Ultimate Forum Starting Guide. (Forum Starting, Marketing, etc)

Hey.

Alot of people are always asking on how to start a forum, where to go for help, how to get members and how to start earning from your forum.

I am going to keep this nice and short and hopefully you guys can get the idea i am trying to display.

What kind of forum software i should use?

There are many free forum softwares out there such as phpbb, but i dont recommend them or use them. These free forums are good for starting out but they dont have the modifications, mods, skins, etc that will support you in the long run. I recommend IPB or VB as your forum software, because first of all they are great softwares, with great amount of support, they have great amount of mods, skins, etc.

What kind of niche you should start on?

Read this carefully - Pick a niche that you have interest in. If you do not have an interest in the forum and niche YOU ARE NOT GOING TO MAKE AN ESTABLISHED FORUM. Forums require alot of time and if you dont have interest than you will not be feeling the enthusiasm in working with it. Your niche can be anything, webmaster, music, movies, etc, do not look at the competition, just start your own forum and eventually through your hard work it will be made successful.

How should i make money?

Earning from forums is difficult. You are not likely to earn alot from forums as you are from a normal website. You can earn by selling banners on your forum. I sold about 5 banners on my forum for $60/month each, which is a good amount per month to be earning on forum. But my price is $60/month because my site currently gets 4000 uniques per day, and i have a database of 30,000+ users in the forum. So you can imagine that how active the forum will be. The more active it is, the more you charge for the banners and links.

There are other ways in advertising on forums aswell:

• Text Links
• Announcements in forum
• Sticky Topic
• Reply under each thread
• Banners
• Paid membership
• Adsense
• Contests

How to get members?

This is the hardest part. If i, come to your new empty forum, i am not going to stick around. I will probably leave and join some other forum that is samelike yours but the activity is higher. So what you have to do to attract users to stay in your forum.

Do the following to keep your forum active:

• Revenue sharing
• Contests
• Paying your members somehow
• Paying posts/threads
• Pay people to make posts, etc

Conclusion:

So, get a good forum software such as IPB or VB. Make a forum that you have interest in, so you are likely to work on it longer and harder. Start some contests and revenue sharing so members stick around and not leave the forum. Earn by selling banners, links, etc.

Why should you listen to me?

I have owned a forum for 3 years now, my forum has 30,000+ users, with 200000+ posts, and 50000+ topics. The best part is when the forum is active and running, it becomes on AUTOPILOT, and you dont have to do anything on it. I havent touched my forum in about a month now and its running by itself.

I hope my post has benefit you in anyway.

If you found my post useful, dont hesitate to give some reps.

I wish you good luck on your journey.

Proximity.

 

I completely disagree with this statement. I have 5 message forums from SMF, phpBB3, to IPB and like them all. I like SMF because of the SMF mod and how easy it is to operate and I like phpBB3 for how sleek it is.

I used vB and just didn't like it and the mods are wayyyyy overpriced.
SMF is probably my favorite, it's free, skins are free, mods are free and google SERPs love it.

 

EXCELLENT point. Me too think exactly like you

If you start looking at other forums/sites/blogs you will find thousands of others, and EVERY niche has been touched and people have made sites on that niche so you will never make a site because others have already made it? no way, you just go and start your own and try to serve differently and better than others. This is the beauty of internet and online business.

No, MrSandMan, he is right. Free forums are good only for start. But when you grow you should upgrade your forum.

Me too running a forum on phpbb but its very new, less than a month old. but I have started saving money for VB license cause soon the forum will grow so I should give my members a better software to use.

 

This is out of proportion, this means your threads only have 1 reply each.

100,000 topics + 1 reply for each thread = 200,000 post. 200,000 post is not a lot of post for a forum 3 years old. In fact, its kinda slow.

Your member to thread & post ratio is out of proportion. With 30,000 members, you should have more like 600,000 post, not 200,000.

