In 2008 the BMW M3 will be back in the GT2 class with the new E90 body style with the Rahal/Letterman team. And this time the V8 that will be powering the race car is based on the same engine that powers every new M3 on the street. It will be fighting new competitors this time around and the battles should be fierce. Ferrari has the crown in the once Porsche-dominated class and they don’t seem interested in backing down. Not to mention that the class now feature cars from at least eight different auto manufacturers. BMW has their work cut out for them. It should be fun to watch!

To read more on the new BMW racing effort go to the ALMS site.

So how does one get sponsored? It’s not really all the difficult for some people really. It’s just a matter of finding ways to sell yourself to sponsors. Imagine yourself being the person making the decision to sponsor someone like you. What would make you want to pull the trigger on a sponsorship deal? It has to make business sense and you want to be assured you’ll get something out of it, right? That’s what it comes down to. Sponsors don’t like throwing money away. If you show them how you can promote them or their business you’re half way there. Businesses are always looking for ways to increase profits and/or get more exposure.

You don’t have to be a professional racer to get sponsored. You don’t even necessarily have to win races, though that helps you get more sponsors. You just have to learn how to promote yourself and your sponsors effectively. You can do this in a variety of ways:

- First of all, create a detailed online profile for your car and your story. You can create your own site or use a forum that you frequent to house your profile. You need something that you can point people (and sponsors) to. This page should include your car’s modifications, photos, background, your racing experience, some write-ups and photos from events you’ve participated in, etc.

- Become a “virtual expert”. Participate in popular online forums that are focused on the car you drive. The more you help others and give advice on how to modify the car, the more people will ask for your help. Be sure to fill in your profile on those sites and add a photo of your car if you can. Any time you can highlight your sponsors in your discussions or in your profile is a huge plus. If you happen to be a forum site owner you’re in an even better position to market yourself and your sponsors.

- Find ways to get yourself into positions of influence on various forums. If you can become a Moderator for an online forum you’re seen as a leader in that community. That will tell potential sponsors that you can give them exposure and that the members of that community value what you have to say due to your status. Just as I mentioned above, be sure to fill in your profile and have photos of your car displayed for the community to see.

- Attend as many events as you can. While at the events, keep an eye out for any photographers or media people who may be covering the event. You want to try and get photos of your car taken for any and all press opportunities.

- Try and get exposure by getting featured in magazines, websites, blogs, local print publications, and other high visibility sources. Take good photos of your car and send them in to as many magazines as you can. Submit your photos and stories about your car/yourself to various relevant websites asking to be featured on their homepage. If you have a photographer friend have them take the photos for you.

It’s all about exposure for sponsors. The more you can give them the more they will dish out for you. Try out some of the tips above before you start contacting potential sponsors. You’ll want to have something to show them before you ask for money or free parts.

Once you get to the point where you think you’re ready to start contacting some potential sponsors you’ll want to put a plan together. Make a list of all of your accomplishments, your existing and past sponsors, and goals for this coming season. What parts do you need for the season? What businesses would be a good fit for what you’re doing? Do you need cash for racing expenses? Make a list of companies you will be sending a proposal to, and don’t just limit yourself to automotive companies. Start thinking about companies in your area that might be interested as well as online companies that will be interested in what you can offer them. Start drafting a proposal to send to your list of potential sponsors. It doesn’t have to be overly formal, just try and convey your excitement.

In your sponsorship proposal be sure to list all of the potential ways you plan to gain exposure for your sponsor. List all of the media sources you will be “attempting” to get exposure through. Invite them out to attend your events if they’re local. Ask them for a print-version of their logo for your “marketing materials”. If you’re creative enough you can even sell them on the idea that you’ll be creating t-shirts that will have all of the logos of your sponsors on them. You can do this using an online printing service like Cafepress. It’s all about being unique and innovative and getting them excited about the opportunity. The more you can sell them on you, the better chances you have of getting the deal. Get feedback on your proposal from friends and other racers.

Don’t be afraid. Just go for it! The worst they can do is say “no” or not respond to you. Chances are you’ll get someone to say “yes” if you’re persistent and that’s better than paying for it all yourself.

