The Niche Think Tank » Money Makers

10 Ways To Monetize a Forum

Larry C. — Wed, 30 Mar 2011 21:46:39 +0000

I was asked in one of the comments on a post here, about monetizing a forum. Good question. The person who asked the question has a forum and felt like it was easier to monetize a blog than a forum and was curious what the experts said.

Since I run several forums as well and need to monetize them too, I thought I’d research the topic and document my finding for everyone else to benefit from.

Since forums are sometimes the place I find answers to questions I have I thought that they would be a great place start. Then read some specific posts about monetizing a forum, and then try a few of the ways myself.

Forums are great for generating content and traffic as people contribute answers to problems, ask questions about problems and discuss findings too. As you know The Big G(Google) likes fresh content all the time. A ravenous appetite for content Google will find forums a feast of plenty, IF you have a good topic for your forum and lot’s of traffic. Even mediocre traffic can generate good content and give Google something to chew on.

So let’s dive into my findings…

1) Adsense – Adding Adsense to your forum is pretty simple given the add-ons you can get for the forum software you use, or it may even be built in, therefore making it that much more simple. You can place Adsense just about anywhere on a forum but just remember the Google Adsense rules for the number of placements per page.

I’ve read arguments for both sides of this. Some people say this is a great way to monetize a forum and others say forums with Adsense have a low CTR(click through rate). Some say “Ad Blindness” meaning we see so many ads from Google all day long we stop seeing them eventually. Depending on what you decide, Adsense will serve up ads for the topic of that post or the forum itself.

2) CPA and CPM Networks - Often times called Publisher Networks, CPA is “cost per action”, usually a sign up of some sort or a completed survey or some sort of “Action”. This might be like those ads you see where you get something for doing something. These are typically lead generating actions, which can pay anywhere from $.50 on up to several dollars or more. I use this type of thing on several of my niche sites and have done very well with them.

CPM is “cost per mille”, Mille being a Latin word meaning thousand, so cost per thousand clicks usually. This is ok if you have a lot of traffic and they like clicking on things, especially if it’s free or they get something really cool. It might do well for some people but not others.

3) Affiliate Networks – Similar to CPA and CPM, Affiliate networks generate Sales as opposed to Leads. The main sales force behind these products are called affiliates. You put an Ad on your site to sell something and get paid a commission for the sale of the product. Some affiliate networks are Commission Junction, Share A Sale, LinkShare, and more.

4) Selling Text Links – Text-Link-Ads.Com is where I go to sell my space for text links. If you’ve got a PR3 or above site and want to earn money effortlessly, go to TLA. Basically all there is are Text Links, that’s it. Either you add them by hand manually, or you put some code on your site that automatically adds them to your page as they advertisers add you to the list of sites to run ads on. Fairly simple and easy, and as one of their ads says, “Earn Money while you Sleep”.

5) Selling Banner Advertisements or Ad Spots – If you have a niche forum and Google just isn’t doing a good job of putting the right kind of ads in their ads for your site, then sell ad spots yourself. One way people do this is to directly contact the prospective advertiser and offer them some space on your forum. So let’s say you have a forum on Salt Water Aquariums, you could sell ad space to an online (or offline) aquarium dealer. Or maybe ad space for a complete pet supply shop or a specialty fish shop. The possibilities are endless.

6) Selling “sticky” threads – Selling sticky threads is like selling ad space. If you’re running a forum you should know what a sticky thread is. A sticky thread is one that sticks at the top of each forum board and stays there all the time, never moving with time or threads so it is always at the top, where it can grab peoples attention.

7) Sponsorship – If you have a really niche market and have a lot of good traffic, you could get sponsorship. There’s a story about Tivo, the Television Recording service that people fell in love with. When Tivo first came out someone started a Tivo Forum for hacks and tips and fixes. Tivo, rather than claiming trademark infringement, rather sponsored the forum by giving them money and had some Tivo Technicians talk in the forums as well. The only catch was that the people in the forum couldn’t talk about how to hack and bypass the payment system. The owners and moderators agreed and police the forum for such topics and therefore Tivo is happy and so is the forum owner who get’s paid by Tivo for that community.

Private Members Area – Just as it says “Members Only”. Charge for a premium membership to exclusive board on the forum. Warrior Forum does this and so does many other forums in a niche culture. I belong to a private forum for Yaro Staraks Blog Mastermind program. This is a blogging program for people to learn to become successful bloggers and earn a living from blogging by producing good content. While the members only forum comes with the program, I paid for the blogging course and have lifetime membership to the forum.

