Okey... first of all I'm no forum guru but this is my point of view.
Starting a forum is probably one of the hardest things you can do
especially in the making money online niche, not saying it can't be
done but it's not enough to have a contest to drive people to it.
First you HAVE to know what your talking about, people have to see
they aren't just getting copy paste methods from other forums. you
have to interact with your member and keep them happy at all time.
Second, don't do this all by your self... can't be done, managing a
forum is a huge responsibility. You have to have rules and you have to
stick with them which means you have to have your eye on almost
every post that get's posted, you don't want it to get full of spam
posts and bad language. People have to see that you are serious and
that this is your kingdom!!!
Third, offer value...! give people a reason to listen to you and take
your advice. This can be in creating your own style of using a method,
creating your own method and give it to your members, don't start
selling to them right after you say HELLO,
give them free scripts, templates, programs, etc.... that will help them
on there way to making there first dollar online.
Forth, Make your forum look professional with good design and treat this
like any other website you would want to drive traffic too. Make a blog,
write article about it, make a press release and don't forget SEO.
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This is all stuff I would look into before spending my time registering.
Even though I just listed bunch of stuff that would take a lot of time to
complete, this is something every new visitor can see in a matter of
seconds...
Hope it helps, also I hope you do start a forum and make big, big, big money
later,