The first thing you have to keep in mind if you plan on monetizing your vBulletin Forum site is the layout and where you’re going to place your ads. I strongly suggest that you plan for this ahead of time. If you set your ad spots up from the beginning your members will have nothing to complain about compared to if you do it later. Let them sign up for your site and get used to the ads right away. I typically suggest that you at least plan for a 468×60 and a 160×600 spot on most pages of your forums. You will have ads in other strategic spots but those are the two most commonly used throughout forums on automotive sites.

Before you can start looking at implementing ads on your site you’ll need a banner rotation script. The most popular free script on the market right now is OpenAds. I’ve used this script for years and love it. It really makes managing ad banner campaigns easy. Having a banner rotation script will allow you to rotate banner ads across all of the pages of your site. And plugging the code into the vBulletin Forums Software is simple.

Now let’s discuss some of the best ad programs available to help you monetize your community!

Direct Ad Sales

When I say “direct ad sales” I’m talking about when a business pays you directly to place an ad on your website. For example, Bob’s Tire Shop contacts you (or you contact them) and you agree to run a banner ad on your site promoting their business for $XXX per month. Direct ad sales will likely be your biggest revenue source overall but also the most time consuming. It takes time to sell and implement these ads and collecting payments can also be time-consuming and frustrating at times.

I suggest first setting up an Advertising page on your site explaining the different types of ads a business can purchase on your site. Give them a reason why they should choose your site for their marketing and have a very visible path for them to contact you to get started. You can post prices but I tend to avoid doing so. You’ll find that smaller businesses won’t have the same budget as the larger companies. I think it’s better to feel them out before quoting them. Ask them about their budget and what type of exposure they need. You might leave money on the table by quoting all businesses the same price.

When it comes time to collect payment I’m a big fan of using Paypal. With Paypal you can set up automatic subscription payments and allow your advertisers to automatically send you payments every month. This takes all the work out of collections. It’s simple. All you have to do is go into Paypal > Merchant Services > Create Buttons > Subscribe. You’ll create a button for each price point and paste the generated code into a page on your site. You send the page to your advertiser and have them sign up using that button. If you have different advertisers paying different monthly prices simply create multiple pages with a unique button for each. It’s that easy. Sign up for Paypal.

How much can I charge? That’s going to depend on your traffic numbers, the popularity of the market you’re focusing on, and the quality of your content. It’s not uncommon for newer sites to charge $50-$100 per month if the site looks busy enough. If you have a busy site and you’re confident in your content then charge more. But you’ll want to make sure you do everything you can to provide value for your advertisers so not to lose them after a short campaign. As in any business customer service is a big part of the puzzle. If you’re just getting started consider offering a discounted rate in the beginning with a higher price after 3-6 months. This is very simple to do with Paypal subscription buttons as well.

Google Adsense

If you haven’t heard of this ad program you must be really new to the game, or just not paying attention. Adsense is an advertising program Google made available in order to resell ads in their network. If you do a search on Google’s site you’ll see ads show up in the right column. Those same type of ads can be displayed on your site if you sign up for a Google Adsense account. Once you create an account with them you’ll go in and create ads to place on your site. You select the size, the color, the type, and you’ll take the code that is generated and place it in various spots on your site. The ad will then scan your pages and automatically determine the most relevant ads to display on each page of your site based on the content that fills up each page. It’s pretty effective. And the best part is it’s all automated. The most relevant ads will show up all the time without any work on your part. No negotiating pricing, no trying to renew agreements, no collections work. You can tweak your ad settings and location to help increase revenue whenever you want and you collect a check at the end of the month.

The trick with Adsense, as well as most ad programs like Adsense, is to place these ads next to your content in strategic locations. I recommend trying a few spots to find the locations that work best. Try to stay near the center of the page whenever possible and next to your content. In vBulletin Forums I like placing ads below the navigation bar and above the content.

ShoppingAds - formerly known as AuctionAds

Another great program for car enthusiast sites is ShoppingAds. ShoppingAds is basically just a big eBay affiliate. ShoppingAds puts all their publishers into one big “collective” to go after the higher revenue share. Publishers are able to set up ads on their sites that target eBay’s auctions and take advantage of ShoppingAds’ ability to achieve the higher performance incentive tiers with the aggregate volume of traffic to make more money than they could with their own eBay affiliate relationship. At the time of this writing affiliates get 100% of any money they make from the system. As the collective moves up the eBay revenue share tiers, ShoppingAds will start to take a cut of revenues. The goal is for you to make more with ShoppingAds than directly with eBay’s affiliate program, which will be the case as the network increases its volume. Like with eBay’s affiliate program you only get paid if someone bids on an item, clicks a Buy Now button, or signs up for a new eBay account. Though that doesn’t sound as good as a CPC program it can still be very profitable.
Sign up for/get more info about ShoppingAds.

