MAKE MONEY ONLINE WITH FORUMS
Forums are a great way to make money in the long run. Although it is very competitive and difficult to move into the space IF your topic is already somewhat popular but, there is a good opportunity for those who make the first move quickly. A good forum is something the visitor will bookmark and come back to more and more. Users get “hooked” as they find the forum to be a good place for them to get the information they need and communicate directly with others interested in the same subject. Good forums are “very sticky”.
Setting up your own forum is not rocket science. Getting the right subject quickly and getting targetted traffic are the challenging parts. There are plenty of freely available open source solutions that can help you get a good forum system up and running. Additionally, many web hosting companies do provide a visual web based system to get your forum up and running.
Here are some tips to those of you thinking of starting a forum -
· Choose a niche forum and look around the web to first check if there are any forums already out there servicing your niche area.
· Look out for new hot topics or events around which a long term forum can be quickly created that argets a large user base that may be interested in discussing the topic. Fresh topic examples would be -
1) a new movie
2) a new popular television series
3) a global event
4) a new technology
5) a new celebrity
6) a new upcoming rising music band
7) a shocking controversy
a sporting event and so on…
The trick is to hit on a topic that is fresh and new, and then to move quickly.
Also, you must have some interest on the topic and be motivated enough to make postings and keep discussions alive and participate in them over the coming months. Quickly setup your forum software overnight and start making a few initial posts. Then goto online areas where yor potential target visitor is, and make postings with signatures pointing to your forums. Submit your forum link and postings to Google.
Form a small group of about 5 people to help you popularize your forum and plant the initial “seed” topics - that Google will spider. You maintain full admin control of the forum - but get into a deal with about 4 to 5 other people promising them a % cut of ad revenues, once the forum starts earning.
Running a forum alone will mostly not be possible and you will need help of others who can each spare abouy 15 to 30 minutes per day making relevant posts into your forum - so the search engines like Google spider these pages and start directing traffic to your forum.
Two very popular and advanced free forum softwares (or web “scripts” as they are called) you could use are -
· phpbb
· vbulliten
If you are web savvy and are comfortable with basic script configuration and setting up websites, this should be easy for you to get up and running. Otherwise hire someone to set it up and give you the administration links to operate and maintain the forum (its fairly simple). The person should take at most about 30 to 60 minutes to get your forum up and running and install a template theme of your choice. All the above forums will have their own freely available large variety of “themes, “skins” and “graphics” - that you can choose to be the look and feel. You can always change this in the future - but its better to stick to one good theme as visitors will get familiar to your site colors once they keep coming back.
To monetize your forum you will need to insert ads at the top or bottom of each of your pages. Some suggestions are -
· Google Adsense (does not support adult, hacking or controverisal topics) If you have Google ads on your website, they wont let you run ads from another competing similar - Contextual Ads systems - like Yahoo Publishing Network, or adbrite.
· Yahoo Publisher Network
· Adbrite (supports adult, hacking or controverisal topics)
· Kontera (can run this in addition to Google Adsense. This system monetizes words across your website by making thme underlined and clickable. See xyz for an example.
· Auction Ads (displays page content relevant aucitons on Ebay with graphics. Can run with Adsense)
· Amazon Associates Program (displays context relevant books and goods being sold on Amazon)
These are a few tips that you should bookmark. If at some point in the future you sense a particular new topic that has potential to get popular quickly - do your homework, and come back here and get started right away!