This is my forum stats at 16 months - Threads: 22,291, Posts: 240,766, Members: 6,217, Active Members: 1,971

Notice the 22,291 threads as compared to 240,766 post. This means that each thread has more then 10 replies each. As compared to 1 reply on your site.

In my experience, its easier to make money off of a forum with paid memberships, as compared to selling ads. Also, you did not mention section sponsorship, where forum owners can sell a sticky in their busy sections. If you really used vbulletin, you might have mentioned selling announcements as a section sponsorship. Depending on traffic, I have seen a single sticky or announcement sell for $30 a month.

"Do not look at the competition???" Huh?? Look at what they do, and do it better.

Some of your information is ok, but its also misleading.

 

Sorry, there are 50,000 topics in my forum, i dont know where the 100,000 came from

Yes, selling memberships is another idea, such as allowing members to access more exclusive content of the forum by paying a small amount of fee every month.

Do not look at the competition, i meant that you should start your forum from your interest and NOT by looking how saturated the market is.

My forum niche is OVER SATURATED in the market, but still i managed to create an established site, because it was through my interest, and it motivated me to work on it more.

When your site is big enough, you would want to switch over to a board which has more features, etc, such as VB or IPB.. and switching will cause you alot of problems and loss in traffic, so its better to start with a forum software that has great support.

These are some comments/points i decided to share with the community, but everyone has their prefers.

Thanks for your comments

 

Must be nice to run a large forum. My forum is tiny One day I hope for it to be much bigger but at the moment I'm not sure what to do. I know I need a new skin, and thats about it. See it here

 

here what i am looking for. thank you!

 

For large communities, i would recommend IPB or VB.

 

I am happy to visit your thread. really good information i got here.

 

Yes, your absolutely right... as it will cause alot of problems with free boards when your site gets big.

 

I've always found that it takes a long time between starting off and making a forum profitable. As a new forum, advertising tends to put people off joining so you need to wait until the forum is well established before even thinking about making a profit from it, IMO.

 

great information. thanks you for sharing...

I currently run 5 vBulletin forums. None that are really active....one gets traffic but not much action!

I am interested in how do implement these

I have tried the contest thing....but that did not seem to KEEP members there or active.

Love to hear more detail on these or what you would recommend specifically or resources.

Peace, DJ Bill

 

Thanks for the replies.

Revenue sharing is a mod on VB that you can easily install. It will be like the one we have on DP, you set how much percent you want to keep for youself and how much percent you want to share with your members. This way your members will earn by keeping active.

Contests, well it has to be contests of things that people are really looking for. Lets say you have a forum about GTA IV, and you offer the winner a brand new dvd of GTA IV plus some extra cash to spend.. this will boost your forum activities aswell.

Paying members to post, there are alot of people that are willing to post on your forum for a few cents per post.. you can pay them and build some content around your forum.

Thanks.

 

Hey Proximity - what's the url of your forum? I'd be interested in taking a look.

 

I am sorry, but for some reasons i will not share the link here.

Thanks

 

i guess ill try paying people to post as i only have 20 members in 2 months and like 4 active members

 

Yes, thats a good way to start.. it will help the new users stick around as there will be some content on the forum.

 

Thanks for the information TS, I really need this tips to start my own forum.

Regards

 

Nice tips giving an overview for us fourm starters.

Picking the forum software is very important in my opinion. Since our target is existing forum users, we have to go for the ones that are most popular; that was user will always feel like home, not lost.

Revenue sharing helps, nothing biggy though.

The most important thing about any forum is the environment of the forum. If its friendly, helpful people would love to stay there and bring in more people.

 

Yes, the most important thing is the forum software. Use a software that your most comfortable with, and easy to use, and most of all it has got great support. Your going to be having alot of problems with the forum software in the beginning and with not the right type of support avalaible, your going to be wasting your time. Thats why i prefer if you save money to buy a VB or IPB as they are good looking softwares as of now.