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Owen
06-14-2015, 12:32 PM
Hi! So I launched my very own forum and I was wondering if there is way I can start making money on AdSense? I have a banner on my website and right now it has made literally no money, yet I have 500 uniques a month. Am I missing something?

Freelancier
06-14-2015, 12:38 PM
I have a customer with a very active dating site, well over 700 people on simultaneously... and he makes about $3K a month on Adsense. The money just isn't there any more and hasn't been there for several years. Combine low payouts with people using adblock to hide those ads... it's not worth it.

Owen
06-14-2015, 12:51 PM
I have a customer with a very active dating site, well over 700 people on simultaneously... and he makes about $3K a month on Adsense. The money just isn't there any more and hasn't been there for several years. Combine low payouts with people using adblock to hide those ads... it's not worth it.

Is there another better way to make money with ads or in other words a better network?

turboguy
06-14-2015, 05:20 PM
You could try selling ads directly. I have a forum as well that targets a subset of the landscaping industry. We will soon be doing exactly that. There is actually a large forum that covers that whole industry and I would estimate they bring in at least a half million a year in advertising. They have hundreds of advertisers and their cheap packages are 4 grand a year.

Harold Mansfield
06-14-2015, 05:43 PM
Hi! So I launched my very own forum and I was wondering if there is way I can start making money on AdSense? I have a banner on my website and right now it has made literally no money, yet I have 500 uniques a month. Am I missing something?


First things first, you're going to need a lot more traffic than that to make money on ads. Get it to 500 uniques a day and you may make a couple of bucks a day on adsense.
As was already mentioned adsense doesn't pay like it used to. It takes time to build up a forum or any website with enough consistent traffic to make money through ads.

It's probably one of the hardest, most time consuming things you'll do online.

vangogh
06-15-2015, 10:18 AM
500 uniques a month is nothing. You need a lot more traffic than that to make any money with advertising of any kind and AdSense will generally pay less than what you could sell on your own. With a less trafficked site, advertising is something that can maybe bring in a little extra cash. If you want to make real money with it, you need to create a site that real people want to visit and continue to build it until a lot of them are visiting.

turboguy
06-15-2015, 11:29 AM
Finding the right niche is important in a forum. I would say that 80% or more of all forums that someone starts close within a few years for lack of traffic and they fact they are not profitable. There are a few who manage to create a lot of traffic and can generate big bucks but those are few and far between.

I actually know of one forum that is for sale that has a quarter million posts over the years and has had 2200 members and I think the price would be cheap.

vangogh
06-15-2015, 11:45 AM
I think most forums close, because their owners assumed all they had to do was launch the site and other people would fill it up with content. Forums take a lot more work to get going than many people realize. And then like you say the money isn't there, because no one is visiting the site and filling it up with content.

Advertising as a business model sounds easy. You slap a few ads on a site and you make money. It doesn't work well until you can get the ads in front of enough people. Being able to target specific people who'd more likely be interested in the ad will reduce how many people you need to reach overall, but it still requires a good deal of traffic before you're making any money, let alone enough money to support a business.

Even large well trafficked sites struggle to make advertising pay. That's why you see things like a slide shows where every image is on a new URL or listicles that say absolutely nothing. They exist to drive up page views.

turboguy
06-15-2015, 03:56 PM
This part of the discussion reminds me of when I first started my forum. I made up about three identities and talked to myself for a while. Eventually a few others started posting and that was a big relief. I didn't want to get into the habit of talking to myself too much or people would think I was a bit off my rocker.

Owen
06-17-2015, 11:27 PM
I think most forums close, because their owners assumed all they had to do was launch the site and other people would fill it up with content. Forums take a lot more work to get going than many people realize. And then like you say the money isn't there, because no one is visiting the site and filling it up with content.

Advertising as a business model sounds easy. You slap a few ads on a site and you make money. It doesn't work well until you can get the ads in front of enough people. Being able to target specific people who'd more likely be interested in the ad will reduce how many people you need to reach overall, but it still requires a good deal of traffic before you're making any money, let alone enough money to support a business.

Even large well trafficked sites struggle to make advertising pay. That's why you see things like a slide shows where every image is on a new URL or listicles that say absolutely nothing. They exist to drive up page views.