HOT TIP: I also came across a great add-on for vBulletin Forum Software that will automatically add ShoppingAds referral code to any and every link posted in your forums that points to an eBay auction. This means that if your users have posted (or are likely to post) any links to eBay you could potentially get paid for those links. The beautiful thing about this add-on is that it’s transparent to the users. They can’t tell you’re making money from this (unless of course they know about this add-on themselves). Any time you can add transparency to any revenue-generating programs on your site you have a great chance of making money without pissing off the users. You can find this add-on here.

Amazon Affiliate Program

Amazon isn’t necessarily the best affiliate program for automotive sites but it could still make you some money. And the beautiful thing is you can set it up just like ShoppingAds in your forums using an add-on that will convert any links posted in your forums that point to amazon pages to include your referral code to increase your revenue potential. You can find this add-on here. You’ll have to sign up for an Amazon Affiliate account first of course.

Yahoo Publisher Network

This program is basically the same as Google Adsense but hasn’t really caught on as quickly as many would have thought. Sign up for an account, create an ad and place the ad on your site. You’ll receive a check at the end of the month. They’re a few steps behind Google in terms of contexual ad relevancy but everyone is expecting them to catch up before long. Some have had great experiences with this program.

Kontera ContentLink Ads

Kontera ContentLink allows you to make money from advertising without giving up any current advertising spots. Their technology reads the content of your page and turns certain words into an text link ad with a double underline. This is great for forums since you’ll have your members virtually creating the ads for you. The highlighted words are double underlined and when hovered over, an ad pops up. Normally, Kontera requires a site have a minimum 500,000 page views per month before being accepted into the program but I know for a fact they’ve accepted sites with much less traffic than that.
Sign up for/get more info about Kontera ContentLink

DealDotCom Affiliate Program

DealDotCom sells software tools that help generate revenue. They offer a two-tier affiliate program that pays out a 35% commission on anything purchased by new registrations referred from your site. Unlike other affiliate programs that place a time limit your your commission (like ShoppingAds’ 5% for 6 months), the DealDotCom commission is forever. What’s more, anyone that they refer to DealDotCom goes on your second tier. Anything people on your second tier buy nets you a 15% commission, forever.
Sign up for/get more info about DealDotCom

Open a Cafepress Store

Cafepress is a printing service that allows you to easily open an online store and add your designs to t-shirts, sweatshirts, hats, stickers, bags, calendars, and a whole slew of other products. You choose the products, you upload your designs, and you mark them up as much as you want. This is not only a great way to make some extra cash but it can also be a great marketing tool for your site if you plaster your logo/domain name all over the products you sell. And you don’t necessarily have to be a designer to use this service. Create a contest on your site and have your members submit designs. Or do a search for a graphic artist to create a design for you. You’d be surprised how easy it can be to get a design created for little or no expense.
Get more info/sign up for Cafepress.

- Create an “Off Topic” forum

I’m sure this isn’t new to you. Most forums have an off topic area these days. But the trick is to use this forum to connect with your members on a personal level. Start some threads asking members to post photos of themselves or have them post information about their other hobbies. Talk about current events or something controversial in your market. You’re bound to get someone interested. Run some mini contests or competitions among the members to get them talking more. The more you take advantage of this forum to interact with your members the more they’ll come back to interact with each other and the activity will spill over into your other forums.

vBulletin out of the box is pretty darn good. You can do so many things with this script just by playing with the settings it’s just amazing. But if you’re building an enthusiast site and you want to set yourself a part from the competition you might have to try a few tricks and possibly try some add-ons to help grow your community and generate more return visitors. Here are a few tricks that have worked well for me over the years and even more recently.

- Create an Introduction forum

This is usually where new people will post first. Be sure to post an intro yourself and give everyone after you a sample to follow. When you do get people introducing themselves be the first to reply and welcome them - take this opportunity to ask them some questions that they can reply to. Anything to keep them interested. It would be a good idea to create a Welcome Email upon user registration that points people to this forum.

