Making money with Forum website

[canadiangal]

Is it possible to make money with a niche forum website?
I'd like to create a community website but need to know how to monetize the website.
Any advice will be much appreciated. Thanks.

 

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[harerace]

It sure is! This is a niche forum in my opinion.

Worry about monetizing last. First you have to build an huge community . With hard work and a little luck you can make it happen. Check this vid out:

 

[niftyg]

A forum is one of the most difficult website types to break in to, as I am sure you will hear everyone comment. Anybody can create a forum in 10 minutes.

Don't let it discourage you, though. Depending on the niche you can definitely see success with traffic. Then on sponsors, ads, etc.

ex.
A brand new automotive brand looks like it is coming to the forefront in ads, etc. Now is the perfect time to secure your forum, before anybody has.

With a niche forum you must be first to the punch; otherwise it is far too saturated.

Forum or not, if there is an unfulfilled need, it should succeed.

I suggest doing a bit more browsing and see what kind of ideas there are out there,

Oh, and of course, read the book if you haven't already.

 

[harerace]

A forum is one of the most difficult website types to break in to, as I am sure you will hear everyone comment. Anybody can create a forum in 10 minutes.

Don't let it discourage you, though. Depending on the niche you can definitely see success with traffic. Then on sponsors, ads, etc.

ex.
A brand new automotive brand looks like it is coming to the forefront in ads, etc. Now is the perfect time to secure your forum, before anybody has.

With a niche forum you must be first to the punch; otherwise it is far too saturated.

Forum or not, if there is an unfulfilled need, it should succeed.

I suggest doing a bit more browsing and see what kind of ideas there are out there,

Oh, and of course, read the book if you haven't already.

well said!

 

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[canadiangal]

I want to try it out in a niche I'm interested in and have some knowledge in. I know it may take time to advertize and build a community, but hopefully I can make it. I started and failed on a website that advertized and sold restaurants menu items then got them delivered. The logistics just did not add up and I lost close to $40,000.
I want to do something different that better work. I thought of dropshipping but also thought of a dating website, then ended up thinking that maybe a forum will be less risky in term of money.
I don't know much about having ads on your website. I have a lot to learn. My primary objective is to be able to make around $3000 per month, as a start. Once I'm familiar with how to make money online. It is sad that no one really tells you really what would work. Most people are vague. I've read the book two years ago... I'm not new on this forum. I got busy with my "business" that did not work.
Any help will be much appreciated

 

[healthstatus]

a forum will be less risky in term of money

Yes, probably. Good forum software is a few hundred dollars. but it is a huge time suck and you need 15-20 devoted people that will post on a regular basis. Nobody goes to a forum with no posts, you can't posts until you get a lot of people. See the problem?

For a typical niche, if you use Google Adsense, and put 2 ads per page like MJ does on this forum. You will make about $2.50 for every 1000 page views you generate. So you will need to generate about 1.2 million page views a month to generate $3k. That would require about 120,000 people showing up and looking at a minimum of 10 pages each.

 

[canadiangal]

lol Healthstatus, very encouraging. We'll see how it goes. I just hope I can get it created quite fast and for cheap. I have to think of something that will get people to visit the website and find it interesting.

 

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[healthstatus]

You might start with something like a questions and answers website like Quora, or Yahoo Answers but focused to your niche as you get your traffic built up, and build some rep as an authority on the subject.

 

[canadiangal]

I didn't know about Quora. It looks interesting. Actually, there was a website around year 2000 in the niche I'm targeting. It was quite popular but I'm not sure what happened, they shut it down. They went from a .com website to a .net website, then one morning it was gone. People were disapointed.
Maybe adding a dating and adult section to the website will attract more people...

 

[BlokeInProgress]

I attended a seminar a couple of years ago and the guy explained his technique of getting traffic without even starting the site by buying 2nd-hand domains (domains that was no longer renewed). But you have to research a lot about the 2nd-hand domain and at least go with their niche (e.g. if previous domain is about pets, go with a pet site too).

What do you guys think?

 

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[benhebert]

I want to try it out in a niche I'm interested in and have some knowledge in. I know it may take time to advertize and build a community, but hopefully I can make it. I started and failed on a website that advertized and sold restaurants menu items then got them delivered. The logistics just did not add up and I lost close to $40,000.
I want to do something different that better work. I thought of dropshipping but also thought of a dating website, then ended up thinking that maybe a forum will be less risky in term of money.
I don't know much about having ads on your website. I have a lot to learn. My primary objective is to be able to make around $3000 per month, as a start. Once I'm familiar with how to make money online. It is sad that no one really tells you really what would work. Most people are vague. I've read the book two years ago... I'm not new on this forum. I got busy with my "business" that did not work.
Any help will be much appreciated

A forum is a terrible starter business idea. Unless you have a strong personal brand, you shouldn't waste any time with a public community forum.

