Forums = Profitable? Also, starting a forum - advice?

[Apposl]

So I bought my first domain and I think it's perfect for a board/forum.

Would you consider them more profitable than a blog?

Any recommendations on getting those crucial first sign-ups or members posting?

Anything at all, or anywhere anyone can point me. Would be fantastic. Thanks!

 

[Continental]

Depending, what kind of forum are you going to build. However I doubt it would be more profitable then blog.

 

[Apposl]

Well, the domain has forum in the name, so I'm stuck with it. Figure I should at least try to develop it.

 

[T2tkid]

If you need a place to get real people to post for you, send me pm and i will show you how to get them, or google for it.
But you will need to pay them for each posts. You pay from $0.05 to $0.20/post.

 

[Neo240]

Forums will be profitable after you get decent traffic. Start with paid traffic posts and after you got some good threads people will come automatically.
But you have to put the intial effort to get members.
I m not sure but you can sell forums for pretty good profit,but compared to blogs its time consuming.

 

[dcuthbert]

I used to run a couple of forums, and it was fairly profitable. Members buying VIP status was the biggest income, so make sure you have plenty to offer, and make it worth their while. Depending on the forum's niche, you can have exclusive content in there, that's a sure way to boost the income.

Bear in mind, though, running a forum is a lot of work, especially in the beginning. The reason I gave mine up was because I stepped back and stopped actively promoting the forum and keeping it active, and as a result activity nosedived. It was going to be too much effort to salvage it, so I just sold it (for next to nothing) and moved on.

 

[proudlytwisted]

Having run forums since 1998, I'll just say I wish they had been blogs!

I still love a good forum but they are a lot more work to get ranked. Topics seem to be all over the place and depending on the niche you may need to add a blog to it to get it ranking for what you want.

As for posts, I've always just registered 5-10 profiles and started posting. You'll find yourself having conversations with yourself that will lead to ideas for more posts. Keep your number of forums small until you get more members. People are turned off when a place looks empty.

I'd say go for it if running a forum is something that interests you though. I still run a few invision sites. Started way back with UBB then moved to VB and now I've found my home with invision.

Good luck!

 

[flexnds]

We're in the same boat, I just started a forum last week on vBulletin. I purchased vbulletin, vbseo, and a custom theme. I gotta say, vbulletin sh*t is expensive and a pain in the a** to install, upgrade and maintain. But, it's all set up and going good.

For filling your forum go to postloop.com. I deposited about $40 bucks so far and have gotten well over 150 posts in the past few days. The $40 I deposited looks like it's going to get me well over 250 posts when it's done. So far the 150 posts = 28 members. Not bad for very high quality posts.

 

[Kikerinka]

Your question need no answer. Is forum profitable? Just look at BHW... How many donors, banners, views, new posts, etc. are here every day...

It is HUGE! Forum, like anything else, can be very profitable. But depends on how well you can do it and also how hard you are willing to work.