- Add a Photo Gallery

This is critical if you run an automotive site. Everyone wants to share photos of their car these days. Set up a photo gallery and hold monthly contests for the best “XXXX” of the month. Change it up every now and then and feature the winners on your homepage. This is great for creating interest and rewarding members.

- Send out Newsletters to Keep Members Engaged

The more personal the better. Try not to sound like a corporate talking head. You want you members to see you as “one of the guys”. Highlight and link to featured discussions that you think will attract the most interest. Mention the featured Photo Gallery winners and point out members for various reasons. Send these out once per month or every other month. More frequent than that doesn’t tend to generate any better results. Keep in mind that you’ll want to give your members the option to stop receiving your newsletters by having them change their account options. You don’t want to get labeled as a spammer.

In vBulletin you can actually choose members with low (or no) posts in the forums. Send special emails to those users inviting them to participate. You might want to say something along the lines of “We’ve noticed you registered but haven’t posted in our forums yet. You might want to check out XXXX discussion”.

- Add Inline Video to Forum Posts

This is a really cool add-on that will automatically convert links that point to YouTube and other video sites and display the videos inline right in the posts. It will work for all previous posts as well as any new posts. This modification is great because it will give you the ability to start a thread asking your members to share their favorite videos without them having to click on links that leave your site. You can find this modification here.

- Add More Personal Information to Posts and Profile

Every time a member of your site posts something in the forums you’ll see their username, join date, post count, and a couple other profile fields next to their post. I’ve found that adding a few other fields to the user profile system (and later to their posts) will help members get to know each other a little better. Simply adding fields for the type of car they drive, what modifications they have done to their car, or any other information that you think they’d like to share with the community would be worth adding. This is very easy to do and will add a new dimension to your forums. You can find out how to do it here.

- Try the vB Blog add-on

If your forum site is still relatively new this might be something to hold off on for a little while until you get a good group of members. The vB Blog add-on is great for allowing users who may not know how to set up a blog themselves but would like to start one. It plugs right into vBulletin and all registered members of your site can use it. The great thing about it is that it will give your members a reason to link others to your site as they share their blogs with others.

So with all the competition out there how do you determine the best make and model vehicle to start building your site around? My first suggestion would be to rule out models that have been in production for more than a year. Chances are good that the competing sites will have a pretty big head start and it might be too much work to try and compete with them, though it’s not impossible. I would suggest you try and find an automobile that hasn’t hit production yet and one you can be passionate about. I still believe that the best auto enthusiast sites are those in which the site owner also owns (or owned) the vehicle the site is focused on.

So what are some hot new models that would be good candidates for online communities? I like these:

1. 2008/2009 Chevy Camaro

Yes, you’ll already find a number of sites out there already focused on the Camaro but most of them are focused on the older chassis. And owners of the new Camaro will likely want to be part of a site that focuses only on their car, not the older models. The newer sites are still young enough to where you’ll have a chance to make an impact. But I wouldn’t wait too long. This car is certain to have enormous appeal and an outrageous aftermarket following. And that means the successful site owners will have huge revenue potential.

2. 2008/2009 Dodge Challenger

That’s right, another muscle car. This car will compete directly with the Camaro and Mustang and will be huge among enthusiasts and aftermarket companies. Ever since Dodge showed the concept car enthusiast sites have been popping up like crazy. But again, just like with the Camaro it’s still early enough in the game for you to have an impact if you got started soon.

3. 2009 Nissan GT-R

If you’re into sport compacts you’ve undoubtedly already read all the hype surrounding the upcoming GT-R. Nissan has been running a marketing blitz on this car for almost 2 years now. It’s finally going to be produced and will be available for sale in the U.S. for the first time. This is a 480 hp AWD monster and everyone will be talking about it. The only drawback is the car’s price tag. At somewhere around $70k nobody is sure how the aftermarket will latch on to it. I think it’s still a safe bet regardless.

4. Lexus LF-A

Slated to be the arch rival of the Nissan GT-R, the Lexus LF-A should rekindle the old Supra vs. Skyline GT-R battle. Though Lexus is being secretive on the final specs, the rumors are that it will get a V8 that puts out somewhere in the neighborhood of 500 hp. Just like the GT-R the price tag is the only drawback on this one. It will be out of reach for many enthusiasts.

