Are you making a living form your forum? a 2nd income?

Started by luvit, April 02, 2008, 09:12:30 PM

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luvit

i really would like to hear from admins who live off of forum(s).
i believe most forums are NOT created to make revenue.
i travel for my job. i hate it. :) -- i would like to take a local job for less pay and have an ad-based forum as a 2nd income.

i realize a forum is a lot of work, especially in the beginning.
i believe the user base would have to be monstrous so my board(s) would have to be in demand...

are you succeeding at earning a notable revenue?
forums supporting a product you manufacture doesn't count... lol.

Panzer-

I don't put ads on my forum because its a sort of portfolio/tutorial site. But i have got some coding jobs off the site.. so in a way i earn money off it.

Aleksi "Lex" Kilpinen

I don't actually make profit with our forum, but with absolutely no ads I have been able to create a brand of it. And the brand sells.

For about a year our forum had T-shirts, mugs, etc. for sale through a professional partner, and we took no profit out of it. In the last few months, we have made a smallish profit margin in the prices, in order to cover our expences. Now, If we were to add more stuff to sale, increase the profit margins a little, and added some partnerlinks to our forum - I think we could make a little profit as well. We have not planned on doing this though, but I'd see it would be possible.

The forum has been online for 3 years, and has slowly gained fame and a reputation for being friendly, open and filled with very open minded people. And that's all it really needed. :)
Slava
Ukraini!


"Before you allow people access to your forum, especially in an administrative position, you must be aware that that person can seriously damage your forum. Therefore, you should only allow people that you trust, implicitly, to have such access." -Douglas

How you can help SMF

mothchick

I can tell you that my forum doesn't make much money from advertising other than to support the hosting for it.

ArkServer

I dont make a lot from my forum, but i do make a lot from my blog and software sales.


rsw686

I'm operating my site in the read even with ads, supporter memberships, and t-shirts / bumper sticker sales. I just don't have a large enough member base and reaching out to those in my topic isn't that easy.
The Reptile File
Everything reptile for anyone reptile friendly

Aquaria Talk
Community for freshwater and saltwater aquariums enthusiasts

christicehurst

Would never need ads for a long long time. No need for it.
www.brisbanelionsunited.com - A forum for everyone!

luvit

Quote from: christicehurst on April 15, 2008, 03:50:25 AM
Would never need ads for a long long time. No need for it.
so this means you have paid membership?

karlbenson

I'm usually lucky to pay for my server costs.

2nd income is unlikely for 99.99% of people i would guess from a forum.

Too much recurring/non-unique traffic.

deadnewton

is it possible to make money at all from forums? what kind of traffic are we looking at here?
ballpark ?
How many dimples are there in a golf ball?
Running SMF 1.1.4 + TP 0.9.8.
When is SMF2 gonna be out?

rsw686

Quote from: karlbenson on April 15, 2008, 01:27:04 PM
2nd income is unlikely for 99.99% of people i would guess from a forum.

Too much recurring/non-unique traffic.

Yep if your looking for income, a blog is the better way to go.
The Reptile File
Everything reptile for anyone reptile friendly

Aquaria Talk
Community for freshwater and saltwater aquariums enthusiasts

deadnewton

so does it mean that forums are not profitable? earn atleast something for food? ;)
How many dimples are there in a golf ball?
Running SMF 1.1.4 + TP 0.9.8.
When is SMF2 gonna be out?

Nekobyte

A Forum could be profitable... your best bet would probably be to point traffic at it from anotehr site. ie - let's say you have an extremely popular browser-based online game, with no message board in it. In theory, you could redirect or link your many users to your forum so that they can communicate with each other, at teh same time creating a huge amount of traffic and making it easier for you to make a decent amount from it...

/thoughts
hxxp:nekobyte.com [nonactive]

ApplianceJunk

Quote from: deadnewton on April 16, 2008, 12:39:30 PM
is it possible to make money at all from forums?

Yes it is very possible and there is more then one way to do it. :)

ApplianceJunk

Quotei really would like to hear from admins who live off of forum(s).

Sorry, not me yet. But I will reply anyway. :)

Quotei believe most forums are NOT created to make revenue.

When I started our forums it was to help people and I had not even heard of affiliates or thought about putting up ads.

Quotei travel for my job. i hate it.  -- i would like to take a local job for less pay and have an ad-based forum as a 2nd income.

I hear ya, I enjoy my job, but every day I get a little older and don't know how many more years my body can put up with the work.

Quotei realize a forum is a lot of work, especially in the beginning.

If you want your forum to be a "second job" then you have to treat it like one.
Set hours for yourself. Schedule work for yourself a head of time, such as mods you want to install or articles you want to write for your forum.
Stick to your schedule, just like you would for your main job.


Quotei believe the user base would have to be monstrous so my board(s) would have to be in demand...

I think this really depends on a lot of things. If your going to do the google ad-sense thing or something like it were you get paid per click then yes you will need a lot of site visitors every day.

We tried the per click thing and at this stage of the game, it sucks. :)
Our parts affiliates work out much better for us as they give us a percent of the sales.

We might get something like $1.50 in google ad-sense clicks for the month. This same $1.50 can easily be made with one appliance part sold through one of our appliance parts affiliates with just one sale.

There are many other way's to make money with forums. Some others that come to mind are site donations.
This month alone we are up to $100 in donations.

There are always memberships you could charge for. We do not have paid memberships, but anyone that makes a site donation gets put into a special membergroup. It just gives them a special badge to show they helped support the site.

I could go on and on....

Quoteare you succeeding at earning a notable revenue?

What do you consider notable revenue?


luvit

notable revenue would be greater than $600/mo. then i would try to dupe this effort with another forum. i know i could build a brand and sell accessories, but i'd rather count on non-intrusive text ads for majority of the income.

vbgamer45

Forums are a little tougher. But there are people out there who make a ton if you are in a good market and have good forum. Most use a combination of ad networks/subscriptions

I have some tips on how to get some extra income from a couple different sources
http://www.smfhacks.com/monetize-your-smf-forum-and-website.html
Community Suite for SMF - Take your forum to the next level built for SMF, Gallery,Store,Classifieds,Downloads,more!

SMFHacks.com -  Paid Modifications for SMF

Mods:
EzPortal - Portal System for SMF
SMF Gallery Pro
SMF Store SMF Classifieds Ad Seller Pro

thomazwrx

My forum http://www.scionride.com/forum [nofollow] is bringing in  +/- $120 a month but i recently broke even a year later. In the first months i was in the red spending money on directory's infact i made a tally sheet to keep trace of how much money i spent on hosting and web directory's it accounted to a little over $1000 (hosting $5.95/month) January 08' I made $198 but with the economy slowing it declined to $120
"Time is a great teacher, but unfortunately it kills all its Students."

djrem

Quote from: thomazwrx on July 21, 2008, 05:23:54 PM
My forum http://www.scionride.com/forum is bringing in  +/- $120 a month but i recently broke even a year later. In the first months i was in the red spending money on directory's infact i made a tally sheet to keep trace of how much money i spent on hosting and web directory's it accounted to a little over $1000 (hosting $5.95/month) January 08' I made $198 but with the economy slowing it declined to $120

That sites mega confusing, how can you make money :S

renlok

no i earn nothing. I only run a forum as enjoy doing it. I have ads but there revenue sharing, so i get nothing from them.
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