I still consider developing a community of loyal members as a long term goal for a few of my websites and I try to stick to my program on forums

It is likely to take much time due to a number of reasons, but the most important one is I do not have any experience of creating communities. I am not certain what works and what steps are primary. I just read a few forums and go by trial and error.

I am set not to repeat some of my mistakes I did in the past (when I started about 10 websites simultaneously with no idea how it all works, with no long term plans and concepts. The result? About $10,000 wasted investments. I would like to get rid of a few of my projects and focus on those that look promising).

This time I am going to succeed with one forum first to see what works and what is a useless waste of time. Once I know the basics I will attempt to transfer my experience to the other websites.

One of the issues I am faced with now is how forum owners get their moderators?

I am amazed to read that people have 5-10 dedicated mods per forum who work for free. Where do you get these extraordinary people? Even Lee, a well known specialist in forums, does not pay his moderators. And the guy runs a few big boards.

I browsed a few forums including theadminzone.com, made notes of the tips on getting staff for your forums and tested them – with no great success I should admit.

The idea to promote most active users to the position of moderators was not successful – the members are active, but they did not reply to my messages.

I should test offering some premium features (probably I should place an adv in the forum – searching for a moderator): bigger signatures, premium sections, more upload space, special banners, etc.

At this moment the forum I experiment with is 7 months old and with 255 members. I cope with it quite well. But I would like someone to take care of the forum (a volunteer).

Summary: I know that it is a problem with many new forum owners: to find moderators. Possibly, it is the result of tough online competition – old generation of volunteers has found their forums and stick with them, new generation prefers to launch their own communities or be paid for this work. And number of forums grows at a fantastic pace.

Should I wait a couple of months more improving the website and the atmosphere for new members to join and find interesting to become mods?

Technorati Tags: forum, online community, staff hiring, seo, internet marketing, affiliate marketing, blogs, content generation, make money online, work from home, home based job, earn your living online

Social websites gain more and more popularity online. They generate a lot of buzz.

A few months back there were occasional reviews or coverage of these websites, now the information on the topic is abundant.

New to social websites? Then you should read ‘Introduction to social scene’ - what it is, what social bookmarks and tagging are.

Need to learn more about top social websites? No problem, a lot of information on this. For instance: what is Digg, how it works, its competitors.

If you are an advanced social websites enthusiast then you are on the next level: how to do social media optimization. Here is the list of top social websites to keep in mind if you are planning to apply social websites optimizing (just remember they operate in various niches and in slightly different ways – they are not all the same):

1. Digg

2. Del.icio.us

3. Wikipedia

4. Flickr

5. Reddit

6. Newsvine

7. StumbleUpon

8. Technorati

9. MySpace

10. Yahoo! Answers

11. Ma.gnolia

12. Yahoo! 360

13. LinkedIn

14. Squidoo

15. Wikihow

16. Ning

17. Frappr

18. Furl

19. Wetpaint

20. 43 Things

21. Shoutwire

22. Shadows

23. YourElevatorPitch

24. Jotspot

25. BlinkList

For professional social websites users, for those who find interesting ‘how stuff really works’ – Research list of social network sites.

Summary: I greatly enjoy all above resources. As I have stated a few times before I see these websites as a great help to those who make their first steps with making money online with their websites. It is next to impossible to gain high Google rankings despite your website content – the search engine takes many factors into consideration and the website age is one of the most important. Added to that most niche are occupied and the owners of the established websites do not feel like sharing space with new (late?) competitors.

On the contrary, social websites as a new approach to classify information opens doors (a bit) to all websites if you are good enough to do well online.

Unfortunately, not every type of the website is good for social websites – for instance, e-commerce sites are not likely to become popular and benefit from the social websites, but those with good content have good chances to see the advantages of social network sites.

Technorati Tags: social websites, social search, social network websites, social bookmarking, smo, social media optimization, links bait, social bookmarking, web 2.0, domain names, text-link-ads, links buying, myspace, seo, internet marketing, affiliate marketing, blogs, content generation, google, make money online, work from home, home based job, duplicate content, earn your living online

I am sure that forums are valuable assets for any website - repeat traffic, loyal visitors, sense of community, new contacts. Trying to get going one of my photo forums I am focused at the moment (I hope to find a recipe that I will apply to other forums of mine in the future) I think and search for all kinds of efficient promotion that I test and closely observe if it works or not.

