Bluepixel
msg:1364749 | 7:14 pm on Mar 18, 2006 (gmt 0) |
Markus, I had a look at your site.
It's quite good and interesting. But you should work a little on the design, (or spend some money on it ;)), since it looks a little old. But nice site anyway. Be happy that the other sites all charge, otherwise you wouldn't make that much money ;) But their is certainy more potential for you in it, since you know where your user base is from, and could use it to show more local ads. [edited by: Bluepixel at 7:27 pm (utc) on Mar. 18, 2006]
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limitup
msg:1364750 | 7:15 pm on Mar 18, 2006 (gmt 0) |
That's exactly what I was going to say. Many people do SEO because that's all they know, or they don't have much money. If you have a site that will keep people coming back and/or telling their friends about it, or viral in some other way, it's easier and much faster to just spend a little money promoting the site in the beginning. I haven't messed with SEO in years. With my last project I said what the heck let me play with it and see what happens. So I hired a guy to write a bunch of articles, get me more links, etc. etc. and did all the right things. Within 4 months I was #1-3 on Google and Yahoo for my top keyword phrases. And you know what? ... it was about 2% of my traffic just like Marcus said.
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voices
msg:1364751 | 7:18 pm on Mar 18, 2006 (gmt 0) |
If you made a mill in 3 months it really doesn't much matter what happens to the site from here. Heck just invest the money and retire. How much money do you need? I would continue to collect the money while it was flowing and find something more interesting to do.
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ronburk
msg:1364752 | 8:14 pm on Mar 18, 2006 (gmt 0) |
While everybody goes bonkers for the big bucks and the big traffic, aren't there more interesting questions? Like, where's the money coming from? After a bunch of clicking around, I pretty much could only find ads for a very narrow category: other dating services! I can see how the site is not dependent on SE for traffic, but what I can't see with any confidence is how the revenue stream is stable. Are those direct competitors really making money by advertising on this site, or are they just too dumb to realize that they're helping finance the (free) competition? If it's the latter, then that's a fragile source of income. On the other hand, the ability to let users generate new pages and to automatically geotarget them may mean that (some part of) the revenue stream really isn't fragile. Every little classified/personals service in every city/town could conceivably view an ad on this site as a cheap way to draw traffic to them. A town-specific matchmaking service may not view a free, online, nationwide dating service as direct competition. In a sense, the folks over at forum108 ought to be piling on here more than AdSense folks. This seems to me more a lesson about cheaply exploiting local markets -- all across the nation from a single website. Thanks for the great post, Markus! | Me talking about how I did it won't help you |
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Well, it won't make me inclined to make an online dating service, but it does give me a different way to look at slicing up the web marketing pie. Thanks!
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limitup
msg:1364753 | 8:23 pm on Mar 18, 2006 (gmt 0) |
| If you made a mill in 3 months it really doesn't much matter what happens to the site from here. Heck just invest the money and retire. How much money do you need? I would continue to collect the money while it was flowing and find something more interesting to do. |
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Some people, like myself, find the game of business and making money to be extremely interesting and fun. I'll be working till the day I die, whether I have 10 bucks or 10 billion. Plus there's lots of cool stuff you can do with money. I'm not just talking about short-term fun and materialistic stuff, but things like helping others, etc. I've always wanted to race cars, live in a nice house on the water, travel the world, help those less fortunate, etc. I do all of these things, and it makes me happy. Not only that but it enriches the lives of those around me. Whoever said money can't buy happiness just doesn't know where to shop. Money can't buy everything but it sure can buy a lot of happiness if you know how to spend it and where to shop. I understand there are some people who want nothing more than to live a simple life in some tiny town, but for the rest of us a million is not near enough ...
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voices
msg:1364754 | 8:40 pm on Mar 18, 2006 (gmt 0) |
I would continue working too, but not for money and certainly not on a dating site.
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websteve
msg:1364755 | 10:07 pm on Mar 18, 2006 (gmt 0) |
markus, have you started your fan club yet? I would like to join.....
