Earning Money

This is the fourth and final installment in how to create a forum. If you have not kept up thus far, consider going back and reading the articles on picking the right forum software, growing your forum, and monetizing a forum.

There are very few times that it is a good idea for someone to leave a forum alone, but there comes a time when it is time to move on and work on another project. Perhaps you are becoming an aspiring forum owner and want to own numerous forums. Perhaps you have made a lot of money on your first forum and want to use it to finance another forum and replicate your success, but with a different topic. Whatever your goals are, this is a possibility, but only once you have done a few things. I’ll explain what should be done before finally leaving your forum alone to move onto the next project.

• Only leave your forum alone for an extended period of time when you have accumulated five hundred active members. I say five hundred because if you can get that many members posting, you won’t have to even glance at the site because they’ll all be posting new threads and posts that you don’t need to constantly worry about inactivity. And all these new members will naturally do viral marketing, so that’ll just allow for more growth.
• Having at least three full time moderators is a great idea. When I say full time moderators, I just mean that they have accepted their job as a moderator and do a good job with it. They post new threads often and try and bring new members to the site. Basically, these moderators become the new staff of the site when you leave and ensure that the site grows more. You can compensate them if you want or just give them a gift for Christmas.
• Ensure that the site is firmly indexed in the search engines. While this will probably happen naturally from all the work you do, I recommend ensuring that your site is really ranking well in the search engines. Since you will be moving on to another project, you are going to devote less time to getting more links to this site. This can have negative effects on the site, so definitely try and ensure that the site is indexed really well so that’ll it continue to grow naturally.

Now…Since I create forums that I love to frequent, I don’t leave them or anything. However, some people just get really busy and don’t have the time to constantly work on them. Now, there is one thing that I don’t recommend. FORGETTING your site is a big no-no. If you forget it, it will die. Your moderators and members alike will want to see you from time to time and if you join in conversation every once in a while, it’ll build a greater following. Also, ensure that you continue to get links for the site. You want to stay where you are in the search engines for more growth. More growth = more money = more growth. Good luck with your forum and remember that with great work comes great success.

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!