Hello, I was planning to start a new SEO forum with myself providing expert advice as well as hiring other SEO's to answer the questions of others. Some of my concerns are 1. Since this is a new forum will introducing paid membership ward off users? the reason I decided to go paid is because I am paying staff memebers who are real SEO experts. 2. Is it better to build a community and then introduce paid membership just as warrior forum or digital point?
Paid Memberships will defintely ward a lot of visitors away. You might keep a small percentage. Look at expert-exchance, they have great answers and really great experts, but most users do not want to pay when they can find the answer somewhere else for free. Community is always the best route to go. The only way I see someone paying for your services is if you are offering something no one else is. Tools, Programs, Special in-depth classes, webinars, etc.... Not sure if DP will even like you bringing up this topic.
I was planning on the following for providing value. 1. A free ebook on SEO for all member's 2. Ask the expert section where they can get answers from real expert SEO staff who have hands on experience on doing things. 3. For all new members joining in one free keyword research for their website/client, one free detailed SEO report for their website/client. 4. Occasional discounted products by tie ups with seo software providers. 5. Free MRR SEO scripts etc I see that seobook.com has been a huge success. But then again it has a huge brand name with it. I was planning on maybe 10$ for a year's membership. This was also a method I planned to avoid forum spam. DP linking this topic, well I wouldn't mind Shawn sharing his thoughts about this topic. I don't think there would be any problem because I don't remember reading in DP rules not to promote other forums. Besides mine is not even started and is a niche forum. Cant even think of competing with DP because it is the biggest webmaster forum (As far as I know)
I think it is a good idea. I would tend to lean towards having a free SEO forum like DP that anyone can be a part of. You could then have a "gold" members area for people that have paid to be taken by a professional SOE's hand and then told exactly what they need to do to get the results they wish for. If business is lean in the "gold" area, you can have your paid SEO's post articles in the general forum and answer small questions here and there. If someone requests a great deal of help in the free forum, one of your SEO's can advise them to come over to the "gold" area (for a price) and get all the help they need. I see this behavior in DP and other SEO forums where a professional SEO will only answer a difficult or involved question only up to a certain point then state, "If you need more information this would require a complete site analysis and thus a chargeable service, please PM me if you are interested." Or something to that effect. Good luck and let us know if you go through with it.
Nice idea. Had this thought once. I think it would be better for building a community plus the added chance of more subscribers once the community grows. Thanks a lot... More ideas on launch would be welcome.