Starting a fourm and the number game..

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shutter

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Oct 16, 2006
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I have a niche I want to exploit, but I’m not sure if it has enough traffic to support a forum. The reason for the forum is simply because one does not exist for the sector. As far as I can tell, this particular niche has around 500,000 subscribers and the number is growing steadily each year.

When you guys do your research on creating a forum, what numbers do you consider before deciding if your endeavor will be lucrative?

I've been doing some arbi stuff and the payouts have been very nice for this particular niche.
 


^^ - I have plans for a similar forum that I can find no competition for, then again there's not much for sites in general for the topic, so it will be interesting to see if it take hold or not.
 
make sure the niche is profitable, there no reason to spend alot of time on building a successful site if you cant make any money from it
 
Also there is no point in building a forum just for monetary purposes, forums are a bitch to run if you have no interest in the niche. If your interest in this niche only goes as far as the money I would look into different options.
 
You also have to do some market research in that specific niche. Ask yourself something important like why are there no forums in this niche? Is there a reason for it? Just because a niche pays out well in arbitrage doesn't necessarily mean people in that area like to post on forums. Sometimes they aren't very internet or forum savvy in the first place and you may just be creating a forum of idiots. Also bring in the monetizing factor, just because you are doing alright with adsense doesn't mean you can do much better with fielding advertisers to buy placement, or worse yet, putting adsense on the forums may yield a really shitty CTR and profit. People will only click on the ads once every so often, and you may run dry if you don't mix it up every so often.
 
To be honest, the only reason I would embark on such a site is for monetary reasons. Don't get me wrong, I've always found the subject fascinating, but I don’t have a need for the service, nor do I have any expertise regarding this particular niche.

IF anything, I've stumbled upon a very useful product that needs a service such as a community forum. Why, because most users who use this product are few and far between. For an example, I do not personally know anyone owning our using this product, but the sheer numbers show an interest and need.

When current users have questions, where do they turn for answers? Customer support I assume.

This particular niche has a very technical background, so I’m confident most of my target audiences are very internet savvy. Because of this, I’m sure most would simply ignore ads posted within the forum. My goal with the forum would be to build traffic to lure the big boys for ad space. This is a very cutthroat industry…

Honestly, in order to have a successful forum, does the moderator have to have passion for the subject? Obviously, it helps, but is it a requirement for success?
 
The truth is no one can tell you if your forum will fly or not. If you think it will fly, quit talking about doing it, give it a run, if you fail, fuck it, your that much smarter and that much wiser.
 
See that it's something people actually want to talk about, too. There are lots of boring topics that pay great for arbitrage but nobody's going online saying, "gosh, I'm going to find some other people to have lots of conversations about my deodorant with." It should be a niche that some people have as a common interest, not just something people look for when they want to buy it.
 
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