Forum Revenue

**Cricket** · 10-16-2009, 04:26 PM

For those of you running a forum, what methods have you found to be most effective for increasing revenue?

dWhite · 10-16-2009, 04:34 PM

We use Google Adsense on Helping Webmasters, but we really don't make alot of revenue from it. It's hard using banner advertising related stuff due to the increasing number of people switching over to Firefox and having Adblock Plus installed, and Google Adsense being one of the types of ads that is blocked.

**juliensimon** · 10-16-2009, 04:53 PM

how about asking for donations?

**alter-ego** · 10-16-2009, 07:48 PM

This is an interesting topic and I'd love to hear the suggestions that come from it. I currently use adsense and really hate the conversions I see with it. I average between 50 - 100 clicks/month (which isn't a ton) but at around $.10/click, the revenue gained isn't all that great.

CyberWizard · 10-16-2009, 10:35 PM

I have seen a lot of webmaster forums add revenue sharing to their forum. I think that this would definitely increase the amount of traffic that is coming to their forum; therefore, increasing their revenue.

**robjones** · 10-17-2009, 09:58 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by CyberWizard

I have seen a lot of webmaster forums add revenue sharing to their forum. I think that this would definitely increase the amount of traffic that is coming to their forum; therefore, increasing their revenue.

If you're giving away revenue in order to build traffic for the purpose of increasing revenue... there are statistical limits on the effectiveness of such a strategy.

If the ratio of revenue distributed compared to traffic increase is optimal it is *possible* it could work... but the amount of increased traffic required to make income expand while giving away part of it is huge. I dont have the traffic numbers here or the revenue figures, but you could plug those into optimization formulas to get the numbers required and I'd predict them to be prohibitively against such a plan.

The only way I'd see that plan working is in conjunction with other revenue streams that increase with traffic... such as paid features for members or premium memberships. As a standalone strategy I'd find it untenable.

Yeah... I had way too many stat classes in an earlier day.

**Muddy** · 10-17-2009, 10:11 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by robjones

If you're giving away revenue in order to build traffic for the purpose of increasing revenue... there are statistical limits on the effectiveness of such a strategy.

If the ratio of revenue distributed compared to traffic increase is optimal it is *possible* it could work... but the amount of increased traffic required to make income expand while giving away part of it is huge. I dont have the traffic numbers here or the revenue figures, but you could plug those into optimization formulas to get the numbers required and I'd predict them to be prohibitively against such a plan.

The only way I'd see that plan working is in conjunction with other revenue streams that increase with traffic... such as paid features for members or premium memberships. As a standalone strategy I'd find it untenable.

Yeah... I had way too many stat classes in an earlier day.

I think you're spot on here. I can't see the numbers working.

CyberWizard · 10-17-2009, 11:44 AM

My suggestion would be to make a member pay, for example, $5 per month to share, for example, 35% of your revenue. That way you could have a more steady income. If you have 1000 members signed up to pay through PayPal subscriptions each month, then you can be pretty confident in the amount of money you can make. I am currently in the process of writing a mod PayPal subscriptions/membership.

**htmlbasictutor** · 10-19-2009, 01:28 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by CyberWizard

I am currently in the process of writing a mod PayPal subscriptions/membership.

Why are you doing this? There is one around for vBulletin. Did you find it and see if it can be adapted to the forum you want to use if for?

(have no idea what it is called. Just know it's around because I belong to a vBulletin forum by PayPal subscription.)

CyberWizard · 10-19-2009, 12:27 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by htmlbasictutor

Why are you doing this? There is one around for vBulletin. Did you find it and see if it can be adapted to the forum you want to use if for?

(have no idea what it is called. Just know it's around because I belong to a vBulletin forum by PayPal subscription.)

There is also one for phpBB that I am going to be able to adapt to my software better. It stills lacks (of course) some of the features of the vBulletin Paypal mod but I will have to work on that

edosauyi · 10-19-2009, 01:23 PM

Most forums that i have came across always have adsense on them and this may be a good source of income for their owners.

**LeeD** · 10-19-2009, 02:02 PM

CPM ads have always done well on our communities.

Forum sponsorships, newsletters, and programs like Kontera and Vibrant Media are nice as well.

CyberWizard · 10-19-2009, 02:21 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by LeeD

CPM ads have always done well on our communities.

Forum sponsorships, newsletters, and programs like Kontera and Vibrant Media are nice as well.

That is what I am more into as well. I tend to stay away from Adsense, AdBrite, etc. because there are way too many other ways to make a lot more money from ads than using them.

pvignola · 10-19-2009, 03:17 PM

For you folks that are making any money from your forum how many post are in your forum and how many do you average a day also how much traffic do you average? I am trying to figure out where I need to be as far as post / traffic to make any money at all via any of the methods described in this thread.

CyberWizard · 10-19-2009, 05:20 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by pvignola

For you folks that are making any money from your forum how many post are in your forum and how many do you average a day also how much traffic do you average? I am trying to figure out where I need to be as far as post / traffic to make any money at all via any of the methods described in this thread.

I would not worry as much about posts as I would traffic. SEO is the number one tool for getting traffic to your website. A lot of people worry about the number of members on their forum when worrying about money. However, if you take a look at v7n right now you will see that their are about 100 members and about 8000 guests online. That is because they are well-indexed in search engines and have good keywords, meta tags, etc.

pvignola · 10-19-2009, 05:23 PM

That's a good point. I am just trying to get as much info as I can about generating dough. I think it would be best to keep the site free of adds for a while so as not to annony the potential members.

CyberWizard · 10-19-2009, 05:30 PM

I always keep my websites free of ads until they reach the point I want them to be at in regards to traffic and then I add the ads

pvignola · 10-19-2009, 05:32 PM

Great so it seems I'm on the right track. I would guess it will be 6 motnhs to a year for my forum. I hope it will be less but time will tell.

CyberWizard · 10-19-2009, 07:15 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by pvignola

Great so it seems I'm on the right track. I would guess it will be 6 motnhs to a year for my forum. I hope it will be less but time will tell.

The trick is to just not get discouraged. I see so many admins shut down there forum because it's not growing as fast as they want or not making as much money as they want.

pvignola · 10-20-2009, 05:23 AM

I plan to be in this for the long haul. I know it takes time and patience to grow a successful forum