Yeah, I just stuck an add and I'm going to offer premium accounts. That's all I really can do right now :/

Business Attorney
06-18-2015, 10:23 AM
I don't know what the click-through rate or the per-click yield is for a general forum, but I suspect both are pretty small. Let's say the click-through rate is 1% and you earn 25 cents per click. That means on 1,000 page views you would earn $2.50. I imagine that is actually a very high estimate and that the actual numbers would be much lower. With 500 unique visitors and an average of 5 page views per visitor per month, those numbers would get you $6.25 a month, or about 20 cents a day. Again, I imagine that you would be lucky to get that much.

Rather than worry about advertising revenue with such low traffic, I would spend my time building traffic to the site by increasing the activity and making it more appealing for visitors to come to your site often and to visit multiple pages while they are there.

vangogh
06-18-2015, 10:42 AM
I just stuck an add and I'm going to offer premium accounts. That's all I really can do right now

You can do more. If you can't then a forum isn't something you should be running right now. Read the post from turboguy just above yours. He created several accounts for himself and had conversations with himself to fill up the forum with content and make it appear people were already having conversations. Other forums started the same way.

When we started this forum, I posted about 60 times a day for the first couple of weeks. I put most of my other work on hold for a time. I monitored the forum the whole day, created new threads, and responded to everyone else's. When you start an online community you have to be the most active person in the community at first. Over time other members will post more and you can pull back, but in the beginning you have to be the most active member of your forum if you want it to grow.

billbenson
06-18-2015, 01:17 PM
There was a guy who was very competent on a different forum. He was making money on an arbitrage strategy. By that I mean he built sites and put adsense on the sites. He promoted the sites via adwords. He made money at it.

Here is the kicker though. He was playing around with a $250k per month adsense budget. He spent years developing his strategy.

I think this is one of those 5 year study projects to figure out how to make money at it. Plopping up an Adsense ad won't make you much. That's pretty much true for most of us here trying to make money online. It took me a good 5 years to start making any real money selling product online.

Oh, nobody successful is going to tell you their strategy. Get on a bunch of forums and piece part the comments / strategies together. You will find that most of it is BS, but some people will post some valuable info.

Just my 2 cents.

Harold Mansfield
06-18-2015, 01:43 PM
I think this is one of those 5 year study projects to figure out how to make money at it. Plopping up an Adsense ad won't make you much. That's pretty much true for most of us here trying to make money online. It took me a good 5 years to start making any real money selling product online.

Oh, nobody successful is going to tell you their strategy. Get on a bunch of forums and piece part the comments / strategies together. You will find that most of it is BS, but some people will post some valuable info.

Just my 2 cents.

This is all 100% true. All those "strategies" are obsolete, or just plain don't work before they are even posted.
It's also true that NO ONE is going to lay out their successful strategy to you. But you can piece together enough information from various reputable sources over time along with testing, and trial and error to develop one of your own that works for you.

Owen
06-18-2015, 11:56 PM
You can do more. If you can't then a forum isn't something you should be running right now. Read the post from turboguy just above yours. He created several accounts for himself and had conversations with himself to fill up the forum with content and make it appear people were already having conversations. Other forums started the same way.

When we started this forum, I posted about 60 times a day for the first couple of weeks. I put most of my other work on hold for a time. I monitored the forum the whole day, created new threads, and responded to everyone else's. When you start an online community you have to be the most active person in the community at first. Over time other members will post more and you can pull back, but in the beginning you have to be the most active member of your forum if you want it to grow.

Any more advice for starting your own forum? :D

Harold Mansfield
06-19-2015, 12:23 AM
I actually have some advice for you about the web and business in general.

I've watched you on the forum and you are all over the place, but in a good curious way. I like that. It's clear that you are searching for a way to make money on the web or with technology in general. Also a good thing. But I think you're starting to realize that it's not easy, and you need to have some skills and be technically competent in something that you can leverage to have any chance of making money in this business.

So here's my advice to you: You're young. Very young. And seemingly have time on your hands. Why don't you start learning how to do some things that you're interested in that have a chance of making you money?

