Making $$$$ on your Website

[scott]

Okay, I realize I'm new at this, but I have to ask. Suppose I get proficient at this SE placement thing. I'm assuming a site that attracts many visitors would be profitable somehow. My question is how. What's the best way to profit from a popular website? Advertising space? Selling merchandise? Any ideas or figures on this?

[yomebe]

Have you seen searchtraffic.com a great program pays .05 a search and allclicks.com pays .03 a blind link and then of course is the adult industry at about 35.00 a sign up. Bizland.com pays 1.00 a sign-up for free webpage. I also have a casino that pays 25% of the house. Still waiting for the first check on that. I think Brett uses advertising.com which I would use to if I had a high traffic site. Good Luck.

[rcjordan]

re: assuming a site that attracts many visitors would be profitable somehow

A reality check may be in order.... even with a top banner brokerage firm, you are likely to net $2 per 1000 banners displayed. To sell ad space directly, where you'll net between $10 to $20 per 1000 impressions, you're going to have to know much about whatever category your site covers (travel, search engines, science fiction). You'll also need to know -cold- how your traffic responds to ads targeting them.

That leaves affiliate programs. I suggest you go over to CJ.com and sign up, I think it offers some of the best programs out there. But, judging from the forums over there and elsewhere, I'd estimate most affiliates are making under $100 per month. A GOOD vendor pays 5-cents per click, most under that, and many only offer a percentage of sales (zero $$ for the majority).

So, using the above, a good site producing 100,000 pageviews monthly would pull in $250/mo. assuming there aren't any "defaults" on banner sales, i.e., unsold banner inventory. I think the average default rate out there now is running around 30 percent, so the ending net-to-webmaster is likely to be around $190.

[Brett_Tabke]

I think you have to look at what type of site you want and stick to your guns on it. If it is going to be an educational or infotaintment style site, I really believe you are limited to standard advertising as a means of income. If you go this route, focus on the content harder than you focus on the promotion. If you go the route of selling products, you'll need to spend more time on promotion than you do on content.

Educational or information based sites are successful because of their content. It is very hard to make a site successful based solely upon a product or an affiliates product. Sales oriented sites have a tough time attracting and keeping users. They live mostly on new users - hence the need to focus on promotion.

So basically it boils down to where you want to spend your time. You can be successful at either types of sites - I don't think you can be both. Sure, there are sites that do both, but they are the exception rather than the rule.

[rcjordan]

Of course, "success" depends on your own perspective. If you're doing this as a hobby and it starts to pay enough to make part of the car payment, that might be a successful site to you, even though it may not actually be minimum wage for all the hours you'll spend.

The hardest part is reaching critical mass --getting big enough to draw the attention of potential advertisers. Once your site crosses that line, making money gets easier.

[stcrim]

This is about money - trust me! We started out building and hosting web sites. With our very first look at log files we became interested in why one page pulls lots of SE traffic and another doesn't. That was the hook, the line and sinker came when we put those same pages on other sites and they did the same thing. That was a couple of year ago.

I was able to sell that service here and there to some clients. But most could not see the value. (I have a web site, why do I need more - you mean a search engine doesn't know that picture of apples is apples? No thank you)

It was at this point we discovered affiliate programs - and the fact that people really are willing to pay for traffic (or sales or click-throughs or whatever) There are hundreds and hundreds of companies out there willing to pay for your traffic.

There's a guy in Mississippi that make $10,000 plus a month pushing the Visa card "NextCard". And all he does is pass traffic to them (and several other credit card vendors.

I don't recommend Adult or Gambling because you have to play hardball with well funded, serious SE marketers...

Brett - am I allowed to mention cj.com or befree.com as place to find good programs???

Anyway Scott, it may not be your cup of tea but purely from an income standpoint, we both quite our jobs, we work out of the house and we're having a blast. Yesterday we went to see the new Mission Impossible movie at noon - "because we could"

And you can too...

Steve

[yomebe]

I have made more with adult and gambling than any other advertising click throughs. I would recomend getting serious about SE and playing hardball. Otherwise you will only make a few dollars a day. (like me)

If you use altavista you will notice they are always advertising casino-on-net

I think this forum is a great place to learn how to play (buddy links and study have gotten me listing under- free webpage not top 10 but all the my buddys are not listed yet.

[stcrim]

Yomebe,

I know we're taking this thread a bit far a field, but I for one would love to hear more about gambling and adult affiliate programs that work. If you are willing to share or are prehaps part of a two tier program please let me know...

I'm willing to learn to play hardball

Steve
[e-mail]

[yomebe]

I just reg some domain names that have keywords and built pages around sponcors banners. I am still stuggling to get good placement on my sites but have sent a few sign-ups. If you look at the adult programs they give you conversion rates like toon sites 1:105 and straight sites 1:600 so if you can send them the traffic they do the rest.

As far as casinos people really sign-up and play I am amazed I built some really far out sites that people joined an bet on.

BTW: I am still learning how to play.Brett_Tabke

[Brett_Tabke]

St>This is about money - trust me!

rc>The hardest part is reaching critical mass --getting big
rc>enough to draw the attention of potential advertisers.
rc>Once your site crosses that line, making money gets easier.

I am there on several sites and no not what to do with the traffic. I've tried everything I can think of except mass affiliate deals. I have traffic - too much traffic is spots (yes I just said that). I guess it is time to stop using the adbrokers and go the route of hiring someone specific.

[rcjordan]

>I have traffic - too much traffic is spots

same problem.. but since the Nasdaq crash and all the negative publicity about dot coms, the national and super-regional advertisers seem to have evaporated.

as for hiring someone, I've needed to do that for a year, but I can't manage them and manage the website's growth at the same time. I did spend quite a bit of time on building a media page, that has helped a great deal. When I get an inquiry, I point them to a list of pages selected according to their interests.

[Brett_Tabke]

Hiring people is always about qualifications. I've trained 3 people now. One lasted two years, one lasted six months, and the last one lasted about three weeks. I spent more time training them on what I needed done than it actually took for me to do the work. Ya, you have to be prepared to pay for quality help.

>Building a media page?

Has that helped at all? I've never heard anyone confess that those types of leaders really helped.

[scott]

What qualifications you looking for? Maybe your standards are too high????

[Brett_Tabke]

Coming up with a solid set of basic webmaster skills that include some sys admin related duties is far tougher that it appears Scott. Most people have the site publishing end down and a bare understanding of seo, but are completely lost when it comes to the technical side of webservers. Things like cloaking and programmed submission are rather involved for the average site owner. Working out those kinks takes hours of hands on time and hours of their own 'learning to apply it effectively' time.

[scott]

I'm curious. Maybe you could email me some details. I've been trying to break into the field for a while now. I'm wondering what it really takes to be taken seriously as a potential hiree. I can never get an honest answer on the skillsets required or the experiance or training level desired. I'd appreciate any help I can get at this point.

[rcjordan]

>>Building a media page?

>Has that helped at all? I've never heard anyone confess that those types of leaders really helped.

I confess. It helps close the deal, particularly with those that are not savvy media buyers. They take one look -assuming the page is 'pro'- their eyes glaze over and they come back and ask you to interpret the marketing mumbo-jumbo.... then you get to unload both barrels 'cause the asked for it.