Earning money with a forum???

[Faldegort]

Hello, I recently started building a forum, and obviously I want to see a way to earn money to be able to pay for my server.

I was reading this and other forums to seek ways of advertising, but I have not found any, in my view, good enough to use:

The forum, among other things, will serve to file sharing what we like (games, movies, books, etc., etc., etc.). This leaves Adsense discarded for me.

My original idea was that before each download there will appear a pop-up or a page with banners, or forcing them clicking on ads, but I think that most companies prohibited this.

So, please, if anyone knows any kind of publicity who thinks that can adjust to my needs, I would be most grateful!
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[madcaptains]

Hi,
most forum gets revenu from sponsor. I do sponsor a few forum and I am not the only one. for sure, you might have to sell sponsorship for really cheap at first beacause you do not have lot of members but once you'll have many members, you could easily sell sponsorship spot for at less $50 to $75 per month.
The more trafic you'll have the more you can ask for sponsorship.

[Faldegort]

and how can i ask for sponsorship'. Where?. Or I just put a free space in the forum saying that the space is for sell...?

[greenfinger]

Originally Posted by Faldegort

and how can i ask for sponsorship'. Where?. Or I just put a free space in the forum saying that the space is for sell...?

You could do both. Open a topic in the Links forum (Webmaster revenue) here on V7N to advertise that you have spots open. You'll need to be picky with what you sell your space for of course. I'm having those difficulties too, actually

[madcaptains]

A agree with the last comment, you should do both. I am also working on this actually.

An idea I had this morning is to sell advertising spot on ebay or something like this. The winner would win a 1 month advertizing on my website. I am still not sure if I can do this. sometime (often) ebay has some hard rules and does not like us to promote an other website (unless it's non commercial). now, I have to see if they consider my site as commercial or non-commercial. All that to say that I might have a big 10% chance do it.

Anyway, if I can do this, I think it could help lot to find sponsor.

I'll tell you if it work

[greenfinger]

Originally Posted by greenfinger

You could do both. Open a topic in the Links forum (Webmaster revenue) here on V7N to advertise that you have spots open. You'll need to be picky with what you sell your space for of course. I'm having those difficulties too, actually

Correction: it's the Links forum in the The Webmaster Marketplace area.

[gregdavidson]

Adsense or selling your ad space is probably the ways to do this. If your forum is just starting off, you should have never purchased a dedicated server.

[khena25]

I think you should start with Adsense or YPN first, then do the sponsorship stuff.

[EasyPPP]

Good advice here. I've wondered about this before, and never considered the sponsor idea. Thanks.

[pallmathu]

some good information.

and how do you determine sponsorship amount.

traffic, number of members? number of posts ? what actually?

[drrtuks]

Since you seem to be categorising your forum into specific areas, you can find an advertiser for each and charge them a fixed amount per month for that page. If you have decent traffic flow, you should be able to find some takers.

[kangbroke]

I use adbrite on my forums, I use the method where certain words become ads, I figure with all the posts there should be many ads all the time. And people will accidentally click often, Also I feel the more ads the more chance of showing one a visitor may want to see

[suzambr]

yes but what the criteria for sponsorship amounts?

and has anyone used affiliate products? like virus scanner etc.. banner

or banner for pay per install thing?

any idea?