Creating forums for profit

DarthHazard Level 1

August 8, 2017, 10:57 am

37

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There are several reasons why people create forums. The main two are: created because they want to own their very own forum and the other being that they want to make money from it. Have you ever created a forum solely with the purpose of making a profit? And did you manage to make a large enough profit to justify the time and effort spent making and developing the forum? I've always ended up selling my forums but mainly because I'm not had enough time and haven't been able to continue running the forum. I've always made a nice profit, I managed to make a large profit with one of my general discussion forums years ago.

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jpyy

jpyy

Your comment on general discussion forums is interesting. Note, they seem to be a big trend on the forum promotion websites and I was always wondering if they really made a profit.

Anyway, regarding your other topic, I have at least 3 forums in which profit is a major goal. Nonetheless, there is a major element of fun to them also.

9 years ago

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TsuyoyRival

TsuyoyRival

Is it easy to profit in your opinion, when you already have traffic?

9 years ago

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jpyy

jpyy

It should be in most cases - unless, the owner makes a lot of mistakes (based on inexperience). For instance, someone might put the wrong ads on there, or perhaps they are paying a lot of money to drive paid traffic toward a poorly designed forum. In another case, perhaps the money spent to build the forum outweighs the profits made from it.

9 years ago

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vinaya

vinaya

I don't have a forum at this moment, however, in the past I created a forum (I still have that domain). My intention for creating forum was to make profits. Since I don 't have to create contents for the forums, the discussion continued by the members will build of contents, I thought it was easy to manage and run forums. However, getting members was very difficult therefore I shut down my forum. You can earn from forums, however, earning is not as easy as people think.

9 years ago

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TsuyoyRival

TsuyoyRival

Hum...i'm sorry to hear that. I hope you had a good time while investing on your forum

9 years ago

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overcast

overcast

I think one needs a lot of activity both daily or weekly. And also that activity needs to be monetized. Then it is possible to make profit. Content is what stops people from benefiting from the forum. So far not many people are making much money out of the forums. So the reason behind it is that they are yet to take content seriously. That needs to be changed.

9 years ago

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JoeMilford

JoeMilford

vinaya,
I am interested in creating my first forum for profit, and I am curious where to start. What is the best way to generate profits from this venture, and how did you get traffic to the forum initially? I have a few ideas of how to do this with social media and my blogs, but I would really like to boost this as soon as possible, so if you could offer any helpful hints, I would appreciate it.

9 years ago

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Tronia

Tronia

I have never actually owned a forum before so I can't say that I've made any for profit. I think that if you're interested in purely making money, blogging and making websites then selling that is far better and less time-consuming. I mean, a forum needs visitors and members that create threads and post. It can definitely be a lot of work to get the forum from the initial starting phase and into the ''I'm making profit''. I guess you might have better understanding of it though since you mentioned you've made more than one already

9 years ago

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hermessantos

hermessantos

How can I profit from a forum? I would love to know. Are the gains good?

9 years ago

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Corzhens

Corzhens

To be honest, I'm also looking at the angle of profit from a forum. I have noticed that forums come and go especially the not so active. It looks like there is a start up every day and I am guessing that it is more for the profit. If a forum can earn me $300 a month then I could probably be at ease with my finances when I retire from my daytime job. It's all right for me to go full time on my forum for that amount of money.

9 years ago

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kgord

kgord

I honestly don't think creating a forum would be for me. I mean you have to pay someone to post the forum and you have to get people who are willing to post on the forum to make it viable. I don't think it would be worth the trouble it would take to create and keep going honestly.

9 years ago

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TsuyoyRival

TsuyoyRival

Well, you won't be successful in the first week, or months to come. You have to plan ahead and dedicated 100% if you want to do something like this.

9 years ago

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clara1993

clara1993

I don't own a forum yet but it crossed my mind to own one, after all it's fun to be able to chat with people share ideas and Speak your mind without being offended or offend someone, I participate in quite a lot of Forums and I enjoy discussions but I have not figured out how to make money with a specific forum and definitely when I figure that out I will give it a try.

9 years ago

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TsuyoyRival

TsuyoyRival

Yes, the interaction with the "public" is amazing. I don't need to own the forum for getting that, but i guess the owners must love watching people talk for hours about their most precious things.

9 years ago

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peachpurple

peachpurple

I agree with you. I have not created or own a forum either. I thought that only the genius are able to do so. I am active at Forumcoin and Postloop which I find that these two forums are doing pretty well than expected. Although Forumcoin owner did mentioned that the profit margin is slimmer but he will continue the forum site because the community are strong, supportive and less plagiarism. With plagiarism, a forum is doom.

9 years ago

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clara1993

clara1993

You are right most of participants on Forums are either writers who work in freelancing or some blogs owners who write everyday or people who are just training themselves to become writers like my case when I started writing on forums I wanted to learn how to write,
which is the reason why plagiarism is less.

9 years ago

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white52

white52

well that useful info for me, if i will have time i will crate 2-3 forums ^^

9 years ago

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TsuyoyRival

TsuyoyRival

Create 2 or 3 forums? Wow...as if just one wasn't enough ahah

9 years ago

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overcast

overcast

Forums are gold mine of user generated content. And if you can get people to contribute daily and use ads on it. That can make some good money. And it can even surpass the money required to maintain the forums. So I am guessing that forums can be a good source of income for many people. I have found that there are some people who build the community. And then from that they just show ads and do stuff to continue to profit from it. It depends on how you are executing this strategy.

