Can this forum with 300+ members be monetized?

21 replies
I am helping someone to get there forum more traffic and also come up with a monetizing strategy . There isnt a lot of traffic, around 2500 visits for the last month and 1200 unique visitors. So obviously adsense isnt doing much.

The forum is about Case Modding, every month they run a contest where the members post there Case Build and the community decides the winner. The prize is $50 (there will be more contest put into place down the road)

The problem is as of right now there isnt hardly any income, except for the adsense which is almost nothing.


Any ideas or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.


Here is the forum
#forum #monetizing #niche
  • Profile picture of the author Woodward82
    Not to jump off topic, but are there any good Contest Apps that would be helpful with integrating into the facebook fan page?
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    • Profile picture of the author Josh MacDonald
      Originally Posted by Woodward82 View Post

      Not to jump off topic, but are there any good Contest Apps that would be helpful with integrating into the facebook fan page?
      What do you mean, 'not to'? You just did jump off topic!
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      • Profile picture of the author butters
        Not sure what case modding is, I assume it is computer cases but I could be in correct . Just a thought which popped into my head, something to consider. Since you are offering a 50 bucks reward for doing the best case modding, why not get each competitor or top three winners to make a video on how they done the modifications? Take them videos, syndicate them, also provides a lot of value back to the community, just food for thought.
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  • Profile picture of the author 07
    As far as I know offering incentives to post is not allowed by adsense isnt it? Really wqith this low traffic, try promoting it harder first, and also, try some very niche targeted offer, clickbank can help you.
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    • Profile picture of the author Woodward82
      Originally Posted by 07 View Post

      As far as I know offering incentives to post is not allowed by adsense isnt it? Really wqith this low traffic, try promoting it harder first, and also, try some very niche targeted offer, clickbank can help you.
      Not sure if this would fall into the adsense TOS violation or not. Never thought about that. Thanks I am going to look into that ASAP.

      I do realize the traffic isnt much. But I was really looking for other monetizing offers other than adsense. Ill check clickbank.

      Thanks again for the heads up on adsense last thing we would want is to get banned for breaking there TOS
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  • Profile picture of the author GBM
    How targeted is your forum?

    If it's a free-for-all "talk about whatever" forum it will be hard to monetize with just 300 members. However if it's something very targeted like a small pay-per-download community, it would be easy to post affiliate links to ppd websites/services.
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    • Profile picture of the author Woodward82
      Originally Posted by GBM View Post

      How targeted is your forum?

      If it's a free-for-all "talk about whatever" forum it will be hard to monetize with just 300 members. However if it's something very targeted like a small pay-per-download community, it would be easy to post affiliate links to ppd websites/services.

      Its about Case Modding - Activity Stream - Case Modding Forum | Case Mod Contest | Custom PC Cases

      So it's a pretty targeted niche.

      Could you expand more on the pay per download?
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  • Profile picture of the author Sharpay
    I would recommend affiliate products related to PCs & PC cases especially. Physical products from places like newegg, ebay, or amazon. That way its targeted to your users. You could also include gaming CPA offers, since those who like to custom build and mod their systems are generally gamers (at least casually) & internet lovers.
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  • Profile picture of the author Dariuszden
    You gotta become affiliated with places that sell anything you need for case mods. This way you can actually offer a place to buy specific items needed to mod your own case. Or you can go as far as having links to all the parts for each mod of the month.

    Basically, you want people that browse your forum to go and buy/look for parts through you instead of just Googling in the other window.

    Also I've noticed that to see the photos you need to register, and while I don't have experience in running forums this puts me off. If I was a potential customer, I would prefer to at least see what it's all about without the needed to register.
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    • Profile picture of the author Woodward82
      Originally Posted by Dariuszden View Post

      You gotta become affiliated with places that sell anything you need for case mods. This way you can actually offer a place to buy specific items needed to mod your own case. Or you can go as far as having links to all the parts for each mod of the month.

      Basically, you want people that browse your forum to go and buy/look for parts through you instead of just Googling in the other window.

