Bill & Kerry: MONETIZE your forum and keep members instead of subscription and loss

[Edward Alexander]

Dear Bill & Kerry

I highly suggest you implement some monetizing features on your websites and forums instead of the planned subscription feature. This way you will be able to earn money and still keep all visitors, without any need of a subscription based forum.

Some of the best ways to monetizing your website is to put up ads and referral systems for various programs.

I have listed some of the best methods on my own website specifically about this at http://www.WebCasher.tk - I highly recommend PayPopups and Chitika as main monetizing programs, and the rest for further income possibilities.

Check through the programs reviewed on my website, and feel free to ask me if you have any questions or concerns on how to get things going properly, I would be more than glad to help you out so you can keep the website free and still make good money on it. It is quite possible, and you do not need an awful lot of ads all over to get it going either - besides most websites have some ads here and there to finance themselves and people are used to this. I'm sure more would be in favor of a couple ads here and there rather than having to pay for a subscription.

I think you may lose a major part of your members if you move on to subscription, despite your low fees. People tend to not like to having to pay for things such as forums.

Rather, run some of the ad systems as mentioned, put up some donation button easily visible on the pages, and make some money that way.

I do it myself with my own websites and I make a decent living from advertisements alone and do not need to have anyone pay me for accessing any of my sites or material - I keep it all free and I do my best to keep it that way.

Best of luck to you, let me know if you need some more suggestions or help with this!

Blessings,
Edward Alexander

[Edward Alexander]

Oh and to anyone who agree to this feel free to add your comments and support here to keep this thread up and visible so Bill and Kerry will notice it

You think it is a good idea to monetize the site with some ads instead of subscriptions? And would you leave as a member if you will have to pay for membership?

-Ea

[pilot]

I wouldn't mind if there were a few ads. I bet they thought of this and decided not to for some reason. I think you are right though-people would probably not stay if there is a subscription-I would read it but not sure if I would pay to post.

from what ive seen they had MANY other sugestions and options presented to them and still stayed the course w/ the subscription so i really dont think they care what we think..imo

[Squeptikal]

Originally Posted by Edward Alexander

Oh and to anyone who agree to this feel free to add your comments and support here to keep this thread up and visible so Bill and Kerry will notice it

You think it is a good idea to monetize the site with some ads instead of subscriptions? And would you leave as a member if you will have to pay for membership?

-Ea

To the man with two first names.

Bill & Kerry have stated that they abhor that kind of advertising. I have tried it on my sites and never made enough cash from it to warrant the extra bandwidth & wasted browser space. While it may work in some situations, I doubt that these good folks are eager targets for ads.

After all, this forum is about getting off the grid and sharing ideas openly with the aim of surviving what most of us believe are times of global crisis. One thing I appreciate about this forum is the distinct lack of such advertising.

I also want to say that those who question the need for a stream of income to offset our hosts' expenses might want to keep in mind that they travel to their interviewees and get current, rare, and cutting-edge information that might not be possible if their travel was restricted by lack of finances. I can afford to pay for my subscription and have offered to pay for 2 others to ease the hardship and spread the wealth of this information.

Keep your ideas coming!


No

[Edward Alexander]

I agree that they need an income. So do most people after all, and this is what they spend their time on.

Personally, I know ads can work great, as I make plenty of money on that myself, and trust me I got a site with significantly less visitors than this one.

Just worried they might be shooting themselves in their own feet by implementing a subscription based service: How many do you think will sign up for that, will it be enough to even pay for what they need to get paid, and will it be enough to earn more than what they would do on advertisements that would have all people staying?

Specially new members as well: If I go to a forum, if the first thing I see is being asked for money to join, I most likely will not go back there , at least not join it. So they will lose a lot of potential visitors and members from having such a system in the first place.

Keeping it free will only steadily increase members and visitors and thus incomes on ads. And donations.

-EA

[Anchor]

This is pretty off topic for News And Updates, normally I would move it but its already discussing a subject that is debated in at least 3 other threads.

@EA - PM me if you have issues with this, I can move the posts to another thread if you want.

I am closing this one for now - go here instead http://www.projectavalon.net/forum/showthread.php?t=306