11 replies
Hello warriors. After a long time I am here to seek some guidance from you.

I had an idea of creating a website on agricultural practices and some modernization in this field. Have many articles ready to get started and have also listed some targeted facebook groups to initially make the marketing.

But while thinking, the idea of Forum came into my mind. What I thought was instead of having a conversation of Q&A in comments why not give a better platform like forum where even others can post and share their opinion and can have a healthy discussion.

Now the real point comes here:
1) In terms of earning which comes first. I know to monetize a website with ads. How about Forum. I have heard forum has much more potential.

2)Ways of monetizing a forum?

3) For a trail which free forum software to go with. Investing directly on Vbulletin sounds costly.. Initially a free one then if it works out then shift to good paid service.

Your precious advice matters a lot.

Kind Regards
#earning #forum #starting
  • Profile picture of the author M Thompson
    Originally Posted by onlineworkers View Post

    Hello warriors. After a long time I am here to seek some guidance from you.

    I had an idea of creating a website on agricultural practices and some modernization in this field. Have many articles ready to get started and have also listed some targeted facebook groups to initially make the marketing.

    But while thinking, the idea of Forum came into my mind. What I thought was instead of having a conversation of Q&A in comments why not give a better platform like forum where even others can post and share their opinion and can have a healthy discussion.

    Now the real point comes here:
    1) In terms of earning which comes first. I know to monetize a website with ads. How about Forum. I have heard forum has much more potential.

    2)Ways of monetizing a forum?

    3) For a trail which free forum software to go with. Investing directly on Vbulletin sounds costly.. Initially a free one then if it works out then shift to good paid service.

    Your precious advice matters a lot.

    Kind Regards

    I would start with a website then maybe a low cost paid newsletter and then when you have a decent number of subscribers upgrade them to a paid forum
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    • Profile picture of the author Roth
      Banned
      Originally Posted by M Thompson View Post

      I would start with a website then maybe a low cost paid newsletter and then when you have a decent number of subscribers upgrade them to a paid forum
      Agreed. The reason being is that if you start a forum that has little to no members, then no one will join because of the perceived low social proof. So build your little community first through comments, subscribers, newsletter - and once you have a decent sized community, then you can think about upgrading to a forum.
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  • Profile picture of the author talfighel
    I would start with a basic website and just like M Thompson said, make sure to start your own newsletter.

    After you start getting subscribers, engage them in your forum.
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  • Profile picture of the author TristanPerry
    Forums are hard to monetize because a good forum is fairly community driven and people are there for the discussions and not to click on ads. In short, your CTR will be tiny.

    Depending on the topic of the forums, you might be able to have some form of paid premier membership though - this might be a decent earner on a popular forums.
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    • Originally Posted by TristanPerry View Post

      Forums are hard to monetize because a good forum is fairly community driven and people are there for the discussions and not to click on ads. In short, your CTR will be tiny.

      Depending on the topic of the forums, you might be able to have some form of paid premier membership though - this might be a decent earner on a popular forums.


      Exactly. Usually a forum is too tough to build because you would need several hundreds or even thousands to help generate the traffic and growth of the site.
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  • Profile picture of the author Samuel Adams
    Starting a forum is easy but getting new members and earning money is not, especially if you use Adsense. The best way to monetize a forum is by selling ad space directly to site owners. In this way, you will at least be earning money on some prime spaces on your site.
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  • Profile picture of the author JensSteyaert
    It really depends whether or not you are able to build a forum with an active member base. Then i see some earning potential in a forum as you can send traffic basically anywhere you want.

    But it might be a process of years, so a forum is definately not a quick solution to make money.
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  • Profile picture of the author onlineworkers
    Thank you all guys for your best advices. Now I got to know the exact marketing and earning differences between a forum and a website.
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  • Profile picture of the author markeeter
    Initially start small, and once you have a wide customer base then you can expand your website by adding Forums and monetizing them. Build a website, build your social media presence, build a list and send them newsletters and win them over with email marketing, then you can move to creating your forum.
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  • Profile picture of the author seobro
    I have a forum with over 40,000 members now. Hackers are a big issue. Also, there is a lot of spam. A lot of new "members" post ads for see Alice or um rorex reprica. Why do they "mizspel" words that are common. That is to by pass my filters and sell more crap. OK so as a result I have to be hitting the delete button on most posts and that is a chore I tell you. Yeah, you can monetize using sad sense. Get use to making pennies.
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    • Profile picture of the author Alexa Smith
      Banned
      I have a "highly targeted niche forum" with only under 8,000 members, but it's one of the most profitable parts of my business.

      A forum membership-list produces one of the most highly-targeted, most responsive and most successful income-streams you can generate, for email marketing.

      I have no advertising or promotion inside the forum at all.

      I don't charge for membership.

      I have no problems with spam simply because I use admin-activated rather than member-activated profiles. Nobody can post until they've replied (to the moderators) to an automated email drawing their attention to the forum's rules-post, explaining how we protect our members from spam and advertising, that we send emails of our own to all members, and asking them whether the rules suit them. I think in the last 4-5 years I've had only one objection to this, and a reply from someone saying "No."

      The spambots can try to join as often as they like, but they can't post.

      The monetization method, for me, lies simply in "the value of the list" - and that's considerable.

      .
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