Turn Your Online Forum Into A Revenue-Generating Web Property January 19, 2015My BusinessOff

Forums are online places where like-minded folks chat and exchange views and ideas on their chosen subject. There are millions of forums online these days. You are bound to find forums on any topic, regardless of how niche or weird it may be.

On a personal note, there are a few forums I use on a regular basis. The topics they cover range from cars to computers. If you decide to set up your own forum, you will doubtless be aware that you’ll need to get people to sign up to it and use it.

After a while, you will have enough users on there to make it a dynamic, friendly and busy place for new visitors to check out. But, as you’re doubtless aware, forums need a lot of time, effort and money to maintain.

Most people tend to pay for the operation of their forums out of their personal cash. But what if you want it to pay for itself and even make you a few bucks at the same time? Monetizing online forums is something plenty of forum owners take advantage of.

So, how do you turn your online forum into a revenue-generating web property? It turns out that there are plenty of options available to you. Here are a few examples of some tried and tested techniques for you to feast your eyes on.

Google AdSense
Seeing banner advertisements in web pages is nothing new. Websites have done this for years to generate some passive income. The thing I love about Google AdSense is that the ads shown are relevant to the website content.

For example, let’s say that you run a gardening forum. If you place a few Google AdSense ads on your forum, you might see ads for tree removal services or special offers on lawnmowers.

Because these ads are relevant to the page content, you are more likely to get people clicking on them. And we all know that you get some money whenever people click on those ads! Forum owners tend to use Google AdSense on their page headers, footers and in forum posts.

Affiliate Linking
Another form of passive income that forum owners love is affiliate linking. It’s something that bloggers have used on their sites for years. And it’s something growing numbers of forum owners are adopting for their web properties.

You might say that affiliate linking is akin to Google AdSense. But there are a few subtle differences. First, you decide what gets linked to the target destination. You could use an attractive banner ad.

You could highlight certain text on your forum posts. There is “plugin” software available that can do this on an automatic basis for you. When someone clicks on an affiliate link, you don’t get paid anything for that click.

The money you earn depends on what your forum user buys from the target site. If you use the Amazon Associates program, you get a commission if your user buys anything from Amazon.

Not all vendors do this, but with Amazon, you also get a commission on other product sales bought at the same time. That means you get paid even if they buy something at the time you didn’t link to.

There are scores of decent affiliate linking programs that you can join. Most are free to join and easy to set up.

Sponsorship
There are times where you might be contacted by a company that wants to advertise on your forum. To give you a real-life example, years ago I used to run a car forum. It was quite a busy forum and had plenty of people posting up each day.

I was approached by a car insurance firm that paid me money to have a banner showing on my forum for a year. One of their competitors also paid me some cash and offered a blanket discount for forum members.

Getting companies to sponsor your forum isn’t that difficult. Particularly if they do all the hard work. You’ll find it hard to approach such companies yourself if your forum is new.

We recommend forgetting this idea until you have a popular web forum. If you only get one person posting a month, work on getting more targeted traffic to your site! Agencies like Today’s Growth Consultant specialize in building online brands. If you want to make some serious cash from your forum, it’s worth the investment.

Premium Membership
As your forum grows, you can start to offer extras to your users. One classic example is to offer a premium membership. In a nutshell, you can charge your members a small amount of money per year in exchange for exclusive features like:

  • Hosting space for their images;
  • Bigger quotas for private messages;
  • Email signatures;
  • Discounts with preferred suppliers;
  • Forum merchandise like stickers and key-rings.

Many forum users will be more than happy to upgrade to premium membership. Not only does it show others they support the site. But it gives them a sense of exclusivity on the forum!

Forum Events
Some forums have annual offline events. In my old car forum, I used to organize annual meets and get-togethers. Forum users would love the chance to meet their online friends in person in a safe and friendly environment.

If you organize forum events, you can charge extra on top of entrance or organizational fees. The extra money you make can either go into the running of the forum, or taken out as an extra income.

A lot of savvy forum owners run their sites like businesses. And if you want to monetize your forum, that’s just how you should be running it! After all; if you want people to spend money with you, it’s your job to give them a reason to do so.

Competitions
Today’s final suggestion to make revenue from your forum is to run some competitions. You could set up an online “forum store” where people get entered into a competition whenever they buy something.

Of course, you need to make sure there is a real prize for people to win for obvious reasons.

Photo by Elwynn | Shutterstock

 

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