Forum Moderators: skibum
I run a self help site that helps people with depressional disorders etc - it has grown to be one of the very biggest communities of it type in the world - and does great work...
Age group fairly tight between 12 and 25, about 60% girls. The site is very sticky - with a huge forum, and has many many visitors returning many times a day (to the point where plenty say they are addicted!) - as well as this we see a huge number of visitors from engines as we have about 700 pages and are well up in the search engines...
We are totally free and ad free currently - but are now getting to the stage where i feel very relevent money generation would be in order - which could then be used to add to the site and community to great effect...
We are also developing a whole new ASP.net site, forum and chat system - which obviously comes with expenses which must be met...
We currently see some donations - but most people are not aware they can.
Im not an expert in revenue generation - so i thought i would ask people who are :) - this doesnt profit me in any way - just those people who arent all that happy some of the time... so a good cause...
We are seeing about 5000-10000 uniques a day - and many pages per person - so the traffic should be there - and there are a number of products and service they might be interested in relvent to the site. Is this the way to go? - should there be affiliate product ads intergrated into the site - or more general banners for site that would appeal to this age group/sector - can one make money out of such ads?
Thanks so much,
Harley
[edited by: Marcia at 8:03 pm (utc) on Sep. 20, 2003]
Have you considered AdSense?
is there anywhere i can look at loads i can 'choose' from?
ad sense might well work in areas like the lyrics section, or some of the advice and tips sections...
how is adsense? - with enough traffic, is it the way to make money - or another way to make $2 a year...
Thanks for the help - it really means a lot...
Harley
it really depends on your sites content, its simple to implement and theres no harm in short term until you find something that pays better.
That way you keep everything 'in-house' and won't run the risk of alienating members who might not like ads.
What I'm saying is draw from the resources/stickyness you have first. Then, if that doesn't suffice, go 'commercialized'.
Pendanticist.
Putting ads on your site might be seen as a sell out, and hamper the success of your efforts to help people with their disorder.
Here's a thought: You need to fully flesh out a business plan.
That's reality is you intend to perpetuate this "good thing".
Unreality is acting upon the capricious thinking that since you are doing good work acting like a business is wrong/anathema/etc. That belief has killed many a good work in progress.
You might create and publish a budget for the operation of the "company", so your user community is made to confront the reality - that "free services" only exist because someone else is paying the bills.
If you apply for government recognition as a non-profit agency or corporation you may be better positioned to solicit funding from various mental health, etc. organizations.
