Forum Moderators: skibum
I currently, and have been for a while, running an entertainment site that has mutated over time and is now quite large.
Overall, there are 5 sub-sites now, and they receive approximately 50,000 unique visitors a day with about 600,000 impressions. I am indexed very nicely in Google as well and can take steps to better that ranking, but right now I don't really want to because I am not converting that traffic into money.
And herein lies the frustration: I have developed these sites, marketed these sites, designed these sites and done everything and anything there is to do with these sites. They are popular and successful, and now I simply want to earn decent revenue from them.
I have gone the "general" advertising way by joining networks but this is not reliable income and I am not willing to rest on that. Also, they are not very targeted and I believe I can do better.
My questions are:
1. Is there somewhere I can go to hire someone (reputable/worthy) who will take care of all the revenue generating aspects of my site? A company or network for example?
2. Is there somewhere I can get professional advice into what I should be doing to increase revenue?
3. Theoretically, what should 50K users a day convert to? I know it depends on the types of traffic and what not, but what is the minimum and average revenue you guys have experienced from that traffic range?
4. Is that a reasonably large amount of traffic? Am I fooling myself in thinking that it is successful and I should be making money on it?
I'm sure I'll come up with more questions but I'll start with these. Any help/advise would be greatly appreciated and I thank you for reading thus far.
* attracting people who are primed to buy
e.g. joke sites, news sites, sites for students, most discussion boards, broad community sites, "free stuff" sites, can often create tons of traffic but people generally would not have gone to your site to buy something, but to chat, find other sites, get free things, etc.
Are there a lot of "distractions" on your pages, like lots of internal and external links, discussion, games, etc etc. Does yur site have a strategy to convert your users into buyers?
*attracting decision makers with the ability to buy.
e.g. do your visitors have credit cards, do they have a reasonable disposable income or decision making authority over expenditure in a company?
if you are attracting children, students, poor people, academics, casual researchers etc, they probably wont convert well.
What im saying, I guess, is that no matter how many page views you get some sites will never make revenue. A site with just 1000 page views a day can make more money than one with more than 500,000.
Its probably got less to do with the "subject" of your site, more so with the REASON people go to your site. Its the difference with getting views from people who want to discuss or find free info and those who want to buy..
Questions 1 and 2. Go to the commercial exchange forum in WebmasterWorld. Its probably the best resource available for getting proffessional advice on questions like this.
Questions 3 and 4. Impossible to answer other than it depends. Many factors need to be taken into account as my prev post.
Also did you tried Google Adsense?
It is an entertainment site geared towards celebrities. Celebrity images/information specifically.
That being said, any estimates on what 50k a day should bring in?
If you can't find a product/service that can match your present audience, then you must capture a new audience (re-filter).
You went the other route. Got traffic first but with no intention to monetize. In its basic form, what you have is unfiltered traffic.
I've seen cases of 20k uniques (highly filtered) bringing in up to 6k/month.
--
Perhaps there are other ways of monetizing what you already have, but I would not know (selling ads, etc.)
May I ask how much (ballpark figure) you are making from the site? Do you hire a lot of staff?
[Slightly OT, but I expect that the AdSense windfall will be short-lived. I've just heard too much giddiness from too many webmasters. Personally I think the flood of new (and IMO lower-quality) traffic will eventually force down bids and/or force advertisers to stick to Google alone.]
Anyway, the only way to find out the characteristics of your audience is to test, test, test. Scour the affiliate networks for celebrity-related programs in particular. For example, I've got a vague recollection that there's a program targeting people who want the mail/email address of their favorite stars.
Also look at other successful sites in the same niche and find out what programs they use and how they present them.
If you hate to do these things, then you should find a person who's willing to do it for you. With the amount of traffic you have, you should be able to make some kind of revenue from this.
Everyone unwilling to make those phonecalls, etc, has to survive on affiliate programs and advertising networks. The Internet just hasn't matured to the point that a content-only site can depend on others to outsource its advertising.
There are lots of resources on the Internet on how to sell, including making cold-calls, etc. It's unpleasant work, but it's the key to making money.
Now, I just need to follow my own advice...
irock: For now I'll say about a hundred a day solely from advertising. Again, this is not reliable income and I don't like to rely on it. As for staff, there is none. i do everything myself and have thankfully automated a great deal of it.
What you're looking for is a sales person. Ideally someone who'll work on commission so they're motivated to close deals for you. I don't know whether you actually need to hire someone, or just form a business arrangement. I don't think it's going to be an easy find, and you'll probably try a few partnerships until you find the right person. Fortunately, you've got a whole planet of potential people. I'd try doing searches on Google. Read through various discussion forums to see if you see a person who fits what you're looking for. One person can totally turn it around for you, you've just got to find them. :-)
Maybe you can track down someone doing ad sales in a related industry of print media? Another idea might be to partner up with an established print media company that already has an ad sales team. Your website would give them an additional venue to sell ads on.
All I'm saying is try to think of some unconventional ideas, beyond doing it yourself or hiring staff. There might be a great fit out there.
[Slightly OT, but I expect that the AdSense windfall will be short-lived. I've just heard too much giddiness from too many webmasters. Personally I think the flood of new (and IMO lower-quality) traffic will eventually force down bids and/or force advertisers to stick to Google alone.]
Yes, it is slightly off-topic, but it's certainly worth bringing up on the AdSense forum at:
[webmasterworld.com...]