9) Donations – Yeah really! Donations. Put a donation cup on the forum sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. If people find good content or fixes for what troubles them, people are likely to give a donation.

10) Sell Something – Sitepoint forums, a place where you can learn a lot about building sites with PHP and many other web related things, including internet marketing. Sitepoint was once just a place to learn and talk but the owner needed to monetize the site otherwise it was going down. He tracked where the users were most going and found the areas of what they were looking for and made a few print on demand books in the areas of PHP/MySQL/ CSS. Now the site makes tons of money from these publications with their second book generating over $1 million in the first 12 months of it’s release.

So you’ve got a forum on Black Banded African Gerbils? Sell either an eBook or Print on Demand book on The Complete Care and Feeding Guide for Black Banded African Gerbils.

10 ways to monetize your forum, hopefully will bring you 10 ideas per point, to give you at least 100 different ways to monetize your forum.

I really appreciate your support of this blog and the use of my affiliate links. It’s because of you that this blog is alive, growing and informing.

I’d love to hear your comments, suggestions or success stories.

Thanks for all your comments in previous posts, and please keep your questions coming.

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Dan Andrews @ Lifestyle Business Podcast – Podcast Interview #4

Larry C. — Mon, 07 Mar 2011 19:52:44 +0000

Hey folks, I had the awesome opportunity to meet up with Dan Andrews from The Lifestyle Business Podcast, The Tropical MBA and Outsource to the Philippines at a local coffee shop here in San Diego and get to know the man behind these three sites. For me Dan Andrews and his partner Ian were somewhat of a mystery. They talked about business pursuits and strategies, have good content, are entertaining, but never said what exactly they make or do. I finally got to find out at the coffee shop and demystify the mystery.

Not only did Dan tell me some of the industries they have their hands in, but the exact products they manufacture and sell. Dan and his partner Ian are no longer the mystery they used to be, they are THE REAL DEAL. They don’t talk lifestyle theory and try to sell you some product, they live the life, and use the techniques and strategies they talk about. They walk their talk. In fact they JUST recently put up a product for the first time for sale on The Lifestyle Business Podcast, the first 3 seasons of the podcast(AL)!

I’ve listened to podcasts where there’s 30-45 minutes of fluff, and maybe 10 minutes of an actually real tip, but not with these guys, these guys aren’t trying to shove product down your throats, they are all content and loads of fun. If you haven’t listened to their podcast yet you’re leaving money on the table. Go there now, listen to their podcast and leave a comment and tell them Larry @ The Niche Think Tank sent you, you’ll be glad you did.

Here’s some show notes:

Outsource to the Philippines

The Tropical MBA

The Lifestyle Business Podcast

Dan’s Beginning (@TropicalMBA)

Courier Flights for Cheap Travel

Interrogated in Vietnam

Prototypical Tim Ferris Realization

Ian is The Niche Machine (@AnythingIan)

Relationships are Key

Relationships with people doing what you want to do, will give you opportunities.

Srini @BlogCastFM

To Twitter or Not to Twitter

BLEEP, BLEEP, BLEEP

Zero-Sum Market

The Origin of Balla!

Hey Support the Lifestyle Business Podcast and get some great content too, CLICK HERE(affiliate Link).

BTW, there’s a bit of bleep-bleep in the podcast this time. Forewarned.

Podcast:

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April Monthly Income Report

Larry C. — Wed, 02 Jun 2010 20:54:38 +0000

It’s been almost 2 months since I posted to this blog, only because I am busy with my other sites and niches, that I have a hard time writing to this blog at times. I’m so busy at times that I forget to post to this blog. My apologies, I will try to post at least twice a week from now on.

So the last income report I gave was totaled at $1,356.91 for the month of March, and I posted this on April 1st. The previous income report was for December 2009 and that amount was for $1,294.78. This months income was about $350 less than the last income report coming in at $977.53. Depressing? Not really, I’ve only been doing this for almost a year now and my income before this was pretty much maybe $100 per month, if I was lucky, from Adsense.

The main difference from the last report to this one is the lump sum from Clickbank of $348.35 for affiliate products I sold. This months income report lacks the sales of clickbank as I am not using it that much at all now. Some here and there but I am working on new ways of monetizing my sites and it’s actually been pulling in a steadier stream in my opinion, than pushing and hyping clickbank products. Next month we will see a new column for Amazon.com and showing a growth in income from there, again it’s part of my system I have been working on.

