Can online forums make you money?

[RazorAzoth]

I see ads and such on these forums all the time, do they make the owners of the forums a lot of money? If you set up forums and put a bunch of ads on them would it make you good passive income? Of course, I'm sure it all depends on the number of visitors to your site, I assume?

Are you allowed to put ads on free forum sites that you set up like freeforums.org and get passive income that way?

 

[RazorAzoth]

Yes, I know that. I'm just asking if you were to set up an online forum from a free hosting site like freeforums.org, would you still be able to place ads on your forum pages to generate income?

 

[f283000]

Yes, I know that. I'm just asking if you were to set up an online forum from a free hosting site like freeforums.org, would you still be able to place ads on your forum pages to generate income?

Free hosting sites will likely put their own adds in your forum that's how they make their money. You will probably have to pay to get your own domain and monthly hosting if you want to have your own ads.

You should look at other ideas to make money. You don't just make a forum and place ads and boom you're finished. It takes years and a lot of work to build a loyal following of thousands of members which is what you would need to make good money from ads. Most sites even with time don't get to that point. To make money from advertising you need serious traffic coming in every day and that doesn't happen overnight.

 

[taiyuu_otoko]

You'll get about one click on an ad for every fifty to a hundred visitors. Each ad click will get you 20 or 30 cents. That comes out to .2 cents per visitor. In order to make a dollar a day, you'd need five hundred people every day.

One dollar a day is 30 dollars a month.

If you want to replace your income, you'll need at least 5K per month. That means you'd need over fifty thousand visitors a day to make 60K a year from ad revenue for one site.

To get a first hand idea of how incredibly difficult that is, head on over to wordpress.com, and set up your own free blog. Make a couple of posts, and then come back in a couple of weeks to check your stats. You'll be lucky to have gotten 20 visitors in that time.

Most people that make a living from ad revenue have spent at least a year building several sites, many times over a hundred, so after a year or two, they've got enough traffic to all their sites to replace their day job income.

It's not that difficult, but when most people think of online income, they think of overnight riches, and not putting a year or two of consistent effort, day in and day out, and they give up pretty quickly.

But at last count, there were over a million people in the US making a living through blogging. They just didn't get there overnight.

It's possible, and simple, just not in the time frame that most people are willing to put up with.

There are several "free" places to build sites which will allow you to "share" revenue, and that may be a good place to start, as it's usually easier, but it will take much much longer that way, as you have to share a portion of your ad revenu with them.

Putting up a decent squidoo page, or most other web 2.0 sites is a good way to do that. At least to get started, and get your feet wet, so to speak.

The problem with free sites, is you are never in control, and they could shut down, sell the site to somebody else, change their ad policy. So once you get the experience of what it takes to make some money, it's best to buy your own domain, and put up your own site/forum etc.

 

[Warrior74]

you would make more money on a subscription based forum. I know of one such forum that charges about 5 bucks a month with about 2000 subscribers. Do the math, follow the money. You have to have something people want and are willing to pay for.

 

[taiyuu_otoko]

you would make more money on a subscription based forum. I know of one such forum that charges about 5 bucks a month with about 2000 subscribers. Do the math, follow the money. You have to have something people want and are willing to pay for.

Yep. If you are young, single, female, with big knockers, you can clean house just by doing web teases.

Or if you are enterprising enough, make your own porno site. There's plenty of couples that only post vids of themselves and make a living.

 

[Amazing]

forums are dead. web 1.0

 

[Alle_Gory]

Yep. If you are young, single, female, with big knockers, you can clean house just by doing web teases.

Or if you are enterprising enough, make your own porno site.

Yup. Or you can supplement your income by putting ads in your signatures advertising things like how to "Seduce women with magic tricks revealed, and bulk up with the best bodybuilding tips."

 

[Mistic]

Think of it this way. How often do click on an add on this site. I have only once, by accident, and sure enough it led me to some crappy seduction site.

No one cares about adds, because they are impersonal, emotionless.

Now, if someone running this site wanted to make more money off of adds, they would have a mod, a well like mod, who is part of the community, with earned respect, to formulate relationships with us, the customers, and recommend links that he personally vouches for.

Think about it. It's a lot of work, but the future of advertising will be much more personal. So, no, it's not passive.

 

[taiyuu_otoko]

No one cares about adds,

Um, there's this big company called Google, perhaps you've heard of them. They made over 23 billion dollars in 2009, the vast majority of which was due to people clicking on those ads that "no one cares about."

 

[RazorAzoth]

you would make more money on a subscription based forum. I know of one such forum that charges about 5 bucks a month with about 2000 subscribers. Do the math, follow the money. You have to have something people want and are willing to pay for.

Wow, that's a $10k a month! I'm guessing it's an adult forum or something? If not, what do they offer that's so exclusive to that forum? Otherwise, I don't see how a forum could charge a month when users can go somewhere else to get the same topic for free.

 

[Warrior74]

Wow, that's a $10k a month! I'm guessing it's an adult forum or something? If not, what do they offer that's so exclusive to that forum? Otherwise, I don't see how a forum could charge a month when users can go somewhere else to get the same topic for free.

Some of these types of forums offer certian things. Mainly Specialized knowledge and direct feedback from experts. Personal consulting, private podcast, custom routines, work outs, etc. It's all about the person offering the service, the new model for making money is expertise and genuineness. If people like you, feel you can get them results and can get personalized service, as well as lead them to their goals, they will pay to be on your site. This goes for almost every niche out there, from finacial consulting, to dating sites to life coaches to weight loss forums to music production.

http://www.webmasterworld.com/forum103/54.htm

 

[lorekeeper]

no.

forums are one of the worst conversion rates in clicking links, most repeat clients will be registered members or lurkers. they VERY quickly determine what an ad is, and then proceed to ignore it.

I can give you a good example. if there is a bright red ad on the top of the page, and it runs for 3 weeks, then for one day you change it to a blue ad, 90% of members will not even notice it.

majority of clicks are from people who have visited your site from search engines.

on a forum, an effective ad has a call to action integrated in it. It's very difficult to start up a (successful) forum.

 

[Mistic]

Um, there's this big company called Google, perhaps you've heard of them. They made over 23 billion dollars in 2009, the vast majority of which was due to people clicking on those ads that "no one cares about."

uh huh. And when is the last time you clicked on an add on this forum. When was the last time you clicked on any add, and then proceeded to buy something?

 

[taiyuu_otoko]

uh huh. And when is the last time you clicked on an add on this forum. When was the last time you clicked on any add, and then proceeded to buy something?

So where does google get all their money?

 

[Mistic]

So where does google get all their money?

You've taken this out of context. The question was can he make money off of adds on a forum. My answer related to how little add clicks happen on forums.

If you count every website out there using add-cents, etc, of course millions of people are clicking on adds. But I doubt it adds up to much for individual websites.

Comparing what the op might make off of one website with what google makes on a mass level is a silly analogy.

 

[taiyuu_otoko]

You've taken this out of context. The question was can he make money off of adds on a forum. My answer related to how little add clicks happen on forums.

You answer was based on YOU not clicking on ads on this forum.

Many people do. It's all about numbers and percentages. I'm fairly certain based on the traffic to this site that the owner makes decent money from people that click on those ads.

The OP wanted to know if he could make money off of forums. The answer is yes, he can. He might need a lot of traffic to make the money he's after, but it is possible.

There are certainly better and easier ways to make money online, but to his question of making money off forums, yes it is indeed possible. With enough traffic to a forum, one that also ranks well in Google for several keyword phrases, you can easily make six figures from internet forums.