5. BMW 1 series/M1

This car is already on the road but it’s still new enough that there aren’t a whole lot of sites focusing on it yet. You will come across the larger BMW-generic sites that will have a section for it but that’s where the opportunity comes about. Owners of this car will most likely be drawn to a site that is focused specifically on their car, just like the M3 owners. The 1-series is a smaller version of the 3-series and it’s been rumored that an M version of the car will be unveiled soon. Not that the twin-turbo 135i model isn’t enough to guarantee a religious following on its own.

6. Hyundai Genesis Coupe

Hyundai is going to replace the Tiburon with a 300 hp RWD coupe that is being built to compete with the other popular enthusiast makes on the market. Rumor has it there might be a V8 or a turbocharged 4 cylinder for engine options. Either one would be a huge hit in the performance enthusiast arena.

7. Toyota Tundra Diesel

The folks at Toyota are showing how serious they are at capturing more than just a small piece of the full size truck market, currently dominated by GM, Ford, and Chrysler. And we all know that the truck market is by far the biggest niche in the aftermarket. Diesel powered trucks are surging in popularity these days and chances are good that this platform be no exception. The concept vehicle had an 8.0L Hino engine! The Big 3 better look out.

8. Dodge Demon

Here’s another 2-door roadster that will compete with the popular Pontiac Solstice, Saturn Sky, and Mazda MX-5. The Dodge Demon is said to weigh in at 2600 lbs and will be powered by a 172 hp 4-cylinder engine. And Dodge officials have even told reporters that there could be a 300 hp turbo 4-cylinder model too. If that happens we might be looking at a huge roadster rivalry between GM and Dodge. That should spark some interest and attract a good enthusiast following.

9. Volkswagen Scirroco

The new Scirocco concept is a big hit already. It’s powered by a TSI engine (VW’s supercharged and turbocharged powerplant) that is rated at 210hp with a DSG gearbox. Expect the production version of the Scirocco to be very similar to the concept when it appears in late 2008. Unfortunately, Volkswagen of America decision as to whether this vehicle will be available for the U.S. market. But there has been more and more talk about it lately, which is a good sign.

10. Alfa Romeo

It’s been confirmed that Alfa Romeo will be coming back to the U.S. and when that happens there will certainly be enthusiast sites popping up all over for these cars. The Alfa Brera Spider and 159 Sportwagon (and/or sedan) will most certainly be among the vehicles headed for U.S. shores. These would be prime candidates for enthusiast community sites.

I’ve been building and managing online communities for 10 years now, taking a few of them from zero visitors to over 100,000 unique visitors in less than 12 months. I’ve had great success with some and learned some tough lessons from others. But regardless of the outcome it’s always been fun and fulfilling trying to create something from nothing. The trick is to find a subject you’re passionate about and that you’d want to put some time and effort into. I’ve made over $300,000 building and managing various online communities over the past few years. If I can do it anyone can, and I’m sure some can certainly do better than I have in terms of monetizing with all of the new ad programs available these days.

One of the greatest tools for creating community is a good Forums script. This script will be installed on your server and will allow people to hold discussions and post questions and answers for everyone to read. It’s the ultimate community building tool. The most popular and powerful Forums script on the market today is vBulletin Forum Software. Not only is vBulletin the most widely used Forums script out there but it’s also the most widely customized Forums script and as a result, has the most plug-ins available. These plug-ins are typically created by other vBulletin Forum Software license holders and can be found in various vBulletin modification community sites, the biggest being vBulletin.org. These plug-ins can help all aspects of a forum site and can help you make your forums experience unique. Many are free to use and the really good ones will cost a small fee to use. One popular plug-in is called PhotoPost, which has a Great photo Gallery add-on, a Product Review add-on, and Classifieds add-on that will plug right into vBulletin and use its powerful user registration backend.

I’ve come up with 5 steps to creating a successful and thriving online community. If you follow these steps you’ll put yourself in a position to succeed but part of your success will also heavily depend on the niche you’re catering to and the potential advertising dollars circulating in the market you focus your community around. You should be able to make some money regardless.

