why start forums?

Hello,
I'd really like to start my own forum. (not digitalpoint-like)
But I've heard ctr is very low...
Now let's say i could have like 100 members hanging around daily.
Would it be worth starting the forum?
Will i have some sort of revenue with that ammount of traffic?
I supose it needs time to maintaine etc...
Thanks!

 

CTR is usually lower for forums; however, if you put in the time, effort, commitment, patience and original content, you can eventually hit a point where these things are produced by your own members shifting your daily duties a bit away from creating content to managing the forum (moderating, keeping people happy, creating the few new categories here and there - though even these things can be helped if you have a few trustworthy members that you can promote to moderators or admins.

I run a good sized forum, revenue is still quite low, but I'm having more fun (and feeling more pride) than I ever could had I gone the route of a static site, or a blog. Forums are underrated, but the ability to create a genuine community composed of strangers who would otherwise never meet is extremely rewarding in itself.

As a bonus, you can always supplement your income with alternate revenue sources: donations, link sales, static product ads (say from Commission Junction), sig link sales....


Most important though: IT WILL TAKE MANY MONTHS TO GET OFF THE GROUND - BE PREPARED.

 

It probably wouldn't be a good idea to start a forum if you have no clue how to make money from them. Forums are more for fun, and for webmasters enjoying running them.

 

if you have 100 members making 30 posts a day its fun or else its not

 

There are many people out there of various type of interest. Now, if everyone finds something valuable in the form of information, friends,money making concepts etc, on your forum, then definitely, members will be here (on your forum), to stay for a long time, if not for ever.All depends upon the life of the forum activity too.

 

never start a forum to make money. ever.

 

Forums until they grow to something getting 0.25 million hits/month cannot expect any revenue.

Just rely on donations and money you want to sped. But once stble, they give you lads of money!

 

The topics and contents need to be good to attract loyal forummers to continue to come back. Moderating the forum will take a lot of time. Yo9u need to spend time to keep the forum going. Best of luck

 

I might go for it anyway.
Because the subject is something I'd love to talk about

 

Start a forum because you love a topic and have something to say. A forum requires a lot of work and monetizes harder than it used to, but you can make it. Passion and hard work and the key ingredients in this

 

Also never give up and stop working on your forum, if you just stop your forum will just die. The amount of forums I have seen be born and die a week after is amazing.

 

yep, the same could be said about blogs too.

 

I run a few forums and one of them is doing pretty good with Adsense. That particular forum is more of a "culture" forum and not technology related, otherwise my CTR would've been really poor.

I agree that passion and hard work is key.

 

Starting a forum is easy, But to make it active is not that easy, U have to put in much of your time & promote the forum & also remember that adsense is not the only way to make money on the forums.

 

Hi All

I agree with most of the posts here. Running a Forum should not be a decision based on making money from it. Forums are great sites to run and you do get a good kick out of it. You should set up a forum on s category that interests you and have fun with running the forum. If it makes a bit of money then that is just a bonus.

Just my 2c worth.

Pete