Monetizing my forum

[melmunch]

I have a forum (PHP) that is about 5 months old. It is in a service area with some very high paying clicks. It is growing very nicely, and I have finally made top 5 for my main keywords, widgetservice forum and widgetservice forums. In the last month, I have had over 9,000 uniques and 107,000 page views. I know that in the greater scheme of things, this is not much at all, and I am not looking for pats on the back, but rather some serious advice.

I am not technically inclined at all and I don't even know basic html. I will have to hire someone to help me implement whatever I decide to do. I am at the stage where I am ready to monetize the traffic, but I need to tread pretty carefully, so as not to piss off my big posters.

I have read through the threads on adsense placement, but beyond that, I would like to hear some ideas to monetize the traffic.

Thanks

[rogerd]

If you are earning decent revenue and getting high value clicks, perhaps the best focus isn't on improving monetization, but rather building content.

Attracting new members, increasing stickiness and pageviews, and adding to your page count may be the biggest revenue boosters.

[maximillianos]

I get the impression that you have not placed any ads on your site yet, right?

I would recommend starting small and working up from there. There is no quicker way to lose visitors than to throw up tons of ads all over the place when they are use to none.

Stay away from pop-ups, pop-unders, interstituals, etc. All those do is annoy users... and they are not worth what they pay out.

I would start with Google Adsense. Set the ads to show both image and text. Perhaps start with the 468x60 size that shows just two ads at a time. It is a non-obtrusive size. Place it at either the top or bottom of a post.

If your posts have lots of text to them, a great spot to put ads is to try and embed it in the text so the article/post actually "wraps" around the ad. Use a 250x250 or 336x280 for this approach.

Good luck! See how that works and go from there!

[melmunch]

Thanks Max, you are correct that there are currently no ads.

If I only show ads to non registered visitors, do you think it would be bad to have several ads on each page?

[rogerd]

Your non-registered visitors are your potential members, so I wouldn't overdo the ads.