How much do you earn on your big board?

Hey guys!
Just out of curiosity i was wondering how mutch you make on your big boards?

Type in forumname, rank on Big-Boards and how mutch you make.

No need to say how you make it.

:banana:

[wtrk]

were not a big board, but were extremely nitch and topic specific, and we were the first forum on the topic of our kind at the time (now there are lots of copy cats). we have proprietary advertisers (ie, its not adsense or some other click through system, we actually go out in real life and hustle ad sales for banners). it took 2 years of hard work before we made any money at all. you can make a ton of money, you just have to get off you ass and get out there and hustle for it. its not going to fall in your lap just because you have a web site. its called WORK for a reason..

[no mods]

I use the donation method, $20 for life, for premium, then they get all types of special stuff. You just have to keep asking everyone, and sooner or later someone will say sure, why not. I would like to do ads, but I have no idea were to start when it comes to ads.

[AzzidReign]

Originally Posted by cajunboy2208

Are you guys using Ad Units or Link Units? Or both, and how many of each?

I currently am using 1 Ad Unit for my header, image only. 2 Ad units, text only, inside the threads, and 1 Link Unit at the footer...

If I were you, I would do text and image ads. It gives you a larger database of advertisers...when you have more advertisers, there will be higher biddings...only the highest bids will be placed on your site...meaning you make more money.

I have 1 banner ad below the navbar and 2 inpost ads (first and last post). Right now, my inpost ads are rockin'. Yesterday they made $20+ while my banner only made $8.

Originally Posted by wrestlepower

out of interest, to all of those who offer paid subscriptions to their members, what added features or incentives do you give them to donate? I imagine that this will depend on what market you're in, but surely there must be some generic options that can be offered?

I'm nowhere near a big board and have had Adsense for about a year and have yet to hit the $100 limit to release payment. I have two people subscribing at $10 per year, and that was only beacuse they were my mates who didnt mind throwing me a few $$. Recently i've been thinking of trying to pursue donations as opposed to adverts, but i need to be able to sell the idea to my members. So far the only things i can think of are offering e-mail addresses, viewing the forums ad-free and a monthly raffle to win back their subscription for the month once i ahve enough subscribers for that to be viable).

Any help on that would be greatly appreciated.

Paid subscriptions is sort of like peer pressure...if you aren't getting any subscriptions...it's going to remain that way. You want to make your paid subscribers REALLY STAND OUT. For my site, I have a dark skin and have the premium usergroup color green and for their rank symbol, it's a really cool glowing green symbol I made that says PREMIUM (everyone loves em). What you need to do is give away free premium to good friends of yours to make it look like you are getting a lot of premium subscriptions...once you do that, people almost feel "pressured" into buying premium (just like peer pressure...you're not cool if you don't have premium).

What I offer in my premium is emails, "secret" tutorials that not too many people know how to do, EXTRA help (this is a big plus, whenever a premium member asks for help, THEY GET HELP), and a bunch of more junk and goodies (I have a projects forum telling those premium members what we have "in store" for the site and they can offer suggestions as to what they would like to see us do with the site...so it's more like they feel they have a say on what direction the site goes).

I hope that helps.

Originally Posted by no mods

I use the donation method, $20 for life, for premium, then they get all types of special stuff. You just have to keep asking everyone, and sooner or later someone will say sure, why not. I would like to do ads, but I have no idea were to start when it comes to ads.

I don't like this technique...but if it works for you, good. I don't ask anyone to subscribe and I'm getting $300+ each month...the more premium members I get 1 month...the more I get the next month...like I stated earlier...it's like peer pressure...when a lot of people on the site are "green" with a "cool symbol" by their name, others feel the need to have that too so they don't feel left out. I find that much better than "asking" every person that registers to the site...that's rude IMHO.

[s0lidgr0und]

Originally Posted by kall

2200 uniques a day? Is that on the site in your signature?

I especially liked the "**GUEST ARE NOT ALLOWED TO SEE ANY THREAD TILL THEY ARE NOT A REGISTERED USER**"

Or the private forum that I can view as a guest.

[melscamera]

not making a dime but i am spending lots of dimes to get the board running. i have adsense which isnt doing much for me the last 3 months.. we have aobut 150 users 1100 posts about 2 new users a day if we are lucky.. any ideas how to get more users and also post messages instead of just looking. i am using google adwords which doesnt seem to do anything but cost me alot of money.. any help would be appreciated

Sorry another question if i wanted to offer paid advertising (banners / links) how do you go about contacting companies who want to advertise. Do you just send them an email or what would you guys recommend ?

