Ways to Monetize Your Forum Site

[Blinky]

Hello to everyone. For those of you, who have or planning to have his own forum site, I am giving several way on how to do it. In other words - How to monetize your forum traffic. As we all know forums are social site - niche ones as well as general. Every niche forum has specific and targeted audience, with which you can make great money, if you know it well. Let's begin, shall we?

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1. AdSene - Of course this method is clear for everyone and in most cases is the best for most of the forum owners. And that's why I started with it. If you need more information how to earn money with AdSense, you can read this - Google AdSense – Everyone can make money from online advertisements. Or ask your question in after the post below.

2. Other Advertising networks - You can also try other advertising networks and systems like BuySellAds, Bidvertiser, Chitika, Infolinks, Vibrant Media, Blogads and etc. There is a great number of them out there.

3. Affiliate programs - This is another great way to make some money from your traffic, generated by your forum. This method is recommended for niche forums, as you will have more success there. For example, you run health forum and you put affiliate banners (with your ID), like SellHealth or CashBurners. There are a lot of affiliate programs, you have the chance to choose form thousand.

4. Your own advertising network / CPM ads - One of the best and most popular methods is selling direct advertising - CPM (click per mile). You can easily insert the needed ad spots into your forum as well as into your first post, after it and where you think will be the best place for them. The idea here is not to annoy the visitors and at the same time to work for your advertisers once they buy advertising form you. Here you are the boss - you can sell per impressions (let's say 1000), per period of time, per click, and etc. You should use an advertising system here like OpenX, Google Ad Manager.

5. Selling sticked themes - This method is popular in biggest forums. For most advertisers, this is a great way to add their content there and make it visible to everyone. If your forum is popular and generating a lot of targeted traffic, and you have well-built categories, you can sell them and your sponsors will be happy with that.

6. Membership - You can offer your users feature plan, that they can have with your full forum membership (for example - $40 per year). This is only if you give them something more for those money like PR, customization of your personal profile in the forum, and etc.

7. Selling advertising post / classified ads - One of the best examples here is warriorforum.com, where people pay to publish their offers and ad messages. If you plan to do that, you should know that you have to be a name in your industry or offering really unique product/ service, that most of the people there will be interested to get it

8. Donation - Nothing to explain here. You know that there are communities earning money that way.

9. Selling you own product / service - This is a great idea here. For example, if you run pet forum, you can offer your users different products and services here, like pet furniture, beds, food, clothes, insurance, health care and etc. Some forum CMSs offer systems that could help you - IPB is a great solution. You can also contact some dropshippers here. See more here: DropShipping – Sell products without store them.

10. Links - If you have high PR or tons of traffic, you can think of selling links. An idea is to create section like Partners / Friends, where you can publish the links there.

11. News - If your forum has news / media section, you can offer paid articles / news.

12. Video ad - There are forum systems, that offers this option (VBulletin, IPB). You can easily sell that kind of ads to every advertiser looking for getting views. Making it feature video, or "must see", you can even increase the price.

There are more, but I mentioned only the most popular ones. So, hope you enjoy it and will wait for your comments.

Proudly provided by Rocksatedy

 

[Blinky]

Please, visit Your Favorite Forum CMS and give your vote. Thanks in advance.

 

[Rock]

От: Ways to Monetize Your Forum Site

WoW, glad to be seen as a contributor Btw, as a forum owner, I can say that this type of website offers almost all varieties of monetization and in other hand - it's really cool to have one great community

 

[Blinky]

WoW, glad to be seen as a contributor Btw, as a forum owner, I can say that this type of website offers almost all varieties of monetization and in other hand - it's really cool to have one great community

The worst part of the making money process is placing the right ads in your forums system. The way your visitors will see them and bring on some interest in order to click or do another action. Yes, forums and other social sites are the best if you want to spread the word to a group of people with similar interests. And that is the most effective marketing you can think of. Why, well your product/service/brand is getting more and more popular in your niche. Your niche is basically the people that form the market.

According to my personal experience, most big forums use AdSense, Chikita, BuySellAds and some other ad platforms. Well, there also provide services and products for their members, such as premium membership, paid PR, sponsored thread in the Marketplace (most forums have such section), links or whatever you want as an ad format. I have also seen an video, that started in the beginning of open an specific thread of the forum. For example, you are a SEO company and your forum has such a section named after this and before the user enters the thread or the section the video starts playing. Cool....that's a smart solution for your clients and annoying for your members.

 

[Brum]

WoW, glad to be seen as a contributor Btw, as a forum owner, I can say that this type of website offers almost all varieties of monetization and in other hand - it's really cool to have one great community

In most forums I have been writing and keep doing it, I notice that the most popular method is AdSense. But, to be honest, if you want to earn good money from your forum, it should be big one. Direct ads are also popular method to make money.

An interesting fact, is that forums are the middle element between normal sites and social medias. I think that they are the perfect tool to collect useful information. And that's why their owners deserves good ROI for their work and knowledge of how to manage it.

In the end I will mention the best way to increase the sign ups - Providing value, giving something free away. That's it....and yes, you need to tell the world about that.

 

[masyquc]

От: Ways to Monetize Your Forum Site

I've been looking for this information for weeks, I have a forum, but it makes next to nothing right now even though it has a lot of unique visits. Thanks!

 

[Brum]

What forum do you run? What is the main topic there? How many visit does it have per day?

If we know the URL, will be great. Can suggest you something. But you have already noticed it - the traffic is the most important element of the total amount in the end of the month.

 

[Rock]

От: Ways to Monetize Your Forum Site

It depends. Some forums have donate/contributor option and the users pays just for being grateful (something almost impossible in Bulgaria) and the income from this cannot be compared with Adsense Forums have maybe the biggest variety of monetization.

 

[Blinky]

Yep. Forums have a lot of options to make some money from its visitors. But as I wrote, the traffic it the main thing you should chase, if you want to earn some good money here.

 

[Brum]

Re: От: Ways to Monetize Your Forum Site

It depends. Some forums have donate/contributor option and the users pays just for being grateful (something almost impossible in Bulgaria) and the income from this cannot be compared with Adsense Forums have maybe the biggest variety of monetization.

Forums have many ways to turn their visitors into members, as well as into some cash.

The best thing about forums is members and their ability to grow the site by providing quality and fresh content every single day. This is the way they say "thank you". No money involved. Just helping the community and keep growing it.

I am part of many forums and the biggest have great ways to earn from their visitors - members and guests.

For example, Digital Point Forums is differently than other paid forums or paid to post programs. In this great forum (not so great right now, because of the traffic), you are not paid for posting or starting new threads. Instead of that, any thread you participate in has a chance to show ads that earn you money to your Adsense account. It is called Adsense revenue sharing program. For thread you start, your Adsense client ID will be used 50% of the time when the thread is viewed as a thread; and it will also be used 50% of the time when the thread is viewed by post (and you made the post). This is a great way to grow your community fast. No matter if you are the forum owner or some of the members there.