      Also I've noticed that to see the photos you need to register, and while I don't have experience in running forums this puts me off. If I was a potential customer, I would prefer to at least see what it's all about without the needed to register.
      Thank's, this actually gives me some good ideas. I wasnt aware of the photos not being available to non-registered members. Ill look into that and talk to the owner about it.

      Thanks everyone for your input - Much appreciated
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  • Profile picture of the author iJonathan
    I would not begin monetising it just yet. Let the numbers increase further and I would plan to keep the members engaged - let them spend more time on the forum. Build traffic to your forum and let it build reputation. Once you have good amount of time being spent on the forum by a good number of the members. Then is the time to sell ad slots on the site.
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  • Profile picture of the author Alexa Smith
    Banned
    Originally Posted by Woodward82 View Post

    Any ideas or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
    I don't know what "case modding" means, so don't take too much notice of me!

    I have a suggestion, though: do something to enable first-time visitors to get rid of that very intrusive orange box which prevents people from seeing the home page properly. I couldn't work out how to close it or get rid of it, at all, and I'm no internet/website newbie. My guess is that it probably drives large numbers of visitors away. :p
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    • Profile picture of the author Woodward82
      Originally Posted by Alexa Smith View Post

      I don't know what "case modding" means, so don't take take too much notice of me!

      I have a suggestion, though: do something to enable first-time visitors to get rid of that very intrusive orange box which prevents people from seeing the home page properly. I couldn't work out how to close it or get rid of it, at all, and I'm no internet/website newbie. My guess is that it probably drives large numbers of visitors away. :p
      Yes he put it there initially to try to get more people to sign up.
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  • Profile picture of the author Newbiemarketer76
    For my own knowledge, what is "not much" in terms of making in adsense because I thought that wasn't bad traffic for something I have never heard of.
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  • Profile picture of the author jlcs
    Any value offer, freebies or specialties in the forum? That would more driving people to your forum
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    Earn $1,037.69 in daily is NOT a big amount.
    I can show you how to do this.

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  • Profile picture of the author Ben Gordon
    Getting a good forum started is really HARD and requires a LOT of start up cash. I'm being completely serious with you here...

    If you don't have a good $10k+ to invest in a forum then don't start it out at all. I've run several forums and three were miserable failures but the forth one was a success. Still, I sold the forum because you need to put so much effort and time into it.

    If you're actually very serious about running a good forum here are a few tips:

    1) Delete all those sections. You have WAY too many for you size (even a big forum shouldn't have that many sections). This is a mistake all forum amateurs make. Delete and move the content into maximum 8 sections - I would recommend 5.

    2) Remove the adsense (since it's against their TOS if you're going to be offering incentives to post in the forum - still you're not gonna be losing on a lot of money) and offer incentives for posting in the forum. Get ads on other competitor's forums, general paid per click and paid per download sites (where people will work hard to earn little money) and such places. Offer them $1 for 10 posts or $10 for 100 posts, etc.. (make sure to include quality control and that you're allowed to neglect some of their posts if they're low quality in your TOS for this marketing campaign). Basically, get the forum filled up with content. You have about 1000-2000 posts right now. You need 50,000 posts and active members in order to start true promotion.

    3) After you've got the forum active and filled up with content, DON'T just stop your campaigns right away. Keep them running while you do promotion on PPC sites (Yahoo works really well) and use other marketing techniques to get it going.

    Hope this helps
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  • Profile picture of the author Lorraine Parker
    You can monetize it with Adsense or banner ads and make sure that you drive enough traffic to it. You can also use their email addresses to send them offers once in a while after you have offered them some useful content.
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  • Profile picture of the author Woodward82
    I have been trying to go through the adsense TOS and dont see the part where it might raise an issue with this forum. Could someone please point me in the right direction.

    I have been reading on these two pages

    https://www.google.com/adsense/localized-terms

    https://support.google.com/adsense/b...n&answer=48182

    Also thank you Ben, for the advice
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