I have two websites; one is a forum that gets the most page impressions and most unique visitors every day. Also, when searched in Google for "...... forum" it comes up 1st. For many other keywords related to the topic of my forum, it is ranked 1st in Google. Yet it makes no money at all. Almost no clicks every day... My other site has a CTR of around 15%, but this one has around 0.30 or something, maybe even lower considering that on some days it gets no clicks at all. well, my ad placement might be problematic, but again, it is too low. So I thought there must be other ways of monetizing forums other than adsense. anyone has any idea???
Post the url of your forum, it will be good for you if you can show because there are so many expert members who will suggest their best.
You should not count on a forum getting a CTR of >1%. Most forum members generate a lot of impressions, but barely ever click on an ad. With a CTR of 0.3% you're doing quite good. May I ask how much this forum makes for you per day?
Well, it doesn't bring me a lot of money. Usually 1$ a day... The thing is that the site is quite new, very very new... But it ranks sooooooo high in Google. I don't understand why it ranks so well, but I believe it is probably because there is no other forum site on the same topic. But again for other keywords related to that very same topic, it again ranks on the first page of Google (usually out of around 1,5 million Google sites for you to have an idea) Also the money per click is around 30c to 40c. (But my content site on the same topic pays around .70c or more per click and has muuuuuuch muuuuuuuuch higher CTR (around 15% at least). So, if it didn't rank high in Google, I would totally and totally remove all the ads from it. But the thing is I am getting almost all my visitors from Google and I haven't really done any link exchange, advertisements etc.
Its a bit strange that people want urgent help but won't share their site, well, I don't know how you expect help unless you let people have a look.
You are answering your own question. First of all, you have a niche and is great that you rank in Google so high, now you need to build traffic, membership and discussions. Don't expect to see quick results, it will take time to build it.
yeah do not expect to see quick results as quick results will only mean quick to lose the accheivements. Try to edit your website a step at a time and see if you made any improvements
Have ads come up after the 1st post. Have random color patterns for the ads (like DP does at the top right). Use both text and image ads. And share your URL!
The ads the poster was referring to were most likely not link units, which is what this forum uses after the first post.
Thanks for the awesome suggestions guys! I especially like the idea of putting links to my other sites. Coz my other sites' CTR is awesome, but they don't have good traffic and good search engine ranking. Since anything on this forum comes up first in search engines, I will probably create some fake topics like "What is the best blah blah?" and then an answer saying "Go to this site, you can find the best blah blah there." So even though my sites that have the presumably best blah blah does not rank well in Google, Google users will find them thanks to my forum which ranks quite well. Why do you guys think it ranks so well? It just has a PR of 1. Wtf? Does that mean that in the next PR update my site might rank like 6?? Coz I heard that even before PR is updated, the effects are reflected on search engine rankings.
danbradster, You know, you ROCK!!! You totally rock!!!! I put the links by using the technique I mentioned above. And now, in like 1 hour I got 4 clicks worth 2$ in total. I linked on my forum to one of my sites that I just prepared, and it does not even have Google existence. Hahaha, maybe I shud just get rid of all the ads on my forum and use my forum to promote my other sites