How to advertise a forum?

Hello,

Very recently I created a forum (mybb) about IM, affiliates, seo, payment processing, web hoting, etc... very similar with this forum Maybe I'll not earn $10k per month, but lets try.

As my site don't have a very specif theme I don't know what is the best way to advertise or create backlinks for it.

Will blog comenting or article marketing work for it? For example if i write a article aboout web hosting and send to a article directory the visitor will come to my site and will see many other subjects not related with webhosting and maybe this visitor will not return anymore.

What do you think?

 

Promote your forum by asking few of the members like me to post there for signature links as well as you can pay at least $1 per 10 posts. You'll be noticed by Google and easily can get visitors from different parts of the world.

 

You can promote your forum by visiting and joining other forum that are related to your site.Article making can be a useful tool too.

 

to kick start a forum, i would suggest you to hire some professional forum poster because no body likes an empty forum

once you got a sufficient number of posts then you can just sit back and enjoy moderating the forum

 

Forums are good place for forum promotion, you can also do SEO for that and can optimize the forum, for example: computer forum, mobile forum, dating forum etc.

 

Exactly as some said, nobody likes a empty forum, either hire someone/ do it yourself/ get friends to help you kickstart it, post some good content , not the general "post game" shit, nobody likes these, really, it just looks poor when someone comes in and sees your forum.

Advertising wise, you should leverage other forums/blogs/sites on your niche, go to forums, register, and put the Link in your sig, link back as much as you can when you have topics on resembling topics, or people need help, post about it in your forum , and link there, some forums may frown about it though, so be careful, go to blogs, and comment using your forum link etc, if you can run a adwords Campaign also, that should help alot.

 

kittyluver

It can help, but I'm not interested in spend money right now.

khulet22

I'll try it, but I think it's necessary to be very active on other forums.

SSC

I'm planning to start posting some good contents in my site, certainly nobody will visit an empty forum.

Davicito

Somebody knows how to SEO an forum using mybb? I'm using a seo plugin for google, is there any other way to optimize for seo?

Reputation

Yep, it sounds a good way to attract visitors.

I really wanted to know how Shawn Hogan was able to bring huge traffic for this site? Probably because people visit digitalpoint.com and see this forum...

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My target is to make at least $1000 per month until the end of year, do you think is possible to earn this amount of money with a forum?

 

Everything is possible, but it really depends on a few factors, like Niche,Saturation,Profitability(a small Chicken taming forum might be less profitable then a extremely populated Car Selling forum for example, in ways you can extract money from users, these include ads to commissions depending, like how DP works for example with verification etc, though it makes A LOT of money from ads i can assume), obviously the niche and keywords will also effect how much you make with your ads, if you want to talk details etc, you can contact me over PM, and i can tell you what sounds realistic to me.

 

Well you can take help o forum poster for these kind of work.They will surely help you,Actually they will get traffic for your forum and for that they charge small money.

 

My forum is very similar with this one, not a 100% copy, but there are many similarities, so if shawn hogan was really making $10k per month some years ago, my actual target is not impossible to reach.

I have a huge list of places to advertise my forum such as article directory and social bookmarking sites. I'll spend many hours advertising it and building good posts about it.

My first target is to earn 2..4 usd per day and increase gradually.

 

I'll take you up on this offer Kitty. Send me a PM.

 

Surely you should check out the following articles on "Advertising your forum for free", hey I read them, they're very helpful.

http://www.theadminzone.com/forums/showthread.php?t=11274 - how to advertise your site for free
so your advertising isn't doing much for free you?

Also this place has a lot of good articles on forum management, and promoting them: http://www.theadminzone.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=36

 

Can you code? create your own content? Design? If not then you have to hire people to do this stuff? do you
have the cash flow to pay for all this for the next 2-3 years, maybe more, you are not the only one in this market....
there are more seasoned forums that have years of experience over you already....

If you are looking for some quick return, then just stop now and go no futher.

PS

What do you have to offer that can not be found on some 7-10 year old forum?

 

ForgottenCreature

Very usefull tips on these links, thanks.

dscurlock

I can create my own content, and I already startet doing it. I'll not spend one single cent for others doing what i already know. And I'm not a 12 years old kid to believe I'll become rich overnight.

If some people like the owner of this forum is earning thousands per month I can earn at least 10% of what he or some people are earning.

 

I am just saying if you can do your own work then you will be that far ahead of the game.

Since DP does not publish their income report, then I am not going to guess how much they make.
I have seen posts from people with various amounts, and how would they know this? so I am
not going to get into this guess game over how much this forum may or may not make.

 

My main problem is the lack of time, I only have enough time to dedicated for my sites at weekends.

According to this site (from 2006), shawn hoggan says he earns about $10k, unless this is a fake article, he should be earning a bunch of money with adsense.

Also a forum with most of the times during the day with 2000 online vistors and users should be generating a huge amount of money.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/16/technology/16ecom.html?_r=3

 

at first you must need some content so hire some people to add content to your forum .

 

Join relevant forums and use your forum link in signature.

 

I recommend you to do posting on forums for your forum

 

like what everyone has been suggesting, create interesting and relevant content in your forum. Join and post in community boards similar to your niche market, post the link of your forum on your signature.