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Forum as an automated income

Discussion in 'Forum Management' started by shogunmike, Mar 28, 2007.

  1. #1
    Hi,

    I was wondering whether you guys on here have experience of forums that you've either bought or created to a point such that you can pay someone to administer the site for you and just sit back and take a monthly income stream from the profits?

    Is it actually profitable? Do the admins treat the site as you would?

    I'm wondering because I want to turn one of my older sites into a brand new portal with blog, forum, articles etc, but I'd prefer to pay for all the content (either buy it initially, or pay for it as and when I want it or on a continual basis).

    Does anyone have any thoughts?

    Mike.
     
    shogunmike, Mar 28, 2007 IP
  2. Neptune

    Neptune Well-Known Member

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    #2
    I have a very busy forum and there is no way that I could sit back and let someone else run it for me and reap the rewards. I do have several admins that treat the board as their own. I do not have to pay them, they are volunteers, but they do an excellent job for me. Hope this helps.
     
    Neptune, Mar 28, 2007 IP
  3. SEOBoy

    SEOBoy Banned

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    #3
    You run your own race:D

    Its always better to run and administrate the forum on your own.
    Surely, you should collect a team of people who will be interested in forum topic you are running on.

    Then, there comes many factors.
    Its all on how the next persons might be and so on, with exceptions indeed.
     
    SEOBoy, Mar 28, 2007 IP
  4. Lpspider

    Lpspider Well-Known Member

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    #4
    I would love to have a forum as an automated income... it's possible, just not practical.
     
    Lpspider, Mar 28, 2007 IP
  5. Diether

    Diether Peon

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    #5
    And very hard to accomplish.
    Forums generally are a lot more work to build and maintain then most people think.
    + In general forums don't earn that much.
    If you want to sit back and relax, you better try to create a small site about a specific subject, do some SEO and put some ads on it.
     
    Diether, Mar 29, 2007 IP
  6. ninjashoes

    ninjashoes Well-Known Member

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    #6
    I would never trust anyone to admin my forum. One day they get mad at you, erase all the posts and ban everyone....not very likely but I think you are the only one who can control things how you want.
     
    ninjashoes, Mar 29, 2007 IP
  7. SticKer

    SticKer Well-Known Member

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    #7
    totally agree with u, never know what may happen
     
    SticKer, Mar 31, 2007 IP
  8. shogunmike

    shogunmike Member

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    #8
    I would be happy to pay people to look after it, but I'm just wondering whether there is a profit potential. It seems unlikely from what you guys have mentioned!

    Mike.
     
    shogunmike, Apr 1, 2007 IP
  9. PayItForward

    PayItForward Peon

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    #9
    Nope, no money to be made in forums. Big ones require quite a bit of unix server administration too. Start a business for the passion and money will follow.
     
    PayItForward, Apr 1, 2007 IP
  10. dojo

    dojo Peon

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    #10
    That's all adminss dream, but too few can live off the forums. And to earn a decent revenue you work more than the 9-5 "normal" schedule :D
     
    dojo, Apr 2, 2007 IP
  11. shogunmike

    shogunmike Member

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    #11
    So then why do so many people try starting one to earn an income? Are the forums just secondary to entice people to the main content of the site?
     
    shogunmike, Apr 2, 2007 IP
  12. ninjashoes

    ninjashoes Well-Known Member

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    #12
    what???

    Im glad you are banned because that is wrong, you can make serious money from forums and you dont need unix server administration skills...

    youll pick up how to use ssh and basic html and php skills as the years progress
     
    ninjashoes, Apr 2, 2007 IP
  13. Tikoutikou

    Tikoutikou Well-Known Member

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    #13
    Do not expect to make a lot of money through ads on forum..
     
    Tikoutikou, Apr 3, 2007 IP
  14. ninjashoes

    ninjashoes Well-Known Member

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    #14
    Your ctr will be low but you can still make plenty of money with enough visitors and good ad placement...
     
    ninjashoes, Apr 3, 2007 IP
  15. shogunmike

    shogunmike Member

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    #15
    So what is the primary way to monetize a forum? It would seem to me that the best way would be to attract advertisers within the niche and have banners etc. Is this a good approach?
     
    shogunmike, Apr 4, 2007 IP
  16. Allen

    Allen Peon

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    #16
    Kind of.
    Forums are specific area. It's a community.
    Give them something they would like and appreciate and be given smth back.

    Banners are... ordinary. Try to think of something more, such as subscriptions for forum addons, Partnership Programs, txt/html ads, etc. and integrate it into forums. Be creative.


    Can' really agree with this statement.
    Well, if you are creating forums on your own, as Your Forums, than it's really hard to make it happen, but...


    ...how about being paid for managing other people forums?
     
    Allen, Apr 5, 2007 IP
  17. etali

    etali Well-Known Member

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    #17
    You do have to be creative to make money from forums - most CPM advertisers don't like them, because forums have a lot of pageviews per unique user compared to most sites. There is money to be made though, just it's harder.

    Affiliate programs might work if you can find enough fresh offers to give to your users.
     
    etali, Apr 5, 2007 IP
  18. Skribblez

    Skribblez Notable Member

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    #18
    Hmm I find adsense a pretty good way to monetize. I'm running a forum with 5,900+ members, 100+ members a day, and 1,000+ uniques a day and it's averaging low $xx daily, so yeah.. adsense is pretty good I guess.
     
    Skribblez, Apr 5, 2007 IP
  19. andrej

    andrej Notable Member

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    #19
    That's pretty nice. Congratulations on your success!
     
    andrej, Apr 9, 2007 IP
  20. ninjashoes

    ninjashoes Well-Known Member

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    #20
    Adsense has been working pretty good for me, I dont know what all this bad noise is about forums not creating profit.
     
    ninjashoes, Apr 9, 2007 IP