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Starting and Running a Paid Posting
Service
Beginning.
Choosing a Name. The name of the website should be unique and
themed. A domain such as “ForumPostings.info” might help you with
search engine rankings but that’s about it. Paid Posting is all
about reputation and most advertising will eventually be from word
of mouth. A domain such as that will get confused with other sites
and is not easily remembered. When asked to name some services, a
themed site such as ForumElves.com is remembered more often than
PaidPosts.com, and that is perhaps why ForumElves is more popular
than PaidPosts.
Building the Website: Design. The website should be cleverly
themed to the website name. ForumShock has a logo of a lightning
bolt and even has themed packages such as “Static Shock” (being the
worst package) and “Atomic Shock” (being the best package). Make
sure your site is easy-to-navigate and user-friendly. A design that
is too professional can have negative affects as users are more
attracted to a service which treats them more personally.
Build the Website: Extra Features. A good support is
essential. FAQ and Email contact is a must. A Support Forum and
Instant Messaging contacts are optional but big pluses. Extra
features such as forum installation, forum design and staff hiring
are also all optional but again are good bonuses to have. Paypal is
a must for taking payments while credit cards, egold, stormpay etc.
are optional. Also try to have a special feature that other services
don’t have. For example, make a partnership with a forum directory
and offer your customers featured listings.
Launching.
Get Posters. Getting posters is harder than many think. It is
very difficult to find trustworthy posters online. So our suggestion
is get some of your friends and people your trust that can post for
you at start. Be very careful about picking up random people online
who claim to have an impressive resume. Understand that if the
person has just graduated from Harvard with a major in Linguistics
but just typed half the words in the resume incorrect, something is
wrong. Don’t just give posters a 100 post job and tell them to email
you when they are done. Keep new posters on a short leash and keep
on updating their status. Make sure they are interested or at least
knowledgeable on the topic of the forum. This process gets easier…
as you take on orders you will see which posters are good and which
aren’t. Eventually, you might keep only a dozen of your most
trusted, quality posters.
Get known. Offer free posts to forums by posting threads in
popular webmaster/forum owner communities such as TAZ (http://theadminzone.com),
AdminFusion (http://adminfusion.com), NamePros (http://namepros.com),
SitePoint (http://sitepoint.com), and DigitalPoint (http://digitalpoint.com).
Advertise. If you would like to expand quickly you must have
a good budget for advertising. Purchasing spots in forum signatures
is a good start. Purchasing adwords for keywords such as “paid
posts”, “paid posting” and “forum posting” will also give you some
traffic and potential customers. And of course don’t forget to get
listed with us. We have a 1 week free trial available so you have
nothing to loose.
Exchange Links. Once you have advertised you will start
receiving a decent amount of traffic. Exchange links with forum
resource and webmaster sites to get more traffic and boost your
pagerank.
Running the Service.
Doing Orders. Make sure you take the money only if you are
sure you can complete the job for such a forum. Keep the client
constantly updated. If you don’t have a client login at least send
frequent emails. Provide the forum owner with the poster account
names, how many posts each poster is assigned to do, and when you
should be finished. Keep asking if the posts are satisfactory. If
you cannot complete a job as promised provide a full refund… being
nice will benefit you in the future, reputation is everything.
Taking Emails. Answer emails as soon as possible, a quick
response time is a good quality to have. If the email asks a good
question answer it and put it in your FAQ. If a person needs help
with their forum or website, do anything you can to help. Always be
nice and helpful… just a simple “Let me know if there is anything
else I can do” at the end of the email can get you picked over a
competitor.
Keep In Touch. Keep in contact with all your previous
customers. Don’t spam them with your current specials but instead
ask them how their forum is going. Ask them if there is anything you
can do to help. Let them know you are still out there and are
willing to help if they need anything.
That’s It! Hopefully this tutorial will help you start a
service if you are interested in doing so. Let me if there is
anything else I can do to help you.
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