What I have done with my clickbank stuff is added them to the end of the autoresponders for all my dating sites. I’ve added ebooks for dating tips for men and women, from clickbank so it’s pretty much on autopilot if they sell or not.

Aprils income breaks down like this:

Amazon – 18.00

Dating Sites – 542.16

eHow – 16.18

Pixelated Image – 15.00

Text Link Ads – 60.32

Contextual Links Ads – 325.87

Total – $977.53

Like I said before, it’s missing a chunk from clickbank sales, but I am ok with that for now. I’ve been working on a system of monetizing sites that give good content, information to people and are fast to monetize.This project came about because while many of the programs I joined to learn their strategy were good, they were effectively too slow for making money. I say this because while my day job was going down the drain because of the current state of the economy, I needed something to supplement my income so I could continue to pay the bills and feed my family.

I am putting together my own information eBook product detailing this system. I will be revealing it soon. May’s income will show an improvement due to this new system I’m doing. I just need to Lather-Rinse-Repeat, to increase income exponentially. Members of my email list will get a copy for free, and the members of Blog Mastermind will also get a copy for free.

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Flowing with The Current Economy

Larry C. — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 00:36:02 +0000

What people are buying and what they are not.

This economy has made things a little rough, as people aren’t buying luxury items as much, but what they are buying are things that they are desperate for, things that will either help them to Make Money Online, something that is a necessity, or something that they are desperately seeking a fix for. That would be something like a medical condition, or something that affects their social life or romantic life.

Seeking Desperate Solutions.

One such problem people would seek a fix for would be people who have little red bumps (aka Keratosis Pilaris) on their arms or legs. A “bride-to-be” might search desperately for something that will get rid of those little red bumps before her wedding. Why? So when she is wearing her wedding dress, she is not going to be embarrassed of those little red bumps. See my picture?

Seeking Desperate Fixes.

Another thing might be for a heart broken ex-boyfriend wanting to get his ex girlfriend back. He might seek out something on the internet and buy an eBook or a report on “How to get your ex back in 30 days“. This is the sort of thing people are buying right now so being able to adapt and change with the ebb and flow of the changing economy, is what is going to make or break an online entrepreneur.

One product that helps to find or identify niches that people are needy for or desperately seeking is Alexis Dawes’ “Desperate Buyers Only”. I have bought it, I have read it and I have gotten the revised edition as she gives free updates, and I can’t tell you how much this has helped me. My first ever desperate buyer only product that I made, a report on how to get off of painkillers, is consistently making me money each month and I can tell you it’s paying a couple of my bills each month.

I will be putting out a few more “desperate buyers only” products soon, as soon as I clear my plate of a few other projects that need to be tied up. Then maybe I will be making a fortune but until then I am happy with how things are going so far. As Alexis says on her sales page “You DON’T have to be some big-name guru to make thousands of dollars a month selling information products online”. I wasn’t a guru, I still am not a guru but I am doing what I set out to do when this economy started going south: Making extra income from sales generated on the internet to supplement my income.

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One of my Niche Sites – Disclosure.

Larry C. — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 18:18:40 +0000

I run a few niche sites that I sell eBooks on, and I thought I would disclose on of my sites for people to see and understand how I make money from them. These sites that I run are called Niche Sites, and How I make money from them is simple.

I produce an eBook for the site
I write articles about the specific niche I am targeting
I people to sign up for a mini tutorial sent through email to help bring people back to my site
I choose keywords that are high traffic, low competition and low search results
I built a website and place the eBook on it for sale
I include some articles on the site for people to read and to get their interest growing so they want to buy the eBook
I use article marketing with article directories to drive traffic to my site
Once it’s set up and running, it’s low maintenance, I just let it generate money for me and I do very little once it’s running.

This is a nice little way of having passive residual income coming in.

In the short future I intend on starting a membersite where I give out 2 premade sites a month, which includes articles, eBook, and an eCourse for email. Relatively low priced membership that will have all you need to make your own Niche Site. You can see one of my sites here.

Download the articles, mini tutorial and eBook for one of my sites Here.

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How to build a Niche Website

Larry C. — Sat, 12 Sep 2009 08:31:33 +0000

I stumbled upon this article tonight that just about puts it all out there for everyone to use. The articles goes from start to finish the steps to building a niche site and marketing it and page ranking it. This is a really good article and I highly recommend anyone who is into Niche to read it. It’s a 2 part article and part two is already there as well.

