I am looking for tips/advices on how to monetize this work from home forum. The forum helps people find ways to earn money from home. It's fairly and has been steadily growing. I don't know whether it is time to try to earn money from it or if I should let it grow some more before trying to monetize it. Let me know what you guys think.
You can always put adsense ads on it they are pretty unobtrusive. There are also others like bedvertiser that might work for you. donrock
Join a work from home business that you can advertise on your site and inform all new memebers. A good one would be the one in my signature.
All thats 2nd level marks that wont make you much at all.. Build up a paid members section that has everything you need for these small businesses.. ie basic legal docs, etc.. Then charge $3.95 a month for access to that section. 10% of 400 users is 40 users x 3.95 $158 a month, and your really at the very very bottom of forum members levels.. take them numbers up to 15,000 and your starting to get some moving room. For the time if you make any money, you better put it back into the forums. You main goal is to accelerate the number of active members any way you can as fast as you can.. Get in your head that your goal is to get the site over 1 million active users a month, within 5 years. Even if you can or cant get that many in 5 years, you get the idea.. its like running for the buyout. Find customers anywhere you can as fast as you can, and the site will explode with more users that you did not pull in, as well as, money.
I guess you have a site that has a fair bit of revenue potential. Instead of adsense, I guess affiliate marketing might work well for you. Your can comfortably promote affiliate programs that pays for 2nd tier affiliates. Ie, someone joins the affiliate program clicking your link and you earn a small fraction of what they earn. You can promote web hosting, ebooks on get rich easily theme , membership in all affiliate networks(that supports 2 tier), freelance sites(scriptlance etc. pays you for both webmaster and freelancer accounts). Instead of traditional banner ads, you can promote via sticky threads probably one each in each section. You dont even have to hide the fact that you are giving an affiliate link. If you are talking about a great new way to make money, your members wont mind even if you earn from it. Ofcourse you need to concentrate in getting more members, but I wont recommend making it paid site. There are hell lot of free info on net, dont turn away your potential members.
In my view, let it grow some more. get more popular and more visitors .then try to monetize it. then you will be successful. at this stage keep it promoting more and more.