How do you actually monetize it? Through advertisements + sponsorships + paid subscriptions? This model TAKES FOREVER and requires you to have an active community.

Given that you don't have one already, I don't know if it's worth trying to start.

I can certainly empathize with the lack or perceived lack of knowledge out there, but the truth is it sounds like your fundamentals are completely off.

I'd take a course, build that product and learn more. Or even better, I'd find an entrepreneur and go intern and learn.

 

[healthstatus]

I attended a seminar a couple of years ago and the guy explained his technique of getting traffic without even starting the site by buying 2nd-hand domains (domains that was no longer renewed). But you have to research a lot about the 2nd-hand domain and at least go with their niche (e.g. if previous domain is about pets, go with a pet site too).

Domains with any significant traffic, never get released. You might find a domain with 10-15 visitors a month. Search engines will remove them as soon as they get a few days in a row with no page found messages, and by the time they are renewable, they have been dormant for at least 30 days.

 

[fastattack03]

A forum is a terrible starter business idea. Unless you have a strong personal brand, you shouldn't waste any time with a public community forum.
How do you actually monetize it? Through advertisements + sponsorships + paid subscriptions? This model TAKES FOREVER and requires you to have an active community.
Given that you don't have one already, I don't know if it's worth trying to start.
I can certainly empathize with the lack or perceived lack of knowledge out there, but the truth is it sounds like your fundamentals are completely off.
I'd take a course, build that product and learn more. Or even better, I'd find an entrepreneur and go intern and learn.

I agree with benhebert and I'm not a person who usually discourage an idea. If you want to pursue this then you have to plan it thoroughly. why would they want to go and stay in your forum? What do you have to offer that will benefit them? How much time are you willing to put into this?

It's easy to create a forum and it's easy to monetize it. The hard part is getting visitors and having them stay in your forum. You have to have a lot of budget to advertise your forum and hire writers that will pump up posts.

If you want to go through this idea, my best tip would be find someone who already got successful doing this. Find a progress thread about building a community then read every post. Find someone who successfully built a forum (like MJ) and talk to them. Ask them questions but be sure you researched all the basic ideas first so you can ask smarter questions.

Most importantly, don't ever quit! It seems to me that you're still starting out with your online journey. That's great. Keep reading. Keep learning. It will all make sense one day.

 

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[MJ DeMarco]

Is it possible to make money with a niche forum website?

Yes ... but not through using Adsense. The ad revenue from this forum earns me about the equivalent to working at McDonalds for 40 hours a week. Yet, its enough to finance a nice Murciealago LP 640, or pay all my household utilities, including insurance -- which is an option when you have no debt. (But then again, no one should be financing a Lamborghini -- you're either paying cash or you can't afford it.)

The real opportunity for monetization comes from offering paid subscriptions -- which comes from private content and user enhancements/user upgrades which truly opens up a Fastlane content model as it is repeat and reoccurring. That forum revenue stream earns me a CEO level income.

That said, the real challenge is attracting users because it's a chicken and the egg quandry -- no users = no social proof = no one wants to join. I built this forum by having an existing reputation at another forum which was mismanaged -- I then created my own forum and some users (many of which are still here 7 years later!) followed.

In the beginning, you will need to contribute to every post, every thread, and every user. It isn't easy which is why there are more dead forums, than alive.

 

[Determined2012]

One of the biggest forums that I know is a gossip forum called Lipstick Alley. That forum is so addictive and I by far waste the bulk of my time on there. I need to block it the same way I took TV out of my bedroom. I actually did try to block it the other day on my Macbook- but the links that came up only showed how to block the site if you are on a PC. (I could have/ should have tried harder to get it blocked though too!)

Here are some of the stats from there just now: Posts: 16,378,459, Members: 99,160 Imagine--- A CEO salary time x 5!

I don't know how they make money--- just from traffic? I believe that access to everything on the site is 100% free. They do have some ads on there.

I think Lipstick Alley is so big because everyone loves gossip- they have so many good topics on there to draw you in. I can spend hours on there reading gossip- So bad I know. But they are serving a need- because its highly highly entertaining.

 

[Catalyst]

I ran wranglerforum.com, I made money as the auto niche paid decently well. To MJs point adsense was only a small portion of our income. You need MANY revenue streams to make a forum work well and plan on working your a$$ off to earn every penny. It was a 24/7 job that consumed every minute of every day. If you aren't dealing with mod or user drama you are working on monetizing the site or building brand partnerships.

