|
|
6 Things to Increase Your Affiliate Income
So you've signed up for affiliate programs, posted links around the net but you're still only making pocket change? Wonder what others are doing that you aren't? Below you will find 6 things that every affiliate marketer needs to increase their...
How Smart Pricing Effects AdSense (TM) Publisher Revenues
I constantly receive phone calls from clients, prospective clients and reporters asking the same question – what percent of the keyword price does Google pay AdSense (TM) publishers. While the AdSense Standard Terms and Conditions explicitly forbid...
SEO Deadly Sins - Mistakes That Hurt Web Page Ranking
The following are a list of mistakes can ensure that your site maintains a low ranking with the search engines. Avoid at all costs. * Specifying no title for your page * I cannot stress how important the title of a web page is. Failing to specify...
Target the Little Guy. This Could be a Reely BIG Shoo!
Out once again to illuminate the dark corners of internet shows for the tiny shining light of small business tools, I have just returned from AIIM 2002 where they describe the show thusly: Enterprise Content Management creates successful SYNERGIES...
Top 5 Tips for Frustrated Affiliate program Marketers
You may use this article for reprint, as long as it remains unaltered and the resource box and author information are included. - Isaiah Hull Top 5 Tips For Frustrated Affiliate Program Marketers Do you go through affiliate programs like most...
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Creating A Succesful Forum
How To Create A Successful Forum
Hello I have decided to take a few hours of my time to write up a how to on creating a successful forum, these days there are hundreds if not thousands of forums launched each day and I bet more the 80% of them over the next month will shut down.
This is because making a forum is just as hard as making a web site if not harder as there is no real content to get visitors attracted what you need is a great design and active members to be on your way to having a forum in which you can receive an income and maybe even live off selling advertising and getting members to pay to signup.
Choosing A Theme:
When choosing a theme make sure you are knowledgeable in that area as most users will be looking for someone to answer there questions and if the admin cant it kind of sets the theme for the rest of the board and you will end up failing in your quest to becoming a successful webmaster/forum owner.
Before choosing a theme make sure you have a look at the market I can tell you right now setting up a webmaster forum or domain forum unless you have funds in which to spend then you are wasting your time there are to many out there and the market its flooded but by all means if you have a great idea then go for it as they are very profitable if you manage to get members.
Buying A Suitable Domain:
Okay the second step in setting up a forum is buying a domain depending on your theme this will be different but try to limit the amount of words to at most 3 and try and use the following words after the theme, forum, chat, discussion, board, talk if not you may need to think of a catchy word that goes well with what you want.
Choosing a registrar is fairly easy as there are about a million out there these days but my favourite is DomainSite it provides cost effective and easy to manage features for your domain, they also allow you to use Paypal as a source of payment as well.
Choosing A Forum Software:
One of the hardest things you will come by before setting up your forum is choosing what software you are going to use with your forum, the main 3 which are widely used today are Vbulletin, PHPbb and Invision Power Board.
All of which have there good’s and bad points I will give you a brief overlook at them but before going ahead with one I suggest you read abit more about the features before setting one up.
Ill start with VB (Vbulletin) this is used a lot because of its great reputation especially within business and webmaster related sites, this is due because it is a very safe and well updated software which gives buyers probably the most advanced bulletin board on the market to date, although it sounds great it does have some flaws this mainly is its price tag for a leased licence (one year) it is $80 usd and $160 usd for an owned license there are also other optional fees but don’t need to be bought.
Another non free bulletin board is Invision Power Board which retails for $185 usd this offers like Vbulletin a well made and updated forum software which you mainly see used in gaming and graphics forums as a lot of the mods and free skins are dedicated to those themes.
Then we have the most used forum software on the web PHPbb it is a free but yet still advanced and well made with updates regular brought out, if you are on a low cost budget this is the way to go.
Overall I prefer to use Vbulletin over the others but this is just a personal choice and offers me the needs that I want from a forum software and I don’t mind paying the extra dollars for.
But like I said before making a choice read a bit more about them by searching in google, msn and yahoo to find out what they all offer I can only tell you what I think but that’s not the option every body chooses really depends on your budget and type of forum you intend to set-up.
Attracting Members Without Paying
But before you can do this there are many months of hard work recruiting and getting new members, when I started when there wasn’t sites and services such as Google Adwords or Paid Post programs which can help you get steady traffic and members for a pretty reasonable price, so we had to find other ways this usually involved posting on other forums not blatant advertising though as this will usually get you band and have your post deleted not giving much exposure for the time it took you to sign up and post.
