, the better. Use a lot of Google, but there are tons of ways to make a profit and all you need to do is look a little bit and you are bound to find something. But, here are a few tips about making money on your forum.

• Set up two different types of programs right from the getco. The first you want to set it up is a CPC program such as Adsense. The second that you want to set up is a CPM program. Your reason for doing this is because forums can get a lot of traffic, but not always do they get clicks. By having the CPM, you are guaranteeing that your impressions are making you money.
• Consider putting a “sponsored links” after the first thread. This is a theme edit that I found for vB and phpBB. It’s a good thing because it takes the content of that specific page and gives you pretty targeted ads. And since the ads are more in their faces, they are more likely to click the ads. It’s definitely a good thing to use, but some people are always worried that the ads will irritate people. My policy is simple…Do what you must to grow your forum and if they love your site, they won’t care about you making a little extra on the side.
• Find a good place for you to set up the sale of Text-Links. If you can get your site to a minimum of a PR4, selling text-links can be a very good extra income means of making money. Granted, you’re looking to get higher: PR5+, but even at a PR4, selling six or eight links, you could make some extra cash. The thing to remember about this is that the location of the link is optimal. Put it in a place where the advertiser is going to love it. Give them their moneys worth.

This was just a short post on three ways to monetize your site. I wasn’t going to go in and start saying “use adsense” and “use text-link-ads.” You’ve all heard of that before. I wanted you to read some other ways and these are some good ways of making some money on your forums. They take time, but with every passing day, a forum begins to start generating more money. Soon enough, you could really be making some nice pennies (dollars) each day. Good luck with your forum and stay tuned for tomorrow’s post about when you can leave your forum alone.

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This is the second installment of a four part piece all about building a forum. If you have not kept up with us so far, please go back and read the post all about picking the right forum software.

The hardest part about creating a forum and the reason a lot of people don’t make forums (or, they try and fail miserably) is because they don’t have the energy or time to make the forum grow. They don’t have the motivation or the drive to get the job done. Now, like I said yesterday, I am not a forum guru. I don’t have all the answers and I am no perfectionist. My two forums are growing nicely, but they are going slow. Now, you need to understand something…Slow is okay. It’s okay to grow slow so long as you continue to grow. But, here are a few tips to making your forum grow perhaps a little bit faster.

• Bring a calling of friends to join the site. There’s no denying that people normally make friends with people with similar interests as them. So, if you’re like me and love science (I am a science major), there’s no denying I may have friends with other science majors. If you can get your friends to join then you will have a firm membership basis to grow your forum. Even if you can only get five friends to join, if they post frequently, your site will grow.
• Try and find groups on myspace and facebook that are about the topic of your forum. On myspace, I found a lot of groups about science and this really helped me get some solid members. So long as you are not spamming, there is nothing wrong in telling your newly made friends on these two social bookmarking sites that they should check out your forum. If your forum is showing signs of activity, you’re bound to get more members to it and these myspace and facebook friends will add to the foundation which are your friends.
• One important thing that you need to do as fast as possible is make each forum get to the triple digit posts. That means, get each forum up to one hundred posts. That’s why I have said it is very important that you don’t start with too many forums. The fewer that you have, the easier it is to make the site appear to be active. No one wants to join an inactive forum. So, if your site appears to be active, it’ll get more members.
• Finally, post at least ten threads a day. You can get away with five a day, but remember that the more you post, the more people will post with you. And it’s just a domino effect. Also, more threads gives people the chance of finding something that interests them. So, they sign up, they post and then they may make a thread of their own. And then you’ve just snagged a member. Voila, you’re growing. So, the more threads you post, the more active it looks, the better.

Creating a forum is downright difficult. It’s tiring, it’s frustrating, and sometimes it can be downright ANNOYING. But let me tell you something…If you can get the foundation in there and get a good chunk of members right at the getco, probably your friends, and you can get your forums active, there is no doubt in my mind that you can start growing large. It will take time, there’s no denying that. However, I am a firm believer that the harder the work, the faster your success will come. That’s a promise. Good luck with this and look forward to tomorrow’s post on how to monetize a forum.

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