The forum membership grows steadily, but not at the desirable rate (15-20 new members weekly). Another problem is that registered members are not active participants of the community. I have experimented with most techniques I know. One I keep in mind. I talk of paid posting service.

I have read all kinds of feedback of webmasters who have tried this service. I guess the result depends to a certain degree on your choice of the service and on the type of your community. The more serious topics discussed on your forum the worse result you will get with paid posting service. I think that most posters are young men, probably college students that come from non-English speaking countries.

But there are also positive feedbacks that make me keep this technique in mind.

I know the topic of my forum, so I just miss the second element of the show – a forum posting service.

Here is a good list of these service providers:

1. 100 Posts - http://www.100posts.com
2. Adhocpost - http://www.adhocpost.com
3. Advantage - http://www.advantageposting.com/
4. Best Forum Posting- http://www.bestforumposting.com/
5. Community Boost- http://www.communityboost.com
6. Community Starters - http://www.communitystarters.com
7. Creative Posting - http://www.creativeposting.com/
8. Credos Paid Posting - http://www.credos.us/paidposting/
9. Do Bump - http://www.dobump.com/
10. Five Star Forum - http://www.fivestarforums.com
11. Forum Advance - http://www.forumadvance.com
12. Forum Advantage - http://www.forumadvantage.com/
13. Forum Booster - http://www.forumbooster.net
14. Forum Boosting - http://www.forumboosting.com
15. Forum Bulge - http://www.forumbulge.com
16. Forum Candy - http://www.forumcandy.com
17. Forum Elves - http://www.forumelves.com
18. Forum Fairy - http://www.theforumfairy.com
19. Forum Fast Start - http://www.forumfaststart.com/
20.Forum Frogs - http://www.forumfrogs.com
21. Forum Launch - http://www.forumlaunch.com
22. Forum Mechanics - http://www.forummechanics.com/
23. Forum Paid Posting - http://www.forumpaidposting.com
24. Forum Posters - http://www.forumposters.org/
25. Forum Posts - http://www.forumposts.net
26. Forum Shock - http://www.forumshock.com
27. Forum Talkers - http://www.forumtalkers.com
28. Forum Turbo - http://www.forumturbo.com/
29. Forum Writers - http://www.forumwriters.bcentralhost.com/
30. ForumWriter - http://www.forumwriter.co.uk/
31. Forum Zeal - http://www.forumzeal.com/
32. Fruit Medley - http://www.fruitmedley.com/
33. Grow a Forum - http://www.growaforum.com
34. Huge Forum - http://www.HugeForum.be
35. Inb0x - http://www.inb0x.com
36. Larger Forum - http://www.largerforum.info/
37. Paid Posting - http://www.paidposting.net/
38. Pay Per Post- http://www.payperpost.com/
39. Paid Posting Central - http://www.paidpostingcentral.com/
40. Paid Posting Tools - http://www.paidpostingtools.com/
41. Paid Posts.com - http://www.paidposts.com
42. Paid Posts.info - http://www.paidposts.info
43. Paid Services - http://www.paid-services.net
44. Pixel Dynamics - http://www.pixeldynamics.org/
45. Post On My Forum - http://www.postonmyforum.com
46. Posting Pays - http://www.postingpays.com/
47. Posting World - http://www.postingworld.com
48. We Pay - You Post - http://www.wepay-youpost.com
49. Webmaster Welfare - http://www.webmasterwelfare.com/
50.. World Paid Posting Services - http://www.theseoworld.com/forums_posting_services.html

Link

Summary: All I need is to make my final decision if I m ready to pay and test this technique and make one more research on the company I am about to partner with.

I will keep you posted.

Technorati Tags: online communities, forums, web forums, traffic, links bait, social bookmarking, web 2.0, domain names, text-link-ads, links buying, myspace, seo, internet marketing, affiliate marketing, blogs, content generation, google, make money online, work from home, home based job, duplicate content, earn your living online