So yes you can but its not a business I would reenter or recommend anyone enter that wants to divorce their time from their money.

 

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[CommonCents]

The challenge of starting a forum is like selling the first fax machine.

 

[BlokeInProgress]

Domains with any significant traffic, never get released. You might find a domain with 10-15 visitors a month. Search engines will remove them as soon as they get a few days in a row with no page found messages, and by the time they are renewable, they have been dormant for at least 30 days.

Thanks @healthstatus, sorry for the late reply, I just remembered the guy in the seminar told us to use the Cache function in Google to check on the expired sites. Yes you are correct, some of the sites are no longer available. Sad thing is I bought his system and lost money 'coz I relied heavily in ads. Basically his system creates the websites, you just add the domain name and keywords. His system will:

- search for articles and videos related to your keywords and post it in your site
- update your site everyday with new articles

But one should, update the site with original articles every week. Apply for adsense, amazon affliate, ebay affiliate and post the ads in the site. In summary, I believe he did made his big bucks by creating a product and effectively marketing.

 

[canadiangal]

Linorc, what is the system you are talking about that searches for articles and post related videos to your website? that sounds like a good system to start with, just to create content.

 

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[BlokeInProgress]

Linorc, what is the system you are talking about that searches for articles and post related videos to your website? that sounds like a good system to start with, just to create content.

@canadiangal there two systems that i tried, Adam Ginsbergs Speedlings and one from Brett Mcfall.

Do you already have a site or starting to build one?

 

[canadiangal]

I'm just thinking of building one. I had the job post on odesk already but haven't picked a developer yet. I'm not even sure how much would be an appropriate price for getting it built or even how long is a reasonable timeframe to allow the developer to work on it.
I'm just trying to find the best idea out there, that will not take me too much time and will still make me about 3000$ per month. That's my target to start. I just want something that will pay the mortgage and utilities.
I can't afford to fail and lose money a second time.
I've also thought of a referral website, but it has to be for a service that's really in demand.
I'll look up Adam Ginsbergs Speedlings and Brett Mcfall

 

[DrkSide]

hopefully I can make it

I'm just trying to find the best idea out there

not take me too much time

make me about 3000$ per month

All of the above are huge red flags to me. All I see is "I" and nothing about how you are going to provide a value to your customer base.

 

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[healthstatus]

I'm just thinking of building one.

WHY? there are many forums already built

http://www.mkyong.com/featured/top-10-open-source-forums-in-my-collection/

 

[canadiangal]

All of the above are huge red flags to me. All I see is "I" and nothing about how you are going to provide a value to your customer base.

We're in to help customers and make money, not volunteer.
I want to do something that will fill a need but not for free.

 

[canadiangal]

WHY? there are many forums already built

http://www.mkyong.com/featured/top-10-open-source-forums-in-my-collection/

uhm...wow, I was about to pay a lot of money to get the website built from scratch

 

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[openminded790]

The challenge of starting a forum is like selling the first fax machine.

Haha well said,

I agree with lots of the above points.

- It's not hard at all to make a forum, there's templates to them. My friend built one right next to me in less then an hour lol
- you need many monetizing streams if you want to make decent money from it, (paid/sponsored ads, pitching to email lists, paid membership section, affilaite links, adsense, etc).
- but before all that, you need to give it lots of love, value and nurturing till it becomes something others love!

Good luck

 

[healthstatus]

uhm...wow

You were about to get some free software reskinned for a lot of money.

Advice to all:
When you are about to start a project, use Google,
search for (plug your thing in appropriately):
free forum software
open source forum software
open source facebook clone
customizable dating site software
best customizable forum software

Even if it is not exactly what you want, you can usually test your minimum viable product idea with something already done, or customize from a base product, 9 out of 10 times cheaper than starting from scratch.

 

[BlokeInProgress]

I'll look up Adam Ginsbergs Speedlings and Brett Mcfall

Before looking them up and deciding, I'd suggest going through some of the topics here at the forum about IM. There's a lot of helpful ideas, validations and support that you can get.

All you need is to ask.

 

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[biophase]

uhm...wow, I was about to pay a lot of money to get the website built from scratch

You did not even know that there was forum software out there? This is even more disturbing to me than your other B&M thread post. You just paid $6000 for a website in your previous venture and now you think about starting a forum and want to pay someone to build another? Please, please, go back and learn from your past mistakes... else you are just burning money!!!