Hi everyone, I have thought of an idea to create a forum (sorry, not telling you my idea ).. Would just like some help getting it started. I'm leaning towards creating the forum in vBulletin The forum will have a small trading forum down the bottom of it, for buying/selling items which the forum is directed towards (still a secret sorry..) What legal implications should I be aware of if I am going to allow some trading in my forum? Is it enough to just have a sticky with the rules for the trading forum?.. I aim to get my forum up and running with an average of approximately 50 people simultaneously online within the first 4-5 months, and 70-80 people within 9-10 months. What methods are best for: a) attracting more members? b) making some money without ruining the professional look of the website? (Willing to spend up to $80/month to help get it started if it will be worth it in the long run..) Also, can anyone give me a very rough idea of how much money you think I could make from having a banner in the top-right corner of the forum, and allowing advertisers to post specials in their own 'Sponsor Specials' forum? (I won't put these sorts of ads in until I have a decent sized customer base first..) Lastly, I am not expecting to make money on the website within the first year or so.. However, what financial inputs are required besides: - domain name - server - vBulletin subscription - perhaps some advertising (as above) All help, feedback and criticisms are welcomed and appreciated. Thanks Jonno PS: I am in Australia if that has any relevance..
Income is dependant on traffic. Personally i would steer clear of a forum. Ive tried about 6-7 forums and all but 1 failed. Only 1 succeeded and that was due to things outside of the forum. As for costing you have it pretty much spot on, maybe some paid posting also to get ti a little busier.
Forums are the most difficult kinda of websites to get off the ground if you dont have the determination or the money to get the forum off the gorund dont bother starting it. You dont always need paid posters if you can attract viewers or have friends that can contribute. you can spend the money on advertising that will help more
My personal recommendation for you would be to get a good design, and a unique concept for your forum.. Then your all good to go I guess.. Next step is Optimizing your website (seo etc.) Good luck.
I'm at the other end of the spectrum. Anyone can start a forum and should try. You would advertise or promote your forum the same wat you would with a website. Create blogs, answer comments on other peoples marketing blogs then redirecting them to your forum. People are more than happy to advertise on a forum even if it's not getting must traffic to start off with. No forum started with thousands of members. Like anything it takes time.
Forums are hard to start because it requires users who can respond to posts. What you should do is to find any other similiar forums and see if you can try and get those users to join your forum. With no regular users the forum is never gonna take off.
Sweet. The idea of posting on forums/blogs and directing them to my website is good.. Any other ideas or resources I can use for some advertising? I'm new to the game Also, what legal implications do I need to put in place for the trading forum?..
Sweet. The idea of posting on forums/blogs and directing them to my website is good.. Any other ideas or resources I can use for some advertising? I'm new to the game Also, what legal implications do I need to put in place for the trading forum?..
just whack a big notice which states your not responsible for any trades which go on, you are just offering a place in which to conduct business. Please use due care when trading. Very vague but covers the basics.
Any more advice for legal implications and feasibility of the forum? (based on my predictions of the members..)
Over the years, I have helped start over 50 forums and have acquired as least twice that. First off, let me say that if you are going to do it to make money then you are probably going to be very disappointed. Forums are expensive, time consuming and often loose money directly. The only time they generate any real money is if they are tied to something else which is the money maker. It’s called a loss leader and is something most people don’t like to hear. My advice would be to take something that makes money or could at least, i.e. an ad network, consulting services, marketing tools, ebook, whatever and attach the forum to that but don’t expect to have the forum itself profitable because there is a 99.999% chance that it wont be. Second to that, don’t make the mistake to assume that it will ever be on “auto†pilot. So many times people assume that if they just build up enough users and have a few good mods that it will run itself but it never does. 98% of your traffic comes from 2% of your users and what’s unfortunate is that often times those active users either move on, lose interest or just get frustrated with something. It’s very rare to have strong and loyal users but you will get some if you are lucky but it will be few and far between. The trick is going to be to be fair, honest and direct with your users and provide great content and a reason to come back. Finally and this is a mistake I have seen time and time and time again. You have to start out with content, no way around that and paid postings are going to be the only way to do that fast. So often forum owners assume that paid posters will stick around because they will like the place but they don’t know matter what they say. Paid posters are there to do a job, most will not even do that but don’t expect paid posters to stick around. To sum it up, give people a reason to come back, give users value and don’t expect to turn a profit from the forum itself.