How to Make Money Running Your Own Forum

I once had a forum, I tried building it into an active community but I failed, therefore, I sold the forum for a small price. If I had to start another forum, I think can build it into an active community and also make some money. So, what would I do to make my forum successful?

Forum Scripts That You Can Use to Create Forums

If you want to build online communities, you have multiple options, one use premium scripts, two use, open source scripts, and three, build from scratch. Building from scratch requires knowledge and skills in a programming language. Therefore easier options are using premium scripts or open-source scripts. While premium scripts cost money, open source is completely free. If you want to build an online community like forum without spending any money, you can try the following platforms. Well, these are free but you still need a domain and hosting to create forums.

phpBB: This is one of the most popular open-source forum script, phpBB is written in PHP. It offers a clean interface and is very easy to use. You can customize the script and create a good forum by using add ons.

MyBB: MyBB is also in PHP. You can easily create an online community by using MyBB. You can customize your forum with a variety of plugins and themes.

SMF (Simple Machines Forum): This is easy to use forum script, ideal for beginners. It is also a very powerful script written in Php, therefore, also very good for experienced.

Flarum: NO very popular as the aforementioned forum script, you can also use this free and n open source forum script to create your forum. It is also written in Php.

Vanilla Forums: This is also not very popular like MyBB or phpBB, but very useful forum script for creating and managing a community forum.

Xenforo is premium forum software. The software is used to build a forum or online community. Just like you use WordPress to build a blog or a website, you can use Xenforo to build forums and discussion boards. There is a lot of forum software, free and premium, but Xenforo is a popular choice among many forum owners. I have never used Xenforo but I hear that the standard license of Xenforo cost about $160 and you will have to renew the license every year. If you want to use addons, you will have to pay additional money. 

If you want to build a community by using Xenforo, you first need a domain and hosting. Once you have a domain and hosting, you will have to buy Xenforo and install it on your server and your forum will be ready.

How to Create Your Own Forum?

This is the easiest part. You need domain and hosting (try shared hosting, it is the cheapest kind of hosting you can find).

Use open-source content management. The primary aim is to keep your expenses low. If you want to create a forum, you can try using open-source forum scripts such as SMF, phpBB, MyBB, etc. You just need a domain and hosting to use these forum scripts, there is no need to pay for a license. You can even get access to a lot of premium-quality themes for free. If you need to customize your communities, you can even use mods that are also available for free.

Forum Coin, one of the oldest Paid to Post Forums uses phpBB forum script. Bitcoin Talk, one of the biggest forums, is built on SMF. Therefore, you do not have to worry about using Open Source Forum Scripts.

How to Build the Community?

This is the hardest part.

Create a couple of fake accounts, and create multiple topics from these accounts.

Join webmaster forums, and offer post-exchange. Post exchange is a promotional method where you join someone’s forum and make some posts and the forum owner will reciprocate. By following this method, you will be able to build an active community. If you do 10 post exchanges with 10 forum owners, you will be able to get 100 posts and 10 members. If you do this on a regular basis, you will have regular posters and also traffic.

A lot of webmaster forums also offer posting packages. Posting packages is a concept where you buy the package with forum credits and then the members of that forum will join your forum and create posts. When you use this method, you will also be able to get regular posters.

The third method is to offer paid posting. While opening your forum for paid-to-post rewards can be financially daunting, you can hire some people to make posts. For instance, you can ask FC members to post on your forum for 1-2 FC. You can also find paid posters on webmaster forums or other paid-to-post forums.

How to Make Money From Your Forum

Use Adsense and Amazon Ads on your forum. You will not earn just because you have implemented ads, you will earn from traffic and ad engagements. If you bring regular posters and visitors, you will be able to earn.

If you have an active community, you can use your community to do a lot of things for you from subscribing to your youtube channel to following on Instagram and Facebook. Your community can help you earn through other methods as well.

You can also add a marketplace section on your forum and allow members to trade and charge small fees.

Another method is to add a “donate” button.

Are you ready to launch your own forum?