I found the best way was to add your site into your signature and post topics and replies that had to do with your subject, forget posting about anything as this will only waste your time and have minimal effect, take your time to make larger and more detailed posts also as more people will read and contribute to your topic on larger forums you can get up to 500 unique visitors from one post not even having your sites link in the text just as a signature, always make sure it is a different colour try reds, blues and greens these aren’t to bright that it deters viewers but still catch’s there eye.
I also found adding the hyperlink into a form of text this makes the advert look nicer and tells them a bit about the site before going to the forum, this allows you to get only those wanting to be apart of your community and are related to the advertising that you may have on your page.
Over the last few months there has been also an increase of free forum directories try and add your forum to as many as you can this will improve your search engine rankings whilst receiving more visitors in the mean time.
Attracting Members By Paying:
There are many ways to advertise on the internet these days but
many don’t work and are a waste of time and money that’s why I will try and lead you in the right direction and give you my thoughts on what is the best method of getting a successfully forum for the lowest cost.
First off Adwords, this method of advertising can be great if you have an established forum with regular posters and members its also cost effective (depending on keywords) and easy to do if you have a credit card on hand.
Don’t get me wrong this could be a great way to get members to your forum at the early stages but I don’t believe it’s the best way at this point of time.
One way I have found to be very successful is www.PaidPosts.com this provides a cost effective way to not only get members on your forum but to get posts which people will search for on search engines, find via friends and will want to respond to giving you more members and helping to create your active forum.
Although some places do not provide detailed posts but just 3 word replies which really do nothing for getting members apart from deterring people as the forum will look spammed, and you don’t want this so early on you will have enough of this later on in your forum.
Another way is one of the most common seen on the internet Banner Advertising this is where you either buy or trade banner spots on another forum or site, usually you will try and advertise on a site with the main topic related to your forum to maximise your CTR (click through rate).
The best way to go about this is to find a friend or someone via another forum/chat room and purchase a spot for a small amount of team and report how well its doing by the number of click throughs to the number of new members if its not looking to good move on until you find something you think works, there’s no point advertising if you don’t get anything in return it will just be a waste of money in the long run.
Making Money From Your Forum:
One of the main reasons people decide to make a forum is to make a profit or a return by doing something they enjoy and have an interest in, this is quite common and a lot of people actual do make a living from doing so but it does involve a lot of time and dedication, don’t expect to wake up the next morning with thousands of dollars in your account from setting one up.
There are many ways to make money from your forum it would take me days to list them all but I will list the main ones, first of Google Adsense you would have seen this been used many times before on sites and forums you have seen you may not know it well but it is a box like shown on www.ArcadeBay.com to the top right of screen, it can be seen many ways to find out more please have a look at www.Google.com/adsense set-up your account and simply add it to your board somewhere preferable in sight of your visitors and members this will improve the revenue made and help you put money back into the forum.
It is very easy to customize and edit to suit your forums colour, size and it automatically adds ads related to your forums theme this improving the amount of clicks.
Another way is Yahoo Publisher Network which also provides you with a service that like Google’s, I personally haven’t used this but I have heard the amount per Click is higher giving you more money per click but have found to get less clicks, this giving you the choice to use what you think will better fit your forum.
One way that has been used probably the most of the last 4-5 years is banner advertising allowing people to pay upfront for a spot on your forums pages whether it be just the index or site wide this is up to you, there is no current rate for what you should charge this should be up to you depending on amount of members, hits, posts a day.
I found it better to list services, items related to your theme better then other things even though you get the same amount of money but it seems to make your forum look more professional, so you wouldn’t list computer games on a car forum.
There are also thousands of referral programs out there where you receive a commission based on item sold and amount of clicks I’m not going to list them all but try searching for referral programs, affiliate programs in your preferred search engine, I’m sure you’ll find something that will fit in quite well with your up coming community.
Recommended Sites:
Here are a list of sites and links to them which you may find useful when setting up your forum, make sure you have a look at them as these have helped me over the years and I’m sure will help you improve or even help you start a successful forum.
I will list them in order from what I have said above so it’ll help you sort through them a bit easier.