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guru5571
msg:1364756 | 10:09 pm on Mar 18, 2006 (gmt 0) |
| Whoever said money can't buy happiness just doesn't know where to shop. |
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I'm stealing this.
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arbitrary
msg:1364757 | 11:31 pm on Mar 18, 2006 (gmt 0) |
| Some people, like myself, find the game of business and making money to be extremely interesting and fun. I'll be working till the day I die, whether I have 10 bucks or 10 billion. Plus there's lots of cool stuff you can do with money. I'm not just talking about short-term fun and materialistic stuff, but things like helping others, etc. |
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Well said limitup, me too.
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jomaxx
msg:1364758 | 11:45 pm on Mar 18, 2006 (gmt 0) |
Boy, the number of people who feel they have the ability to tell Markus where he has gone wrong with respect to his site design and his business model is quite remarkable.
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voices
msg:1364759 | 11:53 pm on Mar 18, 2006 (gmt 0) |
Well they are just trying to help the poor guy out. If he had done it right he could have made 3 mill in 1 month ;)
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Kufu
msg:1364760 | 12:00 am on Mar 19, 2006 (gmt 0) |
Actually I was thinking of offering him my consultation services at very reasonable prices. How about it Markus007? lol
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bts111
msg:1364761 | 12:09 am on Mar 19, 2006 (gmt 0) |
I think that some of the grapes are now starting to turn sour. The only thing that Markus needs is financial advice ;)
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voices
msg:1364762 | 12:36 am on Mar 19, 2006 (gmt 0) |
Well I have a great idea for a new product that I need and it is amazing to me that I cant find one anywhere. So now I am searching the patent office and still coming up empty. Contact me in a few months Marcus if you want to invest some money :)
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ogletree
msg:1364763 | 12:58 am on Mar 19, 2006 (gmt 0) |
Markus can not be an expert in every area. There are people on this board that know how to squeeze every $ out of a website.
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Kufu
msg:1364764 | 1:06 am on Mar 19, 2006 (gmt 0) |
| squeeze every $ out of a website. |
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Why be greedy when he is making a lot of money already?
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tortuga
msg:1364765 | 1:17 am on Mar 19, 2006 (gmt 0) |
Whether the site could be prettier, or whether it makes $3 million per month or $3 is pretty irrelevant to my mind. What he's done is a remarkable technical achievement, as well as a labor of love and personal vision. I don't even have the expertise to judge, but my guess would be there are relatively few people in the world who could even accomplish what he did all by themselves. Nitpicking about design or squeezing every penny out of the site seems pretty silly in the face of that.
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zomega42
msg:1364766 | 1:50 am on Mar 19, 2006 (gmt 0) |
I guarantee that the site is funny-looking on purpose, you don't do that well by being lazy about your design. Maybe this is a topic for a different discussion, but free community-based sites should look funny. It works better, period, no room for argument. Of course it's a whole different story if you want people on your site to buy something from you, then a professional appearance is everything.
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WallyWorld
msg:1364767 | 2:06 am on Mar 19, 2006 (gmt 0) |
| I think that some of the grapes are now starting to turn sour. |
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Its not that the grapes are starting to turn sour but that the whine has turned to vinegar! Too bad there are so many "know it alls" here.
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OptiRex
msg:1364768 | 2:42 am on Mar 19, 2006 (gmt 0) |
| I think that some of the grapes are now starting to turn sour. |
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We all have a different perspective of any view:-) Inevitably some would like nice "designery" stuff" and then there are those who would like more information etc. The important factors are this: 1. Is it KISS? (Keep It Simple Stupid for those that do not know). Yes 2. Are people using it? Yes 3. Is it making money? Yes 4. Any simple question I've not asked above but which is valid? Yes Current mobile phones come with a plethora of options however what do 99.99% of us use them for? Phoning or texting! If you don't believe that ask the phone companies who blew BILLIONS on 3G licences. The Net is simple, do not try and complicate it like self-build Scandinavian furniture. For the moment Markus has got it right and he has no need to worry if it all fell over tomorrow. Jealousy? Nothing better to stir the spirit:-))
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dollarshort
msg:1364769 | 4:12 am on Mar 19, 2006 (gmt 0) |
Billion+ page views, who are you? Yahoo? I guess a 5% CTR and an average EPC of .05 could equal about a million.