9 years ago

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TsuyoyRival

TsuyoyRival

Yes, i don't know if just generating content is enough, but is a good start

9 years ago

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overcast

overcast

Forums content can be monetized. There are plenty of monetization options. Take example of viglink and skimlinks. You can use either one of them. And it can earn you some good revenue. So I'd say you can try that out. I personally don't think it'd be too high revenue like adsense but better than nothing. And for this to work you need forum with lot of content.

9 years ago

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augusta

augusta

Have battling lately with monetizing my blogs.I have the thought of owning one or two forums if the profit is quite large.I don't know if creating a forum for only teenagers would be a good idea.

9 years ago

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TsuyoyRival

TsuyoyRival

I think you must do a blog about things that you like, not for a single target. Like this you will attract more.

9 years ago

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augusta

augusta

I have other blogs for specific things I have passion for.But I think I could be an inspiration to the teenagers as an Educationist,I know this terrain so well.

9 years ago

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limberg

limberg

I've had forums in the past purely for profit but they were busts. I still have a forum, but it is integrated in one of my WordPress websites and it's just built using the BBPress plugin.

By the way, are forums still profitable now that social media sites are booming? Facebook, twitter, Instagram, and the others have managed to gather lots of people into one place for them to converse and share their thoughts.

I think this has resulted into a huge loss in the popularity of forums. How can forums still stay relevant and profitable these days? How can they entice people to join discussions?

9 years ago

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TsuyoyRival

TsuyoyRival

Exactly, versus Facebook and other sites like Reddit, forums are a bit off nowadays, but they still are viable and profitable in my opinion.

9 years ago

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TsuyoyRival

TsuyoyRival

I never created a forum, but if I would, I would probably do it for leisure purposes and sharing knowledge, not monetizing it.

9 years ago

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explorerx7

explorerx7

The interaction is good and at times very rewarding, however, I notice that many forums soon disappear after inception. I guess it may not be an easy venture to maintain.

9 years ago

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PinkTurtle

PinkTurtle

I had a forum back in 2011 and it was so much work. It was mostly about books! It wasn't created to be profitable but really I don't think having a forum for profitable reasons can be fun at all. as I said I found it to be so much work and hard to keep. If you want to make it profitable you need to get the traffic moving and flowing wich can be expensive and exhausting after a while.

9 years ago

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Fuzyon

Fuzyon

I never made forums for profit. I wasn't that good at marketing back then and I also didn't have that big of a creative direction. It's definitely a possibility if you have a good niche, otherwise you won't make that much.

9 years ago

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centurion

centurion

I have been tried previously long time ago to make a free forum. But that didn't worked well. Now I have a wish to make a forum with higher facilities for my country Joy Bangla issue. There had a revolution on Dhaka at Bangladesh at 2013 5th february. After that we didn't got any platform to stay together. But now I want to create a forum for staying together.

Thanks
Centurion

9 years ago

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Pixie06

Pixie06

I don't have a forum but would love to have one. I am having trouble with my blog as I can't devote much time. I am taken up in my other freelancing works. I would like to create a forum to make some profit from it. However, it is not really that easy to maintain a forum.

9 years ago

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Soulwatcher

Soulwatcher

I hate to be the barer of bad news but the days of making money off a forum are over, 99% of all new forums fail! Social media, youtube, google have all but killed forums. Today is not like the early 2000's where you could throw up a forum and get members and put ads on it and make money.

It takes tons of time and dedication to grow a forum and no amount of money is going to make a forum take off. I know a guy who spent $40k on paid posting and ads and he got to over 150k posts and his forum still failed!

P.S. there is no rhyme or reason why a forum takes off because if there were everyone would have a successful forum.

9 years ago

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MidlifeFitness

MidlifeFitness

Couldn't agree more.

I did recently start a new forum but it was only because I had a spare Xenforo license and wanted to post some technical guides and thoughts without messing with Wordpress. If it takes off, great... if not, no sweat to me but I totally agree with you about most new forums are DOA upon launch.

That said, I still visit forums daily because I believe the level of conversation and interaction had on them is FAR superior to any social media or other platform. When I'm looking for information, I want exactly that and that is hard to get in 140 characters or on someone's wall when all of their friends are chiming in with nonsense thinking they're clever or cute.

9 years ago

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Corzhens

Corzhens

I have to agree with what you said that forums are not exactly money makers these days maybe because the trend is veering towards the convenience of social media. But on the brighter side, there are still people who prefer the forum instead of the social media groups because of certain factors like exclusivity and camaraderie brought about by the moderators and admin.

8 years ago

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Jeane

Jeane

I have never tried creating a forum but I think and do genuinely believe that it is possible to make money from a forum.

However considering how much harder it is to get people to register and participate on forums these days, you have to spend quite a bit of money initially to market your new forum. As long as you are sure the forum will be profitable eventually you shouldn't be afraid of spending enough money to build it to that point.

8 years ago

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