Most of you know I'm just starting this forum and we only have a few google ad's on. We don't make much but its better then nothing..
After we get some pagerank I'll sell a few text links a week to help pay for the new server. How do you earn money on your site, do you have any times for the rest of us, do you offer banners or links ?

Thanks, hope we can all figure out how to maximize our sites earning potential.
-Brandon

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Well, I don't currently earn but that's by choice. We, with a new conversion coming of my community, plan on creating a donate/paid rank for the members. Offer many services that they can't get as a regular members at my site. With that we'll set an amount for a six month subscription and a 1 year subscription.

But like was saying, were looking at more the members paying into the site versus ads. Ads are a great way to go for steady numbers in what they usually provide, but set donation amounts for more features couldn't hurt either.

Do I not like Ads? Well, I hate when I go to a site and accidentally click on one...that's the only thing that bothers me. Nothing wrong with them but since I prefer to browse without ads, I present my site to my members in that way.

It just depends on your goal I guess. I'm not doing it to make money. The money we do make from this will go towards prizes for the members (with various contests and drawings) and server upgrades as time moves and the site develops.

Sorry to ramble...just my lil' 2 cents.

That's a good point, about the ad's..
One of our Mods Gary doesn't use google ad's on his site for that very reason you stated,, he isn't trying to make money but I do have a good search bar on his site, cuz his members were asking for it :p

One of my first forums I ran was a anti-yahoo site. I wont get into the details of it all, but we had a points system like vb has now. The members would trade the points back and forth for prizes and "rare" ID's, we also provided game leagues and tournaments for the members.
I didn't have a single ad on the site, but made over 3 grand in a few months

Sometimes I miss those days, but that site had and still has ( I sold it ) was to much drama going on for the amount of time I have to work on my websites..

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Yeah, I guess it's all in the owners and staff members eyes...how they want things to flow. There's really no wrong answer or bad advice, it's really all about what works for you. I'm fairly new to running my own community but I've been one that tries to help in every forum I sign up for. From there, I've become an Admin at two sites that are pretty popular in their own respect, but it wasn't enough so I started my own

You mentioned tournaments, that's also something I plan on starting up for prizes. Currently they do it for fun but adding that prize incentive will get members hopefully using that section of our community more as well.

If I had to pick the best way to earn money for a site, it'd be a combination of any way relative to what the site offers. Then you might get the best of all worlds. I know that seems to bea pretty broad statement but basically if an owner/staff decide on 3 or 4 ways they can accomplish gaining income...it greatens the chances of a larger gross, obviously. So try everything that you can, any idea possible you hear about and keep what works and change up if yu have too many ways in your favor.