1. VISION

Put a plan together and do some research on the market you plan on making your splash in. Make sure there is a market for it. For instance, choosing to build a community around a car that is no longer in production might be more risky than choosing a new car that is going into production in the near future. You’ll want to choose a market that you’re passionate about and one that will have a strong after market following as well. The more businesses out there selling parts and accessories for the car your site is focused on, the better - and the same can be said for the buzz surrounding the car as well.

Start laying out the type of content ideas you think people will want to read about in that market. Make some notes on some features that could make your community unique. Chances are someone else will be trying to start a Forum around the same car and you’ll want to plan to have some features and content that will set your site apart from the others. If there are already other sites out there focused on the car you’ve chosen see what it is they’re lacking.

Be prepared to generate most of the content for your site for the first 3-6 months. This is why you have to be passionate about the car you choose. It’s a lot of work and you’ll need some good motivation to keep building that content. Put together a list of possible articles you could write about in your Forums and prioritize them.

2. EXECUTION

Once the planning is done it’s time to start building the site. You’ll need to choose a host for your site and the software you’ll be using to run the site. This is usually where people start getting overwhelmed, especially if you consider yourself a little computer illiterate. It really is not rocket science. Like anything else you just have to do a little research.

First of all you’ll want to choose a good host that you can grow with. I’ve used plenty of free and low cost hosting services and I’ve found that you tend to get what you pay for. Look for hosting companies that offer 24 hour phone support as I’ve found that to be a necessity. Waiting for an email reply is a big waste of time. You’ll also want a host that can handle a database driven PHP site. You’ll likely be using PHP and MySQL for your backend code. I HIGHLY recommend Liquidweb.com for excellent service and bang for your buck.

In terms of software I’d recommend starting with vBulletin Forum Software. If you’re tight on money you can lease a yearly license from them for $85. But the best deal is to just buy an owned license for $160. If you’re planning on doing this for a few years it’ll pay for itself in no time. Again, you’ll find some other cheap and free Forums solutions out there but none can come close to vBulletin in terms of power and flexibility. vBulletin is written in PHP and uses MySQL databases.

Some of the other tools you’ll need to get and familiarize yourself with are: an FTP program; an HTML editor; a Graphics application; and various references on how to use those tools. I highly recommend picking up a few books to have as desk references. I’ve grown to love the Visual Quickstart Guides from Peachpit Press. They’re well written and easy to understand, especially for visual learners like myself.
Here are a few books to get started with:
Building Web Sites All-in-One Desk Reference For Dummies
HTML, XHTML, and CSS, Sixth Edition
PHP and MySQL for Dynamic Web Sites

Once you’ve purchased and downloaded vBulletin, you’ve set up an account with your host, and you’ve learned the basics of your FTP program, you can start uploading the files to your site and configuring your vBulletin settings and options. You’ll want to refer to your vBulletin documentation to help you along with the process. Start playing with colors and find a combination you think will fit your audience well. Tip: the colors you like may not always be the best for readability. The best choice would be to stick with a white (or light color) background and dark text for the main content in the beginning. Spice it up with some interesting border and accent colors for section headings. Don’t spend too much time on the visual stuff though, test it out and post some test messages. Once you feel it’s ready to go start posting some informative content!

Once you’re familiar with the workings of vBulletin you can start looking into adding some plug-ins to give your visitors more reasons to come back to your site.

3. DRIVING TRAFFIC

One of the most difficult tasks is getting the word out about your new site. This is usually what makes or breaks an online community. The first thing you’ll want to do is announce the site to everyone you know, even if they’re likely not interested in the site’s content. Let them know what you’re trying to accomplish and ask them to forward your site’s URL to anyone they think might be interested. Your close friends and family typically would like to see you succeed and will help out if they can. Add your site’s URL to your email signature. If you’re not already, start participating in as many relevant online Forums and communities as you can where you can mention your site without looking like you’re a spammer.

You’ll probably hear the term Search Engine Optimization, or SEO for short. This is a very important topic. Do a Google search and read up on as much as you can to help you learn how to optimize your site for search engines, especially Google. I’ve found that most of my traffic has come from Google on almost every community site I’ve every built or managed. It’s not very difficult to do. Just using some basic techniques will help ensure your site will be found when people do searches for the keywords that your site’s content is built around.