You first started here talking about making mobile apps and some ideas that you have. Why don't you stop wasting time and start learning how to develop your ideas and build our own apps? If you start now, the 2+ years you are about to waste jumping from thing to thing and never hitting on any of them, could be spent making yourself knowledgeable in something that can actually earn you money.

There are a TON of development and certification courses online that are offered or backed by the biggest names in technology. They range in price from free for introductory courses, to certification courses that cost money..but they teach you everything you need to know to be competent and marketable in the industry. You can go as far as you want to.

Stop wasting money on ideas that you have no idea how to develop or manage and learn how to develop them with your own skills and knowledge.

It's hard work. You have to be serious and dedicated, but learning how to do what you want is THE ONLY WAY that you are going to see any success online. You will not get lucky and trip assbackwards over money with nothing but a good idea.

You are too young not to seize the incredible opportunity that you have today to be an expert in something marketable, without having to spend 10's of thousands of dollars for the education. The way things are right now...right this second..companies are practically begging people to learn things. They're making it easy. They are literally giving away the education for free in some cases.

Trust me, if all of this easily accessible information and training was available to me even just 5 years ago, I'd probably be in a completely different tax bracket by now.

Think about it. You'll be so happy in the long run that you dedicated yourself to learning something and put in the work. And who knows how long this boom of easy education and training from tech companies will last.

Owen
06-19-2015, 09:50 PM
I actually have some advice for you about the web and business in general.

I've watched you on the forum and you are all over the place, but in a good curious way. I like that. It's clear that you are searching for a way to make money on the web or with technology in general. Also a good thing. But I think you're starting to realize that it's not easy, and you need to have some skills and be technically competent in something that you can leverage to have any chance of making money in this business.

So here's my advice to you: You're young. Very young. And seemingly have time on your hands. Why don't you start learning how to do some things that you're interested in that have a chance of making you money?

You first started here talking about making mobile apps and some ideas that you have. Why don't you stop wasting time and start learning how to develop your ideas and build our own apps? If you start now, the 2+ years you are about to waste jumping from thing to thing and never hitting on any of them, could be spent making yourself knowledgeable in something that can actually earn you money.

There are a TON of development and certification courses online that are offered or backed by the biggest names in technology. They range in price from free for introductory courses, to certification courses that cost money..but they teach you everything you need to know to be competent and marketable in the industry. You can go as far as you want to.

Stop wasting money on ideas that you have no idea how to develop or manage and learn how to develop them with your own skills and knowledge.

It's hard work. You have to be serious and dedicated, but learning how to do what you want is THE ONLY WAY that you are going to see any success online. You will not get lucky and trip assbackwards over money with nothing but a good idea.

You are too young not to seize the incredible opportunity that you have today to be an expert in something marketable, without having to spend 10's of thousands of dollars for the education. The way things are right now...right this second..companies are practically begging people to learn things. They're making it easy. They are literally giving away the education for free in some cases.

Trust me, if all of this easily accessible information and training was available to me even just 5 years ago, I'd probably be in a completely different tax bracket by now.

Think about it. You'll be so happy in the long run that you dedicated yourself to learning something and put in the work. And who knows how long this boom of easy education and training from tech companies will last.

The things I am incredibly skilled in is web design and server administration. I've gotten very good with web design, however, it sucks because the ideas I have are basically huge monopolies, such as website builders (dominated by GoDaddy, Weebly, Wix, etc.) so getting into that game is beyond impossible unless you have a great hook but even I don't know how I would figure that out. At this point I'm studying law and business more because I do want to be a lawyer one day, that would be amazing. However, I am torn with my love of business so I don't know what I'm going to do there. We'll see. Really I would drop everything with FreeFall if someone I know approached me with a great concept that has potential.

vangogh
06-22-2015, 10:19 AM
I agree with what Harold said. You have to pick one thing and focus on it. If you like web design and server administration find a way to use those skills to get yourself started. Maybe you won't be able to build another GoDaddy or Weebly or whatever in the next year or so, but that doesn't mean you won't be able to earn a living doing something you enjoy doing.

