11 Ways to Make Money in a Forum

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Are you an active forum poster who would like to use your internet reputation to earn money? Are you a web entrepreneur who is always looking for free advertising? Regardless of your situation, posting on web forums can be a great way to make money by cashing in on your knowledge of a situation or industry.

1. Post thoughtful comments on a subject you are passionate about in popular forums. Make sure to put a link to your own website in your signature. As you post more often, you will gain credibility-and traffic. The more relevant the particular forum is to your website, the more money you can make from the traffic, so target your posts accordingly.

2. Ask for help and advice related to the forum's topic. For example, you could report that you are starting a niche site and need feedback. Most people who wouldn't follow a link in your signature are more willing to give you an expert opinion. If your content is good, they'll be sure to return, building both traffic and ad revenue.

3. Use forums as a form of test marketing. Are you wondering if your latest idea is going to fly with your target audience? Do you need ideas for new webstore items? Most niche forum posters will tell you exactly what they want and how much they are willing to pay for it.

4. If the forum allows it, you can put relevant text affiliate links in your posts. However, you will need to be careful to stay very targeted and very relevant, or you will jeopardize your reputation and your ability to continue posting on the board. Ask yourself: Would I post this link even if I weren't being paid to do so?

5. Create a T-Shirt or other wearable item that is applicable to the forum niche through a site such as CafePress and put a link to your 'e-store' in your signature. Because forum regulars can be fanatical about their favorite topics, you can make a lot of cash this way with little or no upfront investment on your part.

6. You can post product reviews on popular forums. There are actually two ways to make money doing this. One is to contact the company that makes the product and ask them to pay you for your post. The other way is to become a program affiliate and use an affiliate link in your review to direct readers to the product.

7. Many forums have paid administrators who keep tabs on the posts, start relevant topics, and handle administrative tasks such as dealing with new users. The pay varies from forum to forum, but this is easily earned cash.

8. If you are currently a writer for a website such as Suite 101 that pays based on revenue sharing, you can post the first section of your latest article on your favorite relevant forum with a link to the rest of the article. If you have a compelling lead, this should entice many people to read the whole article, and increase your pay out as well.

9. Use the polling feature of many forums to set up polls. You can either use the polls as test marketing or use them to direct people to your website.

10. Posting quality responses and forming relationships with other people always pays off in the end, especially if you are in a business that depends on marketing yourself or a website. People who respect you as an individual can turn into your biggest promoters, sending other people in the web community to your site(s) and creating the kind of mouth buzz that exponentially increases both traffic and earnings.

11. Sign up with one of the many paid to post agencies. These companies pay you up to fifty cents a post to talk about meaningful topics with other interested people. Although this is hardly a fortune, if you are already an active forum poster, it would be free money. Who knows - maybe one of your favorite forums is paying people to post through one of these sites.

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