Always remember that Content is King. Write as much content as you can so that all of your efforts to bring people in are not wasted. If someone comes to your site and finds that you have little or not content they will likely not come back. So be sure that you’ve put in a good deal of time and effort on the content side before you start working on driving traffic to your site. The best ways I’ve found to create content is to write some articles on how to install parts and accessories on my car. Take some good photos and post some step-by-step tutorials. Another good idea for content is to constantly post news and rumors about the vehicle platform your site is focused on. Organize gatherings in your area and take photos. Attend car shows and take photos. Post the factory specs for the car as a reference for your visitors. Create a list or database of after market parts available for the car and keep that list updated. It’s time consuming but your target audience will find the information useful and will likely tell others about it.

Come up with a grassroots marketing plan. Create some t-shirt and decal designs, even if the design is just comprised of the site name/URL. Print out some business cards and hand them out. A great service for t-shirts is Cafepress.com - they allow you to upload designs, add them to t-shirts (and other products) and sell them to your community on a per-order basis. You don’t have to buy anything in bulk or fulfill any orders and you can mark the products up as much as you want to increase your revenue. There is a small monthly fee of $6.95 for their service but it’s well worth it. I’ve used this service for years and it’s been a great tool for marketing and rewarding site members.

If you have a decent marketing budget you’ll want to consider advertising your site in various places. Google just so happens to have a solution for publishers as well. It’s called Google Adwords. You simply sign up for an account, choose keywords that you think your target audience will use to find content on your site, and set the price you want to pay for the clicks on your ads. It’s very effective.

4. FOSTERING COMMUNITY

It’s going to be crucial to be involved in your community as often as possible. If you’re not posting content you’ll want to make sure you’re answering any questions your visitors are asking in your Forums. Be sure to welcome each new member and show a genuine appreciation for their participation. Reward members who start contributing regularly. Highlight them on your homepage, send them decals, send them a t-shirt, etc. Your members will help define the personality of your site so be sure you’re doing everything you can to keep them there and keep them happy and engaged.

Make sure your forum doesn’t look empty. Nobody will take the time to register or post if it looks like there is nobody to interact with. Create a few fake user accounts and post questions here and there and answer them with different accounts. Send out newsletters asking members to weigh in on a controversial topic. This gives people incentives to come back. Invite your friends and family to post. If you’re having a tough time getting people to register set up a contest/give away to entice people to register.

Appoint community leaders and Moderators. You’ll find that members in your forum will be happy to help you manage the community. Give your leaders special User Titles so that they stand out from the crowd. Your community leaders should share the same vision for the site as you do. Make sure they’re friendly and welcoming to all new members.

Set the tone for user behavior early one. Be friendly and make sure your Moderators are friendly. Define a set of rules and standards and lead by example. One of the quickest ways to alienate people is to allow chaos and lawlessness. Try not to be super strict but don’t let everything go. It’s all about balance and your member will greatly appreciate this.

5. MONETIZING YOUR COMMUNITY

This is the part everyone wants to skip to. How can you make money from all of this? I’ve written an article dedicated to Monetizing Forum Communities that will go into more detail. But here are the basics:

In order to monetize your forum community you’ll need to place ads in various locations on your site and get your visitors to click on those ads. It’s going to be a balancing act, as you don’t want to overwhelm your visitors or take away from your site’s content but you also want to provide them with advertisements that they might benefit from clicking on. With all of the different ad programs available for publishers these days you’ll have plenty of strategies to test out.

In closing, be sure and have fun with it. This is something you should be doing for fun. The primary focus shouldn’t be to make tons of money but to make a positive impact in the market that you’re focusing on. If you do that the money will follow. Any time you create a resource that others find useful or informative you’ll have a good chance at monetizing it. You’ll learn tricks along the way that will help you make your community better and generate more revenue.

My blog will focus mainly on how Car Guys can make some extra cash (or even a decent living) on the web. There are so many ways to make money online these days and I’ll cover a number of them. But I’ll start off by writing about the ways I know best and work my way out from there.

Hopefully some of my tips and techniques will help others make a little money online while doing what they love. It’s not necessarily easy, and once in a while it might get frustrating, but it’s well worth it in the long run - at least I think so. And I’ll also write about some topics that are not related to making money. This is an outlet for me. Enjoy!