Registrars:
www.DomainSite.com
www.Godaddy.com
www.NameCheap.com
www.Enom.com
Forum Software:
www.Vbulletin.com
www.InvisionBoard.com
www.Phpbb.com
www.yabbforum.com
Webmaster Forums:
www.SitePoint.com
www.Namepros.com
www.forums.digitalpoint.com
www.TheAdminForum.com
Paid Advertising Services:
www.PaidPosts.com
www.AdBright.com
www.adwords.google.com
www.searchmarketing.yahoo.com
Revenue Programs:
www.google.com/adsense
www.publisher.yahoo.com
www.Adbrite.com
Thank You for reading this article!
This is a free article you are allowed to publish it on your site but please do not get rid of any content you may add your own though.
About the author:
Morgan Payne is a successful internet business mand an marketing guru.
|
|
|
|
|
Gentoo Forums :: Index |
Discussion forums for topics around the distribution, Linux applications, installation, administration, portage, frequently asked questions. |
forums.gentoo.org |
  |
Readers' Opinions - New York Times |
Books Reading Group. Readers are discussing “All Aunt Hagar’s Children,” Edward P. Jones’s new short story collection. More Books Forums ... |
www.nytimes.com |
  |
Ubuntu Forums |
This is a discussion help and support forum for Ubuntu Linux. |
ubuntuforums.org |
  |
Joomla! Community Forum - Index |
Joomla! Forum - The Joomla Community. Support, discussion and interaction with the Core Team. |
forum.joomla.org |
  |
Internet forum - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia |
A typical Internet forum discussion, with common elements such as emoticons, ... Like other forms of online communication, Internet forums are home to many ... |
en.wikipedia.org |
  |
Java Technology Forums |
Online discussion forums offering help for users in solving issues. Includes FAQs, and links to other Sun technical databases. |
supportforum.sun.com |
  |
Adobe - Forums |
Share questions, suggestions, and information about Adobe graphics products. |
www.adobe.com |
  |
WoW Forums -> Forum Index |
Read our Introduction to the Forums. This includes information about getting ... blizzard provides the World of Warcraft community forums for its players to ... |
forums.worldofwarcraft.com |
  |
MySQL AB :: MySQL Forums |
Forum to discuss the sample database included with MySQL ... The main discussion forum for MySQL. Please use specialized forums for specific topics. ... |
forums.mysql.com |
  |
SitePoint Forums: Resources, Design, HTML, CSS, PHP, ASP, MySQL ... |
Webmaster Forums for Design, CSS, XHTML, PHP, Ruby, JavaScript, Affiliate Marketing, ASP.NET, Promotion. |
www.sitepoint.com |
  |
Delphi Forums |
Offers free and paid forum hosting. The paid offer is ad-free. |
www.delphiforums.com |
  |
Home - MozillaZine Forums |
Search the forums for others who may be having the same issues you are. You can also browse the sticky'd posts at the top of the forum for the product ... |
forums.mozillazine.org |
  |
Web Hosting, Free Web Hosting and Web Tools from Bravenet.com. |
Maintain a direct mailing list. Message Forum Host your own online discussions. Vote Caster Perform a multi-question poll. Web Poll Perform a quick poll. ... |
www.bravenet.com |
  |
Forums | NewsTalk |
The Detroit News Online does not tolerate offensive language in its forums. The News will kill offensive posts. Participants can and will be denied access ... |
info.detnews.com |
  |
osCommerce Community Support Forums |
Official community support forums for the osCommerce project. |
forums.oscommerce.com |
  |
The GardenWeb Forums - GardenWeb |
The GardenWeb Forums comprise the largest community of gardeners on the Internet. ... If this is your first visit to the forums, you might want to visit our ... |
forums.gardenweb.com |
  |
AnandTech |
Is server configuration a pain? DSL or Cable Modem giving you fits? Get your questions answered and your topics discussed in the AnandTech Networking Forum. ... |
forums.anandtech.com |
  |
Chronicle Forums - Index |
Chronicle Forums - Index. ... Talk online about graduate-school life in our new forum. ... Forum Stats, 220919 Posts in 17109 Topics by 3306 Members. ... |
chronicle.com |
  |
Forums | drupal.org |
Try searching the forums first or a specific project's bug reports. Pre installation questions. Is Drupal a viable solution for my website? ... |
drupal.org |
  |
Dev Shed Forums - Open Source web development |
Dev Shed Forums - over 195246 members on our Dev Shed forums. |
forums.devshed.com |
  |
|