Building a Niche Minisite (Part 1)

On another note, my wife and I were able to get a baby sitter tonight and go out on a date. We went to Sushi, for the first time in 11 months. The last time was when my parents were in town visiting us and the new addition to the family, our daughter Sarah. So tonight was really nice to just get out, away from teh house, and have a little quiet time together eating raw fish. Yum!

We then went down by the bay and drove the harbor front, and stopped in Little Italy for a coffee. There was an art walk going on and interestingly enough there were a few older folks out speaking Italian. Imagine that, in Little Italy.

Well I am off to bed, I will be back at it tomorrow as I start work on the new niche sites I have planned for the Case Study #1. I am also going to get started the 3 new dating sites I am bringing up for 3 other different niche sites. Yeah I have a lot on my plate right now, but hey, that’s how I roll.

Ciao…

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10 Steps to Start and Run a Successful Dating Site

Larry C. — Sat, 12 Sep 2009 01:10:08 +0000

The ten steps to start and run a successful dating site.

Find a Niche that may not be met or fulfilled – Possibly a medical need, or a handicap type need, or cultural need. Think Jewish dating, or dating for amputees or Gay Midget Dating, the software I suggest for finding niches for dating sites is Micro Niche Finder. This software will make your life so much easier, it is a must have.
Research the searches per month and search result with Google, Google Keyword Tool or Micro Niche Finder, to determine need and effective placement in search engine ranking. Decide if the niche you picked is going to work, if not start over.
Review and choose the dating site software to run the site. One software I recommend and use is Webscribble’s Webdate. This is a very robust software and is easy to use and configure and customize. I can also talk to you about it myself if you want my opinion and how I use it and it’s only $199.
Hire a programmer to customize the site, if you aren’t code savvy.
Make the site a totally free dating site, to help populate it.
Do SEO work for search engine placement and build back links for traffic.
Article submissions for attention and SEO Ranking.
Start charging for premium accounts(more email sending capability, better visibility of profiles, or other perks)
Start charging for advertising(once traffic is high)
Enjoy recurring payments for membership, recurring advertising payments, or flip for profit.

Lather, rinse, repeat.

Have a great Friday night folks.

If you enjoyed this short but to the point list, please Digg, Tweet or Stumble it.

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My Review of “Desperate Buyer Only”

Larry C. — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 18:04:54 +0000

Have you ever thought about writing an eBook or eReport and selling it on the Internet? Maybe you found the secret to getting the smell of cat pee out of the couch or how to get the dog to stop chewing your shoes or how to get a checking account when you are in the chex system?

If you have thought about doing this but never got around to it, or talked yourself out of it you could be talking yourself out of making a lot of money. I had never really thought about this until I ran across the title of a forum called “Desperate Buyers Only“.

My first knowledge of “Desperate Buyers Only” was through The Warrior Forums, and I did a little research on it and decided to buy it in June of 2009. It’s an eBook by Alexis Dawes and goes into how to find what people are desperate for, how to create an eProduct for this desperation, and then how to market it.

I read the book from start to finish and was thoroughly impressed. The book is about creating reports or ebooks for people with desperate problems. People are always searching the internet for the solution to a certain problem they may have and it’s these people this book focuses on to create a product for.

If you are a person with a problem that causes you social anxiety or fear or causes you to not do something, then you would be desperate to find a solution. When you find this solution you would be more than happy to pay money for it, right? Well there you go. It is this premise that you start your research on.

This book goes into finding a desperate market, research, wording and phrasing, and also goes into why online entrepreneurs fail. It talks about finding the niche market that will sell, and it’s not going with the crowd either. This book is in my opinion The Book for creating books and reports that really sell.

I couldn’t wait to start brainstorming and get a product out on the market to see how well this would work. I came up with a product that many people are desperate for, from my own personal experiences. I wrote my story, wrote the solution and gave some extra resources to help with this problem and wrote my sales page.

After uploading the sales page and uploading the product to my secure download service I started to drive traffic to the website each day. I made sure to only point a couple links per day, each week to the new site, so as not to sandbox the URL with Google.

Because of the keyword selection I did, the lack of product for this kind of problem, and my slow propagation of back links, I started having traffic almost instantly. Granted right now it’s only an average of 13 per day, but I made my first two sales on the 20Th day the site was up.

From my calculations that would be 20 days x 13 visitors per day = 260 visitors, for the first two sales. So I am going to see if sales are about 1 sale every 260 people. I’ll get that average when I make my next sale or two. Either way I made my first two sales in 20 days of putting the product up, and no refund so far.