Originally Posted by melscamera

not making a dime but i am spending lots of dimes to get the board running. i have adsense which isnt doing much for me the last 3 months.. we have aobut 150 users 1100 posts about 2 new users a day if we are lucky.. any ideas how to get more users and also post messages instead of just looking. i am using google adwords which doesnt seem to do anything but cost me alot of money.. any help would be appreciated

[sherytiger]

Well i get around 3500 unique visitors / day and i am earning about $80 / month through my Adsense!

[ByG SteAm]

Ah I get around 8,000 impressions a day and make around 35 cents a day if i'm lucky.

bygforum.com & thegowforums.com combined.

[cajunboy2208]

Here is my roughly average for the month of April per day.
1000 impressions
20 ads clicked
$4.25 daily

Still very small site. Roughly 100 active members, a little over 200 in total.

[ZomgStuff]

$0.

But I have gotten about ~$300 in donations in the past 3 months. I also don't force ads and never will because I am strong against forcing ads upon the user.

[Tourmeister]

Right now, I am donation supported only. I have just over 4200 members and get about $600-700/month. I've no idea what number of unique visitors I get or any other statistic as I rarely even think about that stuff. We average about 10-15 new members per day.

The site is four years old. It started off slow and then eventually began to pick up speed. The first few years, myself and a few others spent a lot of effort promoting the site directly to other motorcycle riders we'd meet at other events or while out riding. We visited several bike shows and handed out small business cards. Once that took hold, other people started spreading the word for us.

The key to getting people to donate is two fold, service and community.

You either have to have a LOT of one of those or a good mix of the two. My site focuses heavily on the community aspect as the service side is merely providing a place where folks can get together to plan rides, trips, and other events. It is a place where they can ask questions and get good help from the other members.

The community aspect is most important to me. My site is about motorcycling, specifically Texans that ride. My number one rule is that ALL members must be courteous and respectful towards ALL other members at ALL times, no exceptions. I laid down that rule early on and I have enforced it. The VAST majority of the people that donate to my site have included a reference to that rule as the reason for them supporting my site. If folks get beat over the head by other members and the environment is hostile, why would anyone want to keep coming back, much less send you money? Enforcing the rule of respect has helped tremendously in fostering a sense of community among our users.

I do differentiate between regular users and forum supporters. There is a private forum section that only supporters can see. Here I solicit feedback and ideas. As was mentioned by someone else, this lets the supporters feel like they have some say in the vision of my site. Best of all, I really do get some fantastic feedback and suggestions! The other things I do are stuff like more PM's for registered users, use of the VB Photogallery during the supporter term, a label under the username to show that the person is a supporter, and not much else. Most of the folks are not donating for that kind of stuff, they do it out of loyalty for the site and a recognition of the time and effort that goes into the site behind the scenes.

I have things set up so that people can make one time donations or yearly donations. I do not have lifetime donations. When people donate, they get a 30 day supporter status. After that 30 days expires, so to does their supporter status and all extra perks. I have a great many people that routinely do the once a month donation. I also have a great many that have paid for one year. Lastly, I allow for people to set up automatically recurring subscriptions to make their supporter status last indefinitely. I do not make all registered users donate. This may be appropriate in some cases, but not for my site.

The key is to work the numbers. My minimum donation amount is $5/month. For most folks, that is a coffee or two at Starbucks. When other members have pointed that out to them, most see it as quite reasonable to donate a mere $5 to a site they enjoy so much. Some have actually been QUITE generous with large one time donations. However, if I could get only 1000 of my slightly more than 4000 users to donate $5/mo, I would be doing this as my regular job!

I too have long been against any form of advertising. However, the reality is that the bills have to be paid and the effort it takes to keep up a decent site is not minimal! I have approached my supporting members on this topic and they are all okay with me adding some advertising and that they would not necessarily stop donating. One option is to let the supporters opt out of the advertising. Although, most of my supporters said they would not do this even if it were an option. What is key to them is that the advertising be related to things they might actually be interested in knowing about: local bike shops, local events, places to stay on trips, etc,... For this reason, I will not be using something like Google AdSense. It will take more legwork, but I will directly solicit advertising from specific companies.