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limitup
msg:1364770 | 4:30 am on Mar 19, 2006 (gmt 0) |
| Its not that the grapes are starting to turn sour but that the whine has turned to vinegar! Too bad there are so many "know it alls" here. |
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It goes both ways. The "know it alls" dislike talking to you just as much as you dislike hearing from them LOL We've been thinking of starting some new forums for established, successful web marketers only ... maybe it's time.
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NavyCS
msg:1364771 | 5:48 am on Mar 19, 2006 (gmt 0) |
I am up to 156093 pages so far this month and about $43 in adsense earnings, I have a long way to go :)
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pockan
msg:1364772 | 7:14 am on Mar 19, 2006 (gmt 0) |
Almost impossible to get this mark. One Million in 3 months!
But there is really no doubting that there are good incomes currently being made on Google Adsense another interesting info is that even smaller sites and killer blogs are finding new ways to make money from their Adsense.
Still this sounds like hype, But ... some times it may be true.I don't know
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Kufu
msg:1364773 | 7:20 am on Mar 19, 2006 (gmt 0) |
NavyCS, That dollar-amount seems way too small for the number of pageviews you are getting. May want to play around with you ad placement.
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tombola
msg:1364774 | 8:41 am on Mar 19, 2006 (gmt 0) |
| After a bunch of clicking around, I pretty much could only find ads for a very narrow category: other dating services! I can see how the site is not dependent on SE for traffic, but what I can't see with any confidence is how the revenue stream is stable. Are those direct competitors really making money by advertising on this site, or are they just too dumb to realize that they're helping finance the (free) competition? |
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I'm sure Markus agrees that these dating ads don't generate a stable income.
When the competition is fully aware that they are sponsoring a free site, there's no doubt they will review their Adwords campaigns. On the other hand, some dating sites have plenty of money to advertise: according to ClickZStats [clickz.com], two dating services ranked in the Top 50 Internet Advertisers (January 2006):
LavaLife.com - Media Value: $2,527,000
Match.com - Media Value: $2,359,000
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kassius
msg:1364775 | 8:52 am on Mar 19, 2006 (gmt 0) |
tombola what are you talking about mate: "When the competition is fully aware that they are sponsoring a free site, there's no doubt they will review their Adwords campaigns." if i was running a non-free dating site i would love to have my google ad on a free dating site because the percent of them turning into paying members is higher.
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guru5571
msg:1364776 | 8:53 am on Mar 19, 2006 (gmt 0) |
So what does a guy who works one hour a day and makes $4 mil a year do with his day? Go home to watch his bigscreen TV?
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ncw164x
msg:1364777 | 11:07 am on Mar 19, 2006 (gmt 0) |
There is no doubt that he is earning a lot of money but he seems to of missed a few important facts like spending tens of thousands dollars each month on Google AdWords and also offline TV and radio commercials, that will account for the fact search engine traffic is only 2% of the total visitors.. dont get me wrong its still an inspiration to see something like this but its not quite single handed is it Marcus, seeing as you have a few helpers
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Richard Overvold
msg:1364778 | 2:28 pm on Mar 19, 2006 (gmt 0) |
So what does a guy who works one hour a day and makes $4 mil a year do with his day?
Go home to watch his bigscreen TV?
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Go HOME? Ha! I don't quite make 4mil a year, but I stay in front of my bigscreen. ;) And for those of you who say that 1mil in 3 months isn't possible. Why? Because you didn't do it? I mean, he did butter up the topic a bit with the million in 3 months, which was built up over what, 3 years? Still can be done.
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Richard Overvold
msg:1364779 | 2:59 pm on Mar 19, 2006 (gmt 0) |
One thing I'm curious to see from Markus is, if you bring loads of repeat customers to your site, and they actually return to your site, why would they click on your Adsense ads? Shed some light on your theory for this.
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