Forum Moderators: skibum
Just wondering what are the best ways to make money online?
If you were running a fairly large community what would you do? I know you will need some data to go by so I will give you some general info and maybe you can help me.
PR7
20,000 Unique Visitors/day
6-8 Million Page Views
In House
Sell advertising CPC, CPM, Monthly or by the Year?
We just hired someone to take care of this and I would appreciate some tips on how to get advertisers on board.
Sponsorships
How does it work if a company would like to sponsor an entire area. How do you charge? Exclusive or allow others the same sponsorship?
Affiliates
What are the best ones? Who pays the best?
Subscriptions
We run almost everything Yahoo! has in terms of services and channels (well not almost but you get the idea). What are some good starting rates for advanced memberships for extra storage, exclusive areas etc. Charge monthly or by the year?
Content/Search Text Ads
What are the best Content Ads? We are running AdSense and I understand that OV is coming out with a Content Program in the next few weeks. Also, what are the best CPC search alternatives because you can't run Adsense or OV in search results? What's the best way to make money from searches?
We are very open to doing "all of the above" just need help with the details.
I look forward to all your help with this.
Apart from running a website which is solely earning from banner ads & adsense, what are other various options of earning?
Something like creating a mini sales website and placing an ad on google & overture, and earning commissions.
Can anyone share more successful stories on this line.
SN
Hmm with a site that size you'll have asignificant brand with your memebers. How about merchendise A-La GoogleStore?
Already have one :)
I would love to hear too. I do know rough answers to most, but perhaps more experienced webmasters could provide better ideas and suggestions.
I would be happy for any suggestions even members that are not as experienced as others :)
You've done the first, now you just need to test. In general, it all depends on the topic of the site.
I have several sites, and I don't do the same thing on each. It all depends on the site and the users.
How community driven is the site? Is it a large interacting group - with forums and the like, or a bunch of visitors who don't know eachother and simply come for the news or info?
Very interactive! Forums, Messenger, Chat, Clubs etc. We have established a good brand loyality with our members.
I'll touch on a couple things though.
In House CPC
I think this is a pretty good way to go if you have a niche. CPC advertising is really popular right now, if you have a targetted niche and a reliable (anti fraud) PPC system people will always be willing to bid since you can track performance so easily.
Sponsorships
This is a good, low maintenance way to go. From what I've seen sponsorships are typically exclusive for the targetted area.
Affiliates
To find who pays the best log onto CJ.com (the largest affiliate network) and you can sort the affiliate programs by EPC... The ones with the highest EPC tend to pay the best but are also in the most competitive markets.
HTH
That said, you're not likely to be able to easily sell the gigantic volume of ad inventory you've got. 6 million page views a day? Yikes!
First, warn your loyal visitors that you're going to be experimenting with advertising. Need to advertise to pay for the bandwidth, etc.
Time to experiment. Figure out how much revenue you're making on average for every page displayed. Then figure out ways to increase that number.
- Try a whole bunch of small ads
- Try skyscrapers
- Sign up for CJ and test out different kinds of affiliates
- Try running an ad for one day. Then running for longer periods. How quickly do the clicks/sales drop off?
- Try text ads
- Try different positions for the ads, top, bottom, sides
Keep the stuff that works, junk the stuff that doesn't.
Doing this experimentation will give you two benefits. You'll become less dependent on the whims of advertisers; and your salespeople will become a lot more knowledgeable when dealing with potential clients.
Get tracking and experimenting. There's no other solution. (I suspect you already knew that was the answer).
Sign up for CJ and test out different kinds of affiliates
I ave no idea about your experience with CJ, but my experience with them is woeful. I really wouldn't go to them even if they were the last affiliate company in the world. No frauds or stuff, but those affiliate links simply don't generate even a meagre amount of revenue.
The cool thing I've found with CJ, however, is that it allows you to test different kinds of products with your audience. You might think that they're interested in one kind of ad, but it's actually another one that really generates some sales. You can then use this information to make a case to potential advertisers and you'll have the stats to back it up.
It lets you make a very convincing argument.
I totally agree, though, unless you create a site specifically around an affiliate product, programs like CJ are going to give you bare minimum revenue. But something is generally better than nothing.
That said, you're not likely to be able to easily sell the gigantic volume of ad inventory you've got. 6 million page views a day? Yikes!
6 Million Page Views/Month ( I wish a day ;)
Also, what is CJ Sorry if that is a stupid question.
Anything else?
Also, what is CJ Sorry if that is a stupid question.
Commission Junction. Thats a huge affiliate network at [cj.com...]
Selling ads direct will always give you the most control and revenue along with brand and customer loyalty but with that comes additional costs, hiring, firing, expenses, commission etc. etc.
SN
How about small subscription based online gaqmes? You have a large community, what do large communities like to do? Play :) you oculd try it with some sort of simple but addictive little game (word game, mud, puzzle, text based) and charge a meagre subscription like 5euro/month. If you got the volume and they get addicted, you can create some serious revenue. After all online gameing is the "print-your-own" cash generator.
We have around 100 games but I think we would have to add some really good ones to charge. Soon we will be implementing paid memberships for advanced functions that will span all our channels including Games.
We want to have some really great benefits for all our channels if you are a paid member. The only problem is what are the benefits?
SN
I think it would be hard to set it up to pick and choose. There will be two types of Paid Memberships one low and the other a bit higher with more benefits.
What are your thoughts on this?
There is alot of ways to make money on the web and with webpages in general.
-Rotating advertisement banner/link spots via scripts throughout your site and charge services/companies a flat fee based on the amount of traffic you get and what the basic genre of the site is.
-A "free" section where possibly users could download games, programs, images, get free offers for trials to programs, free physical goods etc. There is plenty of great affiliate programs to support these ideas out there that you can use.
-Advertisement based optin newsletter and offer some propositions to companies willing to pay you so much cpm cpl etc. This way you could legally mail your members/subscribers a daily/weekly/monthly newsletter possibly describing great new offers/ways to make money/new websites out and so fourth. You could also sell the lists to big advertising organizations and companies.
-Games section with free games and as well paid games and possibly a little casino section. Theres affiliate programs out there that offer great programs with games and all setup and hosted for you.
-Services section where users can get free and paid services, eg: mortgage quotes, loan estimates, VIN checks, hosting, domains