some of them are not bad but… internet is crazy

The problem with a WH forum is that people may not stick around for too long, especially once their WH is up.

however i’d run it where you have to email the admin to be added as a contributor, as i run one on my cricket clubs website, and get about 5 attempted spam signups every day - a big site would be a nightmare!

Just to clarify (I’ve also edited the post), I was talking about adding a forum to http://www.workingholidayinfo.com not this site.

The main reason I think it would be a good addition is because I can’t find anything out there that’s dedicated totally to working abroad. There are sections on LP and Bootsnall but posts about visas and stuff tend to get lost amongst all the other stuff. I think people heading off on working holidays have a few different things on their minds than those heading off backpacking with no plans to work. Just a hunch that it might fill a gap.

One of my motivations for building sites is to make a living but it’s not the only one. I did this for around 4 years as a hobby and my aim was to provide people with helpful information to help with their travel plans. Now that I realise I can make some cash out of it I’m working towards that but I still want to build the best, most helpful sites that I can. Plus I want to position myself as an authority online for anything to do with working holidays and I think a forum will help with this.

I think the best thing to do as was mentioned is to see how well the site does traffic wise and see what sort of community builds up on the blog that I’ll be adding to the site. I should be able to guage whether a forum will be needed or successful from there.

I think I’ve decided to wait until I’m settled in Beijing in March/April before attempting a forum. I’ll have plenty of time on my hands there and about 5 months to really work at getting it established. Plus by that point I’m hoping to site will be getting a good amount of targeted traffic and some regulars at the blog (which I have yet to set up) so it seems like the best plan. When I head off travelling again in Sept 2008 I might be in a position to pay someone to manage the forum or I might even have some eager regulars who will join me as moderators because I won’t be able to dedicate as much time to it then.

I’d be interested in knowing more about monotising forums but perhaps I’ll do a bit of research and turn that into another post. Thanks again for all the advice!

I normally dont air my opinions so bluntly but this one is worth going out on a limb Playing devils advocate I would say that other than Stuarts Comment about 20,000 visitors on a single post not one of you has given a good reason to maintain a forum.

“IF & only IF you are in this to travel & make a living”

The main drawback is the maintenance I would like to think when I go traveling I am not going to be locked in to an itinerary which dictates I must have internet access, which you will need if you have a forum cause unless you can pay someone to maintain it 24-7 you are going to have a s&*t load of problems if you dont vist at least every 12 hrs or more often.

On the other hand I do agree a forum adds to a site if maintained but do you realy want that constraint?

If you are looking to make friends use other peoples forums when you are online.

From a financial point its well known they dont convert as well as a simple site “which requires no maintenance”

I allways go back to the numbers for me its simple I make 1 cent per Impression “With no Maintenance” Not 1 cent per unique visitor.

Why would I give up my hassle free buis with no constraints that I dont need to be online 24-7 to continue getting a residual income so that I can own a site that pleases many but requires constant attention ?

“IF & only IF you are in this to travel & make a living” IMHO you would be insane to add a forum

For those of you that know me well my first site a very simple 10 page info site continualy brings in > $5 a day & I have not done nothin on it in a year I doubt if many forums “that are not major forums” get close to what my simple no maintenace site makes.

I could add blogs to my rants “with the same reasons” but you are doin so well I might yet be swayed

There’s one big IF of course. The forum has to contain info that people are going to read and find useful — given the quality of comments you’re getting so far, I’d say it’s a good indicator of some pretty useful stuff onto a forum.

That’s not to say forums aren’t hard work. I’d spend at least an hour a day answering questions on my main one, but very little of that time is spent dealing with spam (touchwood) — I think primarily because while we let people post links, they can’t make them live (if it’s a good link we’ll enliven it). It’s also a custom built forum so the spambots seem to have trouble with it (touch touch touch wood)

Not only are we doing this to build/maintain (repeat) traffic and a sense of community on the site, but also to reduce the number of questions we end up answering directly from our readers. I figure, let them all ask each other!

You bring up good points though and have me thinking now.

I intend to use the Simple Forum WP plugin since it seems simple indeed, and appears to do everything we need. If anyone is familiar with it or has other suggestions, I’m all ears.

- Affiliate Programs, particularly if you’re blatent in your promotion (something like: to help with the costs of running this forum, please have a look at these deals. Tailor them to your forum and you’re laughing)

- Also some email marketing campaigns can work, but don’t spam too much!

That is because a regular becomes desensitized of your ads. Affiliate programs become old news that gets stored away in the event that they need it. Regulars are eager to see the new and fresh content that you come out with.

To maximize the value of regulars, consider offers or affiliate programs that you can present to your user base. User bases are buzz machines if you use them correctly. Same story with mailing lists.

By presenting your user base with offers and information that they are interested their buzz and excitement can lead them to share your information with their friends and if you are lucky, affiliate sales.

Seriously though, I think they are a great addition to certain sites, but i think to take some of the headache out of it it helps to have a fair bit of traffic whistling by so the take up is quicker. So in that respect you may have a green light, too.

I’ve been thinking for a while about putting a forum on ubertramp (the cats outta the bag now…) but have just held back as I’m not seeing the traffic that I think it will need to help it on its way. Thats always on the up though, so when the time is right i’m gonna go for it - but i also think, like a blog, you have to have a niche for it - an angle for why people would come to your forum and not others. I mean, with the real bad boys out there like the LP one and the Boots n all one, it would be stiff competition to say the least if it dealt with the same stuff.

So in short, yeah, i think a forum would be great if you went for it (i’d certainly spam it …er… i mean take part in it) - but i reckon it has to have something else on offer from the monster travel forums already out there.
cheers!

I think you’ve raised very legitimate concerns about whether a forum will add enough value to the site (both for you financially and for your readers) to warrant the time and effort it takes to get it off the ground. I’ve experimented with a couple in the past year - and gave up after a few weeks because it was so much effort on all fronts for very little return. Plus there is nothing worse than going to an emtpty/quiet forum - so they only really add value if you’re prepared to do the hard work to get it really active on a frequent basis.

I think the topic is probably “strong enough” to warrant a discussion forum, but then don’t people use LP Thorntree for things like this too?

You could always do a smaller scale test - maybe start a Facebook group or a yahoo/google group discussion list first, see what the demand is like and how active it is before jumping in with a fully fledged forum…just a thought.

Lea