Making a PR powerhouse

giving away free service

[Nuttzy99]

I'm a total n00b to this field. However, I've done some research and I still think I have a lot to offer. I need help getting oriented though.

Without saying too much, I plan to use the model of giving away a great FREE service that will incorporate link backs. For the sake of argument, let's just say I'm not delusional and I have something that will be highly desirable that admins will want to install and is not available anywhere else.

Furthermore, per "the plan", I think I could get thousands of sites to link to me (I have a track record to back this up). They will be mostly forums and I'll be encouraging them to link to me from the footer that goes into the bottom of every page. So hopefully we are talking about 10's or even 100's of thousands of pages linking back to me... legally and morally just!

But even better, in addition to PR, I'll have the bonus of being able to effectively place ads in high visibility locations that people may even click on ;-)

Questions:

1. Ad revenue: Each time per session that someone uses my service there will be ads (no pop-ups or anything annoying). It's a bit complex, but I pull elements of the install site to make sure there is static, relevant data for the ads to draw upon. I think I could rapidly attain 10k to 20k unique users per day (I have a track record for this too). My questions are:
   As a n00b, my impression is that no one makes a lot of money this way. Do people actually make any $$$ from ads?
   I plan to rotate ad companies and have per click, per impressions, and Adsense. Is that the best way to go about this?
   
2. PR: from what I understand, this is the biggie. I don't have enough knowledge to be able to predict what PR I can rise to, but I would say PR8 is definitely a goal. Questions:
   Is selling links from a high PR page still big biz? Is it a declining or growing biz? Is PR going away or becoming irrelevant any time soon?
   
3. General: It's going to be a high traffic, highly linked to, and very useful service. Is there a better way to go about making revenue other than selling ads and leveraging PR? I mean, I just don't want to overlook something.

Any advice will be great! I'll let you know when the service launches. Development is already far along and being stress tested as we speak :D

Thanks,
-Nuttzy

[edited by: martinibuster at 5:17 pm (utc) on May 30, 2004]
[edit reason] Edited for specifics [/edit]

[ogletree]

There are a lot of people with this stratagy. Sounds like a solid plan. I hope it works for you. It will take a while for their to be a grass roots following for a new program. Don't expect this to just work in less than a year. Be patient it will work if what you say is true. The key is making it free and open source. One problem you might run into is someone stealing your idea or incorperating it into an existing solution. I think you ought to do what Brett has done and use it on your own site and work out a lot of bugs first. If it is a good program it will spread over time.

[edited by: martinibuster at 5:17 pm (utc) on May 30, 2004]
[edit reason] edited for specifics. [/edit]

[Nuttzy99]

Good! I definitely need validation. To hear people think it is both a solid, and appearently proven plan is a relief.

I think your words are very wise. I'm forunate to already have a loyal (and large) base from my previous projects so I really am uniquely positioned.

Thanks!
-Nuttzy

[martinibuster]

You're on to something. Here's a good thread [webmasterworld.com] from last year talking about exactly this topic. It might give you some ideas.

[Nuttzy99]

Great thread, thanks!

-Nuttzy

[Nuttzy99]

Well, up to a PR4 after one month, but haven't even launched on wide scale yet. Next month should be very interesting :D

-Nuttzy

[trillianjedi]

Is selling links from a high PR page still big biz?

I'd be very very careful about what you actually sell.

Google is actively out nuking sites like this right now. One big PR8 that was doing just this (very succesfully) got PR0'd this morning - as did all the sites that were linking back to it (thousands).

TJ

[Nuttzy99]

Thanks for the word of caution. I've been reading up and there are some definite things one can do to get caught. I'll avoid those and hope that is enough. Mostly I plan to allow only relevant links. If that fails, I'll hopefully still have other revenue streams.

Thanks!
-Nuttzy

[trillianjedi]

Mostly I plan to allow only relevant links.

I would think that's a good idea.

I would also be very careful about the anchor text you use. If google get suspicious that you're selling the anchor text for purpose of manipulating the SERPS rather than selling an advert, that will be a red flag and possible manual intervention. Especially if you are a PR8 (much harder to stay under the radar).

The large site I witnessed getting nuked this morning had worded their text aimed at potentional "advertisers" in a way that was pretty obviously ".... yeah, we'll send you traffic but we all know why you *really* want the link".

They failed miserably on the subtlety angle ;-)

TJ

[Nuttzy99]

Interesting. Hey, could you send me an email with the name of that website? nuttzy <snip>

Thanks!
-Nuttzy

[edited by: martinibuster at 10:36 pm (utc) on July 20, 2004]
[edit reason] No Self Promotion. Thanks. [/edit]

[trillianjedi]

Hey, could you send me an email with the name of that website?

Nope.

(They were backlinking one of my main competitors - I'm an under-the-radar type chap).

TJ

[Nuttzy99]

Heh, fair enough ;-)

-Nuttzy

[fidibidabah]

And no one's said anything about advertising?

Although 'powerhouse super affiliate marketers' are the ones who make the real money...

I personally know those who pull $100-$200/day per site from advertising (no pops or interstitials either). I've experienced this on a smaller scale with a few of my content sites, it's definately something you could live off of with just a little work. AdSense has sort of changed the industry, if you could somehow incorperate that.

If you can seriously get 10,000 or so pageviews a day, even at 1%CTR, 100 clicks, $0.20EPC, $20 a day or $600 a month. That's not bad for something you do as a hobby :) Plus you could always find campaigned that might be willing to pay you more, or by CPM. So, it is possible :)