How to actually make some money!

[mryang]

Hi everyone,

I have been running what has developed into a very busy angling / fishing chat forum (OK I have lost the interest of most of you right there!) but before you go please help me to get some revenue from this site. Basically it gets 3000 ish unique visitors a day and over 20K page impressions, 95% of the users are male and aged 20 to 50 - the thing is I can't go down the route of plastering the whole site with adverts as they are the one thing that kills this type of forum, others have tried it in angling and the forum membership just moves over a short period to another forum...

So how can I make some good revenue from all this traffic without plastering loads of adverts all over the forum. The site in question is www.talkangling.co.uk/upload/

[hawash]

use 180 200 ad unit at top left with links in red also put ads between the content

[crankydave]

you most definitely didn't lose me.

There's a lot of differening approaches to this. So, these are my own thoughts...

Keep the forum as clean as you can. A small slot for ads beneath the the initial post is an idea. Use the homepage for the bulk of what you'd like to do. Buttons, banners, adsense, etc.

Generally, I think you'll find that it's the content/discussions taking place that will keep/chase the membership. Keep your boards "fresh" and be creative with ways to get the membership to interact.

Dave

[janeth]

Originally Posted by crankydave

you most definitely didn't lose me.

Generally, I think you'll find that it's the content/discussions taking place that will keep/chase the membership. Keep your boards "fresh" and be creative with ways to get the membership to interact.

Dave

I agree, good content will keep me coming back over a bad design or poor ad placement.

However, I wonder how many people will click on the ads?

We become banner blind to ads on sites we visit day after day.

[crankydave]

Originally Posted by janeth

I agree, good content will keep me coming back over a bad design or poor ad placement.

However, I wonder how many people will click on the ads?

We become banner blind to ads on sites we visit day after day.

Yeah, it's why I'm more of a fan of rotational ads. Need enough to make them work though. Either from enough different advertisers, or rotate impressions for different ones from the same advertisers to get a "variety" look and feel. It's my personal opinion that static ads are the ones most likely to cause "blindness". Create a fresh look and feel... even with advertising.

Dave

[Feydakin]

If you choose to monetize the site with adverts, I would step away from bulk deals like adsense and look at something far more targeted such as commission junction where you can pick and choose your advertisers.. Or better yet, work out deals with advertisers on your own..

You have the page views to start heading that direction..

[janeth]

Originally Posted by crankydave

Yeah, it's why I'm more of a fan of rotational ads.
Dave

And I agree rotational ads help but I think banner blindness goes further in that it affects the whole banner area.

Other words, I had thought WPW no longer showed ads on this site until just now when I looked. They blind in well enough with the site and I have become blind enough to them that I don’t even notice them.

I think flash helps, rotating helps, but the problem is that we become blind to that area of the site.

[edhan]

From the view of your site forum, I think it will be great to utilize CPA type of ads.

You can choose various ads that will be closer to your site and rotate those ads. Generally idea will be having your ads blending together with your current theme.

As suggested, maybe it will be good to have it beneath your post.

[iexin]

Yeah,use text link to promote some affiliate program. It help you site without plastering loads of adverts all over the site.

[Web Templates]

I agree with those who mentioned rotations. What about changing the ad format/placement every 2-3 months that will help ad blindness.

[Dcrux]

So how can I make some good revenue from all this traffic without plastering loads of adverts all over the forum.

Taking this into account, I'll assume you're serious.

How about organizing meetups and trips? Joint venture with a travel agent if need be. You can also offer fishing reports and a newsletter along with a membership. Add a special section to the forum just for members.

The marketing angle here: Membership has its privileges.

In the special area or newsletter, conduct interviews with expert anglers. Hold contests and award prizes for paid members only. Work out coupon deals or discounts with retailers. Distill the collective tips revealed by the experts into a seminar, and charge $500 and up. Refine it into a natural series of upsells which make sense.

No. Wait. Just sell ads and get a few bucks a month for taking people off your site. Yeah. That makes marketing sense.

A forum is a meeting place. Social. You make money not by then doing antisocial programmer things like plastering ads for Rackspace, Viagra and anything that has nothing to do with fishing. (While forgetting they promised you'll get targeted ads).

Realize there are levels of social interaction ....with forums at the bottom, just above a "howyadoin" to a passing stranger in a hallway. Figure out what people who meet about fishing want to do. Sorry but that means actually studying and understanding the customer. Start with the lure of "inner circle status," a social phenomenon much used ...outside of so-called social computing.

So far this thread has all the depth of social marketing savvy of the asperger's afflicted. You need to shut off the computer and interact with people unmediated by computer ...sheesh.

If you want to do anything but interact with people, then get out of the forum business. Forums don't make good social firewalls.

[Duncan Pollock]

I agree that plastering your forum with ads is ill advised, but I have to wonder two things:
1. Why do you want to earn some (more) money?
2. How are you earning it already?
If I assume that you're in the business of chartered fishing trips or some other way of getting fishing folk to buy something from you, then what's to stop you from promoting your services/products in the forum? This can be done in a soft sell manner and could/should ncrease you income relatively painlessly. I mean, you have their attention (as in a captive audience) if they're visiting your forum. So what harm is there in saying something like: "By the way, I can now offer you this, that, whatever. Just contact me if/when this could be useful/helpful."?

Why not, eh?

Duncan

[thefandango]

Or make a sticky at the top of the forum for "special member offers" and use it to post your affiliate links you set up on commission junction for related products. You could also then get companies to pay you a small fee to post their offers in there. That would then allow you to negotiate some "exclusives" where people quote a code thats in the post etc.

That way it would be in every part of your forum, would be in context and not pushy, but would have enough bait (excuse the pun....!) to get people into that thread.

[Alex Williams]

MAN, you could make LOTS of money of that amount of traffic! Why not make your own product for something? You could sell if for $17 or so, and make some quick money.

Additionally, I would suggest to start some kind of a membership as well. Just give something that people would pay for - not necessarily a lot. Maybe just $9 a month! A newsletter? Cool tips every month? Some discount products?

Also, you could insert some AdSense between the posts. I think digital point forum has them - look it up for an example. Should generate some money, if integrated seemlessly!