its a question of what comes first the egg or the chicken, till you dont have content not many members will join and till you dont have memebers u will not have content. basically we have to make use of all the possible ways to add content and then make more and more members. in my opinion a forum should be the slowest one to montize. but after maturity it guess it will be steady income will be starting a forum soon will keep you updated on this. cheers money_train
If there is substance in your forum, yes. Otherwise people will leave after the competition unless you start a new one.
i agree with blogmaster. Advertisement Is good also. Personally, i was a paid poster once, and the more you do it, the more you start to like that forum, it gets addicting. Also, i can do graphics, so you could hire me to make you a one of a kind forum. Buttons, and everything.
Don't buy links what ever you do, that's a waste. Temporary SE placement and the site may not even pass PR along since the are selling links. What do you do when the links are gone...
I think a posting contest and a referral program would be a good way for your forum to get off the ground. The rewards should be attractive enough to attract more referrals and also entice those referrals to make posts. You can update your sig. in other forums where permitted with your contest link and caption.
Well if you want, I will offer my services... $.15/post unlimited amount, up to 200 words per post, any topic. I can be a moderator as well. Pay by paypal. Set a order, don't pay till I complete it. Also I will sell a link in my signature!
When you join a forum, what do you look for? Most people join a forum to ask a question. To get a forum going you need a site -- one that gets good ranks on search engines, and a forum sub section. (Your site will be the thing that people find until you start getting good posts in your forum) With active members. Make yourself loads of accounts, and talk to yourself, look at the keyword selector tool, and find keywords in webhosting that people are searching for, and there are not many results. -- then have a lengthy talk with yourself with 10 accounts and fill it with the keyword.. make it look like there is an active community. Pay people if you want, but like already said, make sure the posts your paying for look real. Competitions? Does anyone actually have any good results running one of these on a new forum? "Win an IPOD for joining this forum" -- it almost sounds as dodgy as "Enter your Email for a chance to win", alot of people just see it as ads, so blank it out. webhosting forums are probbly like one of the hardest forums to get going -- look at the ones already going. There are soo many big ones already established with sooo many backlinks and pages. It will be hard. Good look man.