Liverpool FC Forum

by **dawson99** » Mon May 28, 2007 3:01 pm

best way is a raffle of some sort as s@int said. if a company sponsors you then you will have to become much strctr on what is put on the site id think?

a pay-pal £5 a year or something id probably pay... dunno how much this costs to run tho so couldnt do the maths.

by **account deleted by request** » Mon May 28, 2007 3:11 pm

To continue along the gambling theme, we already have a few competitions on site, Fantasy football, Champs league and League prediction table. Offer a prize and ask for £10 to enter, or maybe 50p per week.

by **babu** » Mon May 28, 2007 4:17 pm

Yeah. but that's all small time IMO. Depends on what LFC wants for this site. If he just wants it to pay for itself, then raffles etc, will take up someone's time. If the demand on that person's time is too much, he/she will want to be paid (eg Mods).

by **Leonmc0708** » Fri Jun 01, 2007 10:52 am

LFC wrote:The ads aren’t working they are not raising any real revenue to help with the running costs of the site.

How would you all feel about contributing a £1 a month to the site?

I will do it if you reply to my PM's like !!!!!!!!!!

by **Leonmc0708** » Fri Jun 01, 2007 10:55 am

babu wrote:LFC

Why don't you contact Carlsberg or Adidas for sponsorship? Don't talk to the marketing people, just go straight to the regional MDs. I would even consider contacting the asian regional MDs.

Next you should also consider a Front Page for this site. A compulasory introduction page, with the sponsor's adds and links to their websites. It won't be to much trouble, just one extra click.

I am no internet genius (as some will know) but I do know that if you put Liverpool forum into google this site is second, and if you put Liverpoolfc (no spaces) its front page and sixth one down.

You dont have to be a genius to know this is expoitable.

by **babu** » Fri Jun 01, 2007 4:33 pm

Leonmc0708 wrote:
babu wrote:LFC

Why don't you contact Carlsberg or Adidas for sponsorship? Don't talk to the marketing people, just go straight to the regional MDs. I would even consider contacting the asian regional MDs.

Next you should also consider a Front Page for this site. A compulasory introduction page, with the sponsor's adds and links to their websites. It won't be to much trouble, just one extra click.

I am no internet genius (as some will know) but I do know that if you put Liverpool forum into google this site is second, and if you put Liverpoolfc (no spaces) its front page and sixth one down.

You dont have to be a genius to know this is expoitable.

Leon,

I think you may have misunderstood me. I realise this forum is very high up on the unpaid google rankings, which is good.

I was talking about having a introduction page (highlighting sponors) much like the one to enter LFC.tv.

by **Sabre** » Fri Jun 01, 2007 4:44 pm

LFC wrote:The ads aren’t working they are not raising any real revenue to help with the running costs of the site.

How would you all feel about contributing a £1 a month to the site?

I'd accept that.

But it should be voluntary, otherwise the community will stop growing.

Also a traffic analysis would be great, some forums reduced it by only cutting the access to google and other searcher's crawlers, that go deep in the database and are very demanding. Images that are carried IN the forum also take a lot of traffic and most of them are huge, that when you multiply it for the readers that see it, it increases the bandwidth big time. But I'll check the crawler's thing first.

Babu's idea is good in paper, but advertising in the internet is a jungle, and it will be difficult to get a major sponsor. But worth a try.

by **112-1077774096** » Fri Jun 01, 2007 8:14 pm

i am also not a genius with computers so i dont know if tis will work.

is a lot of the cost down to the size of the forum, do you pay more for the space used, if so you should have a cull of the forum. any thread not posted in for a fixed period, maybe one or two months can be culled, removed from the forum to reduce size.

or the other option is you could have replied to my pm about buying the forum then it wouldnt be your problem anymore

by **Sabre** » Fri Jun 01, 2007 8:32 pm

The space used doesn't take much. What it costs it's the traffic normally, and that depends on how many people access the site. The more people asking for info (each time we open a page), the more cars are in the road. When you have little forums of 1000 visits a week, that's not a problem and normal hosting will do. But when houndreds of people (not only regular members, but people just reading without logging in) make thousands of reads, then a forum can die of it's own success. Because then normal hosting sites asks you more money to handle that traffic.

