We all know that there are many types of sites which can generate income for us (i.e. blogs, static sites, community sites) and some require a lot more maintenance than others.

The higher the money made:time spent ratio the better with the ideal situation being one where a community of people keep the site updated with little work required by the administrator right?

I don't run a high-traffic forum, but it seems that maintaining a forum and all the moderating involved is a lot of work. So where is the money made:time spent ratio for forums on a scale of 1 to 10 with 10 being optimal?

You make contact with other members. The more people who read your posts the more that will look at your business. And its fun

Originally Posted by eggman2001

We all know that there are many types of sites which can generate income for us (i.e. blogs, static sites, community sites) and some require a lot more maintenance than others.

The higher the money made:time spent ratio the better with the ideal situation being one where a community of people keep the site updated with little work required by the administrator right?

I don't run a high-traffic forum, but it seems that maintaining a forum and all the moderating involved is a lot of work. So where is the money made:time spent ratio for forums on a scale of 1 to 10 with 10 being optimal?

I give it a two

It depends on your target demographic. More does not necessarily mean better.

Originally Posted by fredliz

You make contact with other members. The more people who read your posts the more that will look at your business. And its fun

I have to agree with this. It's hard to chart, but one of the major benefits to a site where you interact with the members directly is in the contacts. One motivated contact with your interests in mind can do more for your business than a million page impressions.

Forums can make money when they are in a good niche, and have big visibillity-activity.

My opinion is that forums are harder to make money than blogs or content sites, and they require much more work.

not realy, if the forum popular and a lot ppl online, i think can earn a lot.

Originally Posted by Nikolas

Forums can make money when they are in a good niche, and have big visibillity-activity.

My opinion is that forums are harder to make money than blogs or content sites, and they require much more work.

Agreed completely.

It is work all the way from the start.

When my forum started becoming active, I thought I was free to not get involved all the time just to keep the forums going. Well, I was wrong. Sure I don't have to post all the time anymore, but people need moderation. People get out of hand on the forums and that could really hurt a community.

Work work work :taz:

yeah, forums are high maintenance so if you are new to the forum business or making money off the web as a whole then start on a topic that interests you, thr is no point making a money forum if you dont understand tax and stuff like that.

I make about $20 / month through adsense with a skyscraper on the left nav. It is a motorcycle website. With better ad placement I could do a little better. This site (Earners Forum) is a great example of how to monitize you forum. I will use a few of the techniques used here. Thanks Earners Forum!

The real money has come from the connections I have made and the parts distribution deal that came from these contacts. I will soon use the forum to advertise my distribution business. The users are all my target customer.

As far as the work involved, I have been successful in keeping the peace on my forum. If you take care of your core users they will help you with passive policing.

It is not to hard to disarm a thread before it gets out of hand. Set the example a few times and remind people that emotion is not easily communicated in the written word and things are easily misread as attacks. Your high volume posters usually pick up on it and help you.

Of course, I don't get more than 800 visits / day and < 1000 users. We will see what happens when the forum grows.

I think a forum can be anywhere along the scale. They're high maintainance, for example, but some forum owners are lucky enough to have volunteer moderators who take care of a bulk of the work. The revenue can be all over the place too. With Adsense alone, I have forums that do $0.50 eCPM and I have ones that do $5.00 eCPM. And, Adsense is maybe the fifth best way to monitize a forum, the others vary as much or more.

Hello eggman2001,

I agree that one of the main advantages of a forum is the relationships you build and the exposure your business gets. I agree that forums do require a lot of work, first to get people to come to it, then after it's established with regulars, to make sure no one gets out-of-hand.

For instance, another forum site I was at yesterday had someone who had registered just recently posting an ad in the Main Marketing section, which of course, isn't allowed.

Moderating doesn't just involve Internet marketing forums; a baseball-related forum I visit on a regular basis involved one of the moderators having to tell some people to chill out because there was a "heated" discussion over a certain topic. Usually, this particular forum is pretty level-headed, but in this particular instance, one of the moderators needed to step forward and remind people of the rules.

So, in essence, forums need a constant vigilance from the moderator(s) on a regular basis, so expecting a forum to be a money-maker with little to no maintenance is probably unrealistic.

Hopefully, this helps! Good luck with your new forum!

Happy Holidays, everyone, and have a happy, safe, and prosperous 2007! :-)

Sincerely,

Joe Chengery III

Originally Posted by Nikolas

Forums can make money when they are in a good niche, and have big visibillity-activity.

My opinion is that forums are harder to make money than blogs or content sites, and they require much more work.

Ain't that the truth. :yes:

I'd say that forums require a lot of maintenance to keep the members in-line with the rules, but this can also pay dividends. Most forums have a targeted audience (for example, Earner'sForum is a community of web entrepreneurs, designers etc.) and so you can always charge more for your advertising services (i.e. banner ads, and text links). So, once you get through the gruesome task of getting your forums up and running, and maintaining it's level of activity, then when you come to monetizing it, you can sell your advertising space for a lot more because of it's targeting nature of active users. The beauty of a forums is that when it's members are active, they are more prone to exploring services that could be provided by a banner advertisement on the forums.

If I didn't make any sense there, then bare with me lol, it's pretty hard to explain.

It's about getting the right people and right services. For any business model it takes some time to pick up and generate business. I think the start is important and the overall quaily of the forum is also important.

a forum is good for communication with members, but the primary focus should be the program used to get that income

....

Blogs defiantly make you money if you have a rich and good content related to your products and exposed to the right crowd.

I think blogs and content sites might be easier to monetize than forums are, but forums sure can make you a lot if you optimize it right.

I think a lot of you need to also state that blogs aren't as much maintenance as forums but they're not easy money either. You have to research, write and proof read a good post nearly every single day to be a top bloggwe making good money.

You can't just write a poorly done post every few days and expect people to keep coming back and linking to your blog. Especially when there ar ebetter ones out there.

Blogs are no walk in the park and shouldn't be represented as such.