How do you make money off a forum - and how much can you make

[waytovietnam]

Hi everyone,

I've been thinking about starting a forum in an area I find lacking, however I don't want to do this if the forum won't pay for itself. For those of you who have advertisements on your forums, is this enough to cover the forum cost?(I would purchase the forum through IPB, which would cost a little over $100. a year). Also, does anyone make above and beyond their forum costs by allowing ads, paid subscriptions, etc. on their forums?

Thanks for any and all input.

[Ron Killian]

It takes a TON of time and work get get a forum up, get members on board and keep everything running. Seems many people think forums run themselves, when they are really tremendous time consumers. Getting new posters, keeping them coming back, blocking spammers, making sure every one gets along. Much more than most realize.

Just my take. Don't hear of many making much, just what I've heard.

[waxman1000]

Just like any other website, a Forum will demand so much effort and time from you. Do you know that you may actually have to pay people to post on your forum when you are just starting out? Yea that is what many people do. then they stop once they have a good deal of post that attracts some traffic.

Some people create forums depending on adsesne revenue. That is kind of crazy. For some reasons i cant explain, the click though rate in forums is quite tiny. I don't have a forum though, but i have friends who do, and that's what they tell me.

They main thing that makes up a forum is traffic. DP for example is one of the biggest forum on earth because of its traffic! But it did not come over night.

In a nut shell, if you know what you are doing, and plan it very well, you can make with a forum. But i can assure you that it is more difficult to promote a Forum than a regular website.

[Will_O]

Don't think you can really make a ton of money with forums, and if you plan to it will take A LOT of time and A LOT of work. But if you are very passionate about what you plan to talk about (which I assume you are) and do not mind putting a lot of time and effort into your forum, then it may just be worth it. Good luck!

[jiminic2]

With On Demand Profits, you have to make many posts to many forums daily. I used one of Alok's suggested forum and it got saturated fast. You have to look for the right forum, otherwise it could start looking like spam.

[Jeremy Morgan]

With the right niche, you can build members fast, and high traffic forums make money.

That being said getting there is tough. You have a critical mass you have to reach, nobody will sign up and post if there nobody posting there. Nobody will post if nobody is there to read it. So you have to build something else up and make it popular, then direct people there.

Another option is paid forum posters. You can pay them to make the place look busy until real people show up. But as others here have said, it's a lot of work, very time consuming, and requires a lot of focus and dedication.

[louiselouise]

offer incentives for people who post for certain numbers of time, put your banner ad,collect emails from members then do email marketing.