Wordpress Membership/Forum/Paid Ad Advice please!

[c-man]

First, I love the community here and the advice that people are willing to give (and I like some of the scarcastic/funny comments too). I usually lurk, as a few questions, but do enjoy the community here.

I'm looking for some quick advice please, not a handout/spoon feed but quick advice please.

I've taken over a new company/website that focus on a certain niche of services and goods. I'm ok with wordpress, so I want to add a membership site and forum as a service. This would allow people to sign up (paid and free) and browse the forums. I'd like to sell ads and premium listings to companies and service providers of these services.

Could anyone direct me to a good premium theme? I've been looking on theme forest, but not totally sure what I need. Figure Buddypress allows the social log in, bbpress the forum features, but what about paid ads for companies, etc.

Appreciate the guidance and thanks in advance. At this point, just interested in wordpress platform solutions.

 

[Zwielicht]

So you want to know which premium theme is best and how to monetise your forum? I can't tell you much about which premium theme is best, but as for monetisation, you have several options (by the way, I hope it's not antoher Internet marketing forum ):

• Ad networks (Adsene, Chitika, etcetera)
• Affiliate network (Clickbank, Comission Junction, etcetera)
• Your own products and services
• Custom ads

In the case of "custom ads", you can offer to sell the ad spots on your forum to people who are willing to pay for it. As for how to find these people, I suggest you let them come to you once your website starts gaining momentum. From there, you can set up an advertising page with a contact forum on it to select the best ads for your website.

 

[c-man]

(by the way, I hope it's not antoher Internet marketing forum ):

yeah WF makes a bunch of cash selling crap, so why not! Just kidding

No I know the market and get lots of companies each day wanting to target a group. What I want to do is be able to sell featured sponsors directly to them. So pay $XXX to get your service featured to the members, $XXXX for us to review your service and talk about how great it is, and $XX to be listed as a preferred vendor.

A bit like tripadvisor or something like that. Still shaking it out. Not worried about how to monitize it, just how to set up the structure.

Thanks for the reply.

 

[Zwielicht]

yeah WF makes a bunch of cash selling crap, so why not! Just kidding

No I know the market and get lots of companies each day wanting to target a group. What I want to do is be able to sell featured sponsors directly to them. So pay $XXX to get your service featured to the members, $XXXX for us to review your service and talk about how great it is, and $XX to be listed as a preferred vendor.

A bit like tripadvisor or something like that. Still shaking it out. Not worried about how to monitize it, just how to set up the structure.

Thanks for the reply.

Of course!

Well, I'm not sure how I can help you further with the structure of the forum since I'm not as experienced with forums as I am with blogs. Someone else who has experience running a forum may be able to help you better if they see this thread.