The Best 5 Ways to Monetize Any Forum Ever!

Are you a forum administrator, have you recently just opened your new forum, or are you considering opening one up? Well if your answer to any of those questions was "Yes!" then in this article I am going to tell you something that may interest you.

Making money from a blog is a hard thing to do, there's not much that a reader can get from there except the content that you provide. In a forum though, the reader can participate and become actively involved in conversations, they can make new friendships, and they can even get help from other people who participate too. Because of this, monetizing a forum will be much easier than monetizing anything else. You will be able to provide your reader great content, interactivity, and perhaps even a way to contribute to the life of the forum. In this article you will learn the best 5 ways to monetize your forum. These things can all be implemented to maximize the probability of earning income, or you can simply try them out one by one to see which one will work best.

You should be aware that once you have at least 20 active members in your forum, the chances of making money from it will rise immensely. If you are already at this point, you should try one of the following things immediately. If you are not yet at that point, you should consider first working on getting people into your forum and keeping the conversations going so that they will return daily, promote you to other people, and perhaps even trust you enough to buy something from you.

Ways to monetize forums:

1. Sell your services.
Selling your services through a forum is a great way to make money from it. If for example you have a computer topics related forum and you sell a computer service, you can almost be sure that once you get regular visitors, and you earn credibility with them, they will consider buying the services you offer through your forum. Selling something like an eBook is a great idea, or perhaps some products. Make sure to use an online payment source like PayPal to handle your sales and payments. You can easily get a "Buy Now" button to input into your post with the product that you are selling. Giving great customer service to each customer will also ensure return business, so make sure to take that into consideration.

2. Promote your affiliate products.
The best thing about opening up your own forum is that you have full control of what you can promote on there at all time. If for example you partner up with a company like Avon and you become an affiliate, you will have the ability to promote their products, services, and even their special promotions. From each sale that comes from someone who clicked on a link from your forum you will make a commission and this is awesome, as you never have to handle a sale or payment yourself. If you have visitors who are interested in certain topic, then you can easily monetize your forum by offering affiliate products relating to that topic.

3. Place text or banner ads
If you've partnered up with affiliates or if you are part of a program like/or Google Adsense and you can get banner and link ads then consider placing them in your forum's layout code. This can help you to get the maximum exposure to those ads and perhaps bring upon more clicks and sales. You should note that although banners may seem more attractive, their click through rate's are lower than text-link ads' are.

4. Charge a fee for an exclusive members area or the like
If you provide some knowledge to your forum visitors and you have more to share than you have already, then consider selling a exclusive members area. Make a forum, password protect it, and sell that to your customers. Make sure that you will provide them helpful information and perhaps make it a monthly subscription to bring along more benefits to you in the long run. You can also try giving monthly discounts to those who refer a new member; this will ensure that others promote you and you will make more business in a short period of time.

5. Place a tip jar and accept donations
With PayPal getting donations is easier than ever. If you have a PayPal and you would like to make cash from your forum, then adding a tip jar or a "Make a donation" link is easy. Make sure to place this link in your forum signature, in your forum's main topics, and perhaps even in the forums navigation bar. If people are getting help and satisfaction from your forum, it will only be a period of time before they decide to give donations. Accepting this is great, because you will have to do no work at all. You should consider sending thank you notes though.