Reaching the final hasn't helped for sure, with half the world looking for info and news about the club, both in the forum, and querying to google or other searches, who in return also query this site. That's traffic.

Actually keeping all the info we write, is doesn't cost that much. It costs indirectly because searches are deeper than if messages were deleted, but the main factor is always how many visitors there are, and how many pages they read.

Success can be a problem when it comes to web sites. Because there's not much money in advertising, and people is used and expect to have this services for free -- if you close , other forum will raise.

I think I obtain a good service of this forum, and I'd be ready to pay a little voluntary tax (12 pounds a year, 1 pound a month) because I get important info out of it.

by **LFC** » Sat Jun 02, 2007 7:19 am

Sabre is correct although web space does cost it is the traffic that leads to bandwidth usage that is more expensive we are now using over 30GB of transfer per month even after taking extensive measures to reduce bandwidth usage such as restricting the size of images that we host in the site etc and the more popular the forum gets the more we will use. Also the message board system is dynamic, database driven and each page view or search query demands processing power from the server so this will eventually mean that the site may need to be moved to bigger/better/faster servers overtime.

I am also looking at one of two imminent things both of which cost in sense of time and money:

- Upgrading the actual forum system to introduce new features into the community

- Having a much more profession look and feel for the site created

I really want this site to continue to grow and I am happy to keep investing in time, effort etc

To answer you peewee, I am not looking to sell the site, it has taken years for the site to grow to where it is now, we have loads of page 1 position 1 Google search results for this site which is driving more and more traffic, even forgetting the years that it has taken to get the site to where it is now the cost of advertising on Google to obtain the positions the site is enjoying would cost hundreds or thousands of pounds, we are now positioned in a really good place for the future. Also a bit of history for you not too sure how many of you will know this however this domain liverpoolfc-newkit.co.uk was actually the original OFFICIAL Liverpool FC web site for several years, long before .tv was a twinkle in the clubs eyes!

The cost of running the site is virtually certain to increase way beyond where it is now so I am just trying to plan for the future!

by **adamnbarrett** » Sat Jun 02, 2007 11:15 am

hmmm well look at other Liverpool sites, the ones like RAOTL and LTW have fanzines and we obviously can't do that.

Maybe try and get involved with things with other sites. Possibly contact .tv to get some sort of thing arranged.

What about we have thumbnails instead of posting massive images?

Of course I don't really have any idea what we should do.

by **J*o*n*D*o*e** » Sat Jun 02, 2007 11:47 am

Thanks for the input.

i would have to go along with saint and others and suggest a monthly charge just wont work, even when set as little as 50p alot of people just wont pay, i would say keep the advertising as long as its not too intrusive otherwise it will probably drive people away aswell.

as you have no wish to sell i doubt you wish to share power either, so any shortfall will have to be made up by the regulars in the way of donations, i consider myself a regular even if i dont post as much as others, im here reading. so im prepared to help out

the thing is do you leave it to each person to decide or set up a group of people who are willing to donate but prefer to stay out of the everyday running of the site.

by **112-1077774096** » Sat Jun 02, 2007 1:06 pm

advertising is no problem and we will soon get used to it, come on be honest, how many of you even notice the adverts now, i know i dont and very soon the underlined words wont be noticed, its just that changes take us away from the familiar and the changes will become familiar quick enough

by **66-1112520797** » Sat Jun 02, 2007 1:13 pm

peewee wrote:advertising is no problem and we will soon get used to it, come on be honest, how many of you even notice the adverts now, i know i dont and very soon the underlined words wont be noticed, its just that changes take us away from the familiar and the changes will become familiar quick enough

They dont bother me TBH.

I havent a clue about stuff like this, so I am of no help what so ever but do appreciate the work that goes on around here.

Its a great site.

by **LFC** » Sat Jun 02, 2007 7:17 pm

I'm not too sure if the key word advertising is going to work either, thought I could try it for a few weeks and see what happens.

Anyway keep your ideas coming, I'm sure there will be a good solution for all in the end.

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