Basically I am really stoked about this process. As traffic goes up, so will my income. My next thing to to is little tweaks here and there to the sales page to see if I can boost sales.

Last week I had my consultation with Alexis Dawes, the creator of Desperate Buyers Only, and she is one of the nicest persons I have ever talked to on the phone. She reviewed my sales page and talked about how I could make it so people would definitely want it more by tweaking some phrasing and doing some cost justification. We also talked about how to make it more personal, more of an intimate feeling for the person reading the website, making it very close to home so to say.

We I was done I had a really nice feeling and after making those 2 sales the other day, I knew this stuff was for real and plan on several more Desperate Buyers Products. Alexis also gave me her phone number to talk to her anytime about other pages I would be putting up for sale, she said her email inbox in inundated with email everyday and finds it hard to correspond to every single person, but is working on it.

I asked her if I had the latest version and she said I didn’t. so she emailed me the latest edition and along with it came several new pieces added to the package. here’s a list of the new contents:

DesperateBook.pdf
This is the Desperate Buyers Only manual

BBGone.pdf
This is a copy of Boils Be Gone. Boils Be Gone is an actual desperate product that I’m currently selling.

GoodAndFastContentCreationFormula.pdf
This manual will teach you how to create content quickly. Lots of good research ideas here.

GoodAndFast-WriteBooksAndReports.pdf
This report will teach you how to write your e-books and reports quickly.

GoogleOperatorsCheatSheet.pdf
This is a good sheet to have with you whenever you’re researching on Google.

ArticleRewriterCheatSheet.pdf
This cheat sheet will show you how to easily alter your articles.

Great pack of material to learn from and use for making content based manuals, reports and eBooks. This is how I am doing it from now on. If you haven’t already bought Alexis Book you can do so here with my affiliate link:

Desperate Buyers Only

It is well worth the $97.

P.S.

I just went to Alexis Blog to link back to her and it looks like she took her blog down. Bummer.

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Yaro Starack, at Entrepreneurs Journey

Larry C. — Sun, 09 Aug 2009 10:24:00 +0000

Yaro Starack is probably one of the most widely known bloggers on the planet. I personally kept running into his blog over and over again, when I was researching different IM strategies. Seems Yaro does a bit of interviewing of other IM’ers, and any time I googled a subject I would find at least one reference to his blog.

Yaro has done well for himself and teaches people about blogging. Not HOW TO BLOG, but about blogging as a business and how to make a living from it. His site adn his posts and such are no nonsense and no hype. I LIKE THAT. Man finally someone who is not trying to sell me everythign adn then some, b ut someone who is honest, real and tells a straight story. You have got to check out his site: http://www.entrepreneurs-journey.com, you will find a plethora of information there and you will also find me there as well.

I like to go there to find podcasts about different IM strategies and interviews with other people. A few of the IM strategies I follow I found through Yaros website. and I will probably find a few more. One strategy I found recently that iam checking out is Niche Profit Classroom. It’s a style of Niche marketing that I happen to agree with adn therefore follow, and I foudn it through a podcast from yaros website. If you have a chance to go there do it, you will be amazed at the amount of content and good information he has there. His podcasts are very informative and all the people he interviews are well spoken and knowledgeable. Not to mention a lot of them are “Gurus”.
His site again is: http://www.entrepreneurs-journey.com

Tomorrow I will update you on my success with Niche Profit Classroom and Desperate Buyers Only.

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Super Adsense WordPress Themes

Larry C. — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 21:02:50 +0000

I have been so damn busy lately with all the Desperate buyers and Lazy affiliate stuff I have been doing, I haven’t done a post in forever. I am doing a ton of work lately and hopefully in the next day or so I will go into it. I have however put up a site to sell Super Adsense WordPress Themes for a super low price of 9.97. Along with that I bundled up Jason Oickles “Adsense Secrets Unleashed”. This is the most complete eBook on Adsense I have ever seen and he said I could bundle it in with my Super Adsense Wordrpress Themes. Anyway the site is here: http://www.wp-adsense-themes.net

and again the themes are going for $9.97 (cheap) and the Jason Oickle eBook “Adsense Secrets Unleashed” is free.

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The Niche Think Tank » Money Makers

10 Ways To Monetize a Forum

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Dan Andrews @ Lifestyle Business Podcast – Podcast Interview #4

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April Monthly Income Report

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Flowing with The Current Economy

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One of my Niche Sites – Disclosure.

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How to build a Niche Website

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10 Steps to Start and Run a Successful Dating Site

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My Review of “Desperate Buyer Only”

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