Adwords for members

[daunk]

I have three successful forums but recently decided I wanted to make a forum with a view to spinning money out of it. As such I would like to know if anyone here uses adwords to get a forum going, I would like to use it as an "investment" for the long term.

Obviously I'm guessing I'll need to do the smallest bid possible to maximise effect, does anyone have any thoughts?
Thanks!

[rogerd]

Daunk, your best bet would be to try to think of search phrases that would apply to your forum but not have much commercial potential (if such phrases exist) - that will help keep your positions high and bids low.

Since this will all be pure expense, I'd also try to monitor visitor behavior - if a lot of visitors only look at the first page and leave, that's probably not a good buy.

[Shak]

a ver good strategy for brand building on a broad match term at a very low CPC rate.

however make it clear that its a FORUM.

so NO ads like:

cheap tickets

but rather ads like:

Football Forum
discuss teams, players and more
.....

does that make any sense.

what I am trying to say is that there is serious mileage in this strategy, but be careful on your spend

Shak

[eWhisper]

AdWords content targeting can be a gem for forum sites as those visitors are often perusing various related sites, and often are more inclined to stop and read (and hopefully join in), on various topics.

[rogerd]

Shak's point is excellent. All too often we talk about maximizing click rates - in a case like this, you are better off with a lower but more targeted click rate to avoid paying for dozens of clicks but no forum readers/members.

[daunk]

Awesome, thanks team I knew you wouldn't let me down. I wonder if an "alliance" with an established site which lacks a forum may be the way forward... I have done this twice before (once very happily) and once it ended up in a power war between us :(