Maybe you won't build the next GoDaddy or Wix, but you might build what comes next. Maybe it is too much for one person to build, but so what. If you start a business now as a freelance designers or developer you'll probably meet a lot of people over the next couple of years who'd like to help you build the business you want to build. Don't see the future and think about how difficult, or even impossible, something might be. Instead think about how you could make it work, despite it seeming impossible. If you business idea needs a dozen people to make it work, then figure out how to find the other eleven people you need to make it happen.

Some of the best ideas I've had for my business weren't ideas I had before starting. The ideas came to me only after I'd been doing the work a time. Do't lock yourself in on one idea either. You're going to change over the next few years as will the world around you. Put yourself in position for the ideas you'll have a few years from now.

If you enjoy web design and server admin start building some kind of business around them now. There are people here who've built businesses around web design and people who've here who've built businesses around server admin. We probably won't share every last secret, but we'll be happy to share what we can and help you get started.

Harold Mansfield
06-22-2015, 12:13 PM
Some of the best ideas I've had for my business weren't ideas I had before starting. The ideas came to me only after I'd been doing the work a time. Don't lock yourself in on one idea either. You're going to change over the next few years as will the world around you. Put yourself in position for the ideas you'll have a few years from now.
.

Couldn't agree more. The more you know and the more experience you have, the further your ideas will develop.
Apple started in the personal PC market. They had no idea that they'd eventually change the world with personal devices back then. One thing led to another.

vangogh
06-22-2015, 04:27 PM
Yep. Businesses have to evolve because the world around them changes. If you're successful in any way others will copy you and compete with you. You want to keep learning and growing and adapting.

Owen
06-22-2015, 11:49 PM
Yep. Businesses have to evolve because the world around them changes. If you're successful in any way others will copy you and compete with you. You want to keep learning and growing and adapting.

I'd love to turn my gaming forum into a large gaming network kind of like Curse or IGN. I invested a little bit of money into AdWords and also have done a ton of SEO, and my traffic has grown significantly. I now have an estimated 150+ daily visitors. However, the AdSense balance is still at $0.00...

Harold Mansfield
06-22-2015, 11:56 PM
I'd love to turn my gaming forum into a large gaming network kind of like Curse or IGN.

There's always opportunity for a little guy to do something big online, but be aware of what you're comparing yourself to. Although IGN was founded by 1 guy and his staff back in the 90's, it is now owned by Ziff-Davis, a huge media conglomeration. So it has 20 years experience and almost unlimited resources on you..at the moment.

So if that's what you're shooting for, just be prepared to put in the time, and the work.

Owen
06-23-2015, 12:15 AM
There's always opportunity for a little guy to do something big online, but be aware of what you're comparing yourself to. Although IGN was founded by 1 guy and his staff back in the 90's, it is now owned by Ziff-Davis, a huge media conglomeration. So it has 20 years experience and almost unlimited resources on you..at the moment.

So if that's what you're shooting for, just be prepared to put in the time, and the work.

We're just a video game mods website, basically we're what Curse is today.

Harold Mansfield
06-23-2015, 01:32 AM
We're just a video game mods website, basically we're what Curse is today.
Also a good story. Started as just a WOW mods website for he and his friends back in the early 2000's. Got popular, so he put some money into it and then secured $11 million in financing to grow it, moved to SF, and made it what it is today.

Owen
06-23-2015, 12:46 PM
Also a good story. Started as just a WOW mods website for he and his friends back in the early 2000's. Got popular, so he put some money into it and then secured $11 million in financing to grow it, moved to SF, and made it what it is today.

I just secured $0.02 off of ad revenue so that's a bonus! :D

Freelancier
06-23-2015, 01:07 PM
Good luck trying to collect.

Owen
06-23-2015, 01:18 PM
Good luck trying to collect.

Oh yeah, I just need $99.98 to meet the payment threshold :mad:

Owen
06-23-2015, 01:52 PM
Holy crap I don't know what i'm doing but it's working. I went from 2 cents in revenue to a dollar within a day. I love ads :D

Ryan26
06-24-2015, 06:27 AM
Did not go through all posts.. Use Adsense and work with others to put specific ads in there, make it rotate with 3 ads. So your AdSense still would be on. Yes, they are few bucks a month when you get good traffic, but still, that is almost like a free money to go out and eat..