Forums - Are they 'profitable'? What's the key?

I've got an 'idea' for a forum, which is pretty generic (the idea atleast), but I can't find a forum specifically like it really.. But to even try it out, the license and domain will cost me around $90, and that's just a year.

So first i'd like to know, how profitable are forums? How many forums make 'profit' and to what degree?

Also how can I find out if a similar forum already exists, other than searching google?

Finally - (Broad question, maybe stupid too).
What elements of a forum would you say lead to success? What are 'must haves' for a successful forum in this day?

Thanks,

-nMx

 

It depends on the subject. But you can make thousands of dollars per year with a forum.
Google ads, selling links, selling ads,...

 

Forum business is profitable.But u need to wait a long before getting earnings.And the major thing is that u need a big crowd in the forum for people to get attracted.

First think abt the category of forum.
Hire posters
Market it

 

I've got a question now that's probably impossible to answer, but worth trying -
How 'big of' a forum would you require to be earning in the region of $40,000 a year. Is it even possible? Any examples of forums that earn in that region?

Also how often do many forum owners go before making a profit? And is $200 budget suffice to market a forum to a large audience?

-nMx

 

Why not start with PHPBB or SMF? They're both free, and that way you have nothing to lose. I use SMF and it's fine so far. You could always convert to VBulletin in the future if the forum it profitable

 

It really depends what the forum is about and how you promote them. If you launch "yet another sports forum" or yet another "general talk" forum your chances are low to get the word out. What you need to do is finding some friends who help you out by posting every day, market it , try to exchange links etc and keep it active. Today, a forum doesn't just grow itself and if you are not active enough it will most likely fail.

 

Forums are hard to moderate and takes too much time but the content is created by the members.

 

Forums are notoriously difficult to launch. It requires immense member loyalty and requires the presence of experts. It's worth it if you can make it, but the number of failed forums is staggering.

 

Whether or not it sounds stupid - but imo I have belief that if I started with 'free' software it'd fail to begin with, as i've already lost the proffesional look. 'Start as you plan to go on', I guess living by that saying I just can't use free software. ( Again I don't know if that sounds dumb, but it's just how I feel. )

Well this forum would be pretty general, but broad too - as i've said I havn't yet found something exactly like it.

 

It is like any other site. If you have the traffic you can make good money with adsense ads and affiliate programs.

Forum that makes 40,000 a year. Your on one that makes more.

 

My forum is just starting and already doing well but I have the advantage of it being a forum to my magazine which gets a good amount of traffic so I linked reviews to the message board so fans go from the cd review of there artist to the board to leave feedback and so on. A forum like Digital Point makes a lot of money a year tho

 

Its very hard to get a forum successful, partly due to the incredibly high number of available forums currently out there (your competition).

It requires a lot of hard work and dedication in the beginning. Some people get around this by paying people to post/sign up.

I'd recommend that you start off with a free forum software like SMF or phpBB before paying out for something like vBulletin. Atleast that way if it does fail (may do), you won't lose out on costs.

Also, its worth noting at this point that the summer season is a bit of a dead zone for forums. Maybe its better to set one up in late autumn when more people are indoors on their computers.

When you do start, if your using a free forum software but have some money to spend, try starting off with a good competition. That always makes a buzz. Also get friends and likeminded individuals to help sign up and post a bit.

It will eventually grow.

Good luck

 

My honest sugession ,on my experince
dont try to invest in forum unless you are a very dedicated and have huge budget