Traffic needed to launch a forum?

[Josh]

I have several game specific websites and one of them is doing quite well in terms of traffic. I know this isn't an exact science but how much traffic do you think a site would need launch a successful forum considering the following factors:

• I would have a budget for freerolls and money added tournaments ($1,000/month)
• I would be able to devote a lot of my time to the forum
• I have a budget for random contests and other promotional type things that would make the forum more enjoyable.
• I have a budget for paid posters and plenty of friends/family members that would post to make the forum active until it gets going.

Like I said there is no perfect answer but perhaps someone has experience with a situation like this. How much traffic do you think?

• 3,000 - 5,000 uniques/month, (currently here with 95% SE traffic)
• 5,000-8000
• 8,000+

Forgot something: I have several other poker strategy type sites in the 3-5k traffic range that I could use to push the forum. I'm not sure how successful something like that would be but figured I would throw that into the mix.

[superiorword]

Simply hire PokerNations and Sebastian, and your forum will be ultra successful. There will be no need of any traffic then


On a serious note, I think the major factor of making a forum successful is the administrator/moderators of the forum. Look at Jeremy, when he was at PAP, it was ultra successful. Then he left it n formed PAL from scratch- and the results are clear!

[Josh]

Simply hire PokerNations and Sebastian, and your forum will be ultra successful. There will be no need of any traffic then


On a serious note, I think the major factor of making a forum successful is the administrator/moderators of the forum. Look at Jeremy, when he was at PAP, it was ultra successful. Then he left it n formed PAL from scratch- and the results are clear!

lol, even if I only paid PN a penny/post he would bankrupt me in a matter of months

FYI: I mean that in a good way PN.

[CasinoKev]

Not that this answers your question directly, but I heard an interesting suggestion from DealerDan on how to test the forum idea. Put a link in your nav bar to "Forum" that links to a page that says something like "We hope to launch a forum here soon. If you would like to be one of the first to join, enter your email address and we'll send you a notification as soon as it's ready".

I thought that was an interesting way to gauge interest.

[TheShortStack]

Not that this answers your question directly, but I heard an interesting suggestion from DealerDan on how to test the forum idea. Put a link in your nav bar to "Forum" that links to a page that says something like "We hope to launch a forum here soon. If you would like to be one of the first to join, enter your email address and we'll send you a notification as soon as it's ready".

I thought that was an interesting way to gauge interest.

Yeah, just what I was going to say. I think that's a great idea and gives you good information about roughly how many people would be interested ...

[Newjabber]

Put a link in your nav bar to "Forum" that links to a page that says something like "We hope to launch a forum here soon. If you would like to be one of the first to join, enter your email address and we'll send you a notification as soon as it's ready".

What a great idea, i have also thought about adding a forum to my main site but wasent sure if my visitors would be interested.
This is a great way to test the intereste, thx alot.

[DealerDan]

Not that this answers your question directly, but I heard an interesting suggestion from DealerDan on how to test the forum idea. Put a link in your nav bar to "Forum" that links to a page that says something like "We hope to launch a forum here soon. If you would like to be one of the first to join, enter your email address and we'll send you a notification as soon as it's ready".

I thought that was an interesting way to gauge interest.

Ha, came here just to post that That's my #1 method and always works wonders. You often get a lot of e-mail addresses and at worst, can gauge interest based on amount of views.

Also think about how you want to integrate the forum into your site. Building a forum is huge, and can take away conversions etc if you're not careful. You really should have a lot of repeat visitors for one. Do you have comments for any articles and do people post? Dependent on the articles, that can give a good idea that you have a sense of community. Remember too this can be a hell of a lot of work just to run a forum - never mind a profitable forum I've seen so many people in the past starting a new forum and being so intent on getting it to work they lose focus on other projects etc.

I've wrote a lot of stuff about forums on PAP in the past do a search there, I've had a lot of experience with it.

[PokerNations]

I really like the idea already mentioned about getting email addresses of people interested in a community at your site. That being said, I also tossed this up a bit ago, hope its of some use:

Creating An Active & Interesting Forum

[scrawnybob]

hi

just to be negative and put up a flip side

I wouldnt start a forum (not now) - its just too much work IMHO for too little upside (if any)

I guess it depends what your in it for but IMHO my forum takes up to 80% of my time, hastles, grief and costs - for what ?

its a never ending hastle - that you cant leave or go on holdiday from that by an large would die in double quick time without you tending and feeding it -

yet the rest of the site keeps going (and earns the money afaiks) without "having" to be monitored, add content when you like & do what you like when you like, how you like

forums are like a needy child that never grows up

so IMHO theres NO magic figure of traffic where the forum looks after itself and generally I think they grow their hastles as they grow their size - never really giving a +ive return when the hastles are truely factored in

There are the obvious exceptions of the earliest and biggest forums - who got them going at the right time and now have a big loyal base - who will have signed up to all the rooms back in the day - so they make nice cash from all those signups and new ones too

but IMHO setting up a forum now to rival them is

a) unrealistic - too much work, duplication of members (probably mostly inactive) & not enough upside
b) not going to make the same amount of money purely from forum side (because most people who join forums now already play / signed up at every consievable site & all the other forums)

If I had my start again - I doubt I would have setup a forum (thats 3+ years ago) &
I definately wouldnt do it now

now there are so many I think they just give more headaches than they are worth - after all once your stuck with one your stuck with one -

save yourself all the hastles - run an email list / newsletter and a good solid content site

just my 2p

cheers scrawnybob

[Brokerstar]

Funny because I have been thinking about starting a small forum for players at my rake back site that make videos of their play.

I'm hoping to get this up when I have about 50 players making regular leakfinder videos. The forum will only have a few sections to discuss videos made/reviewed. So hopefully it will not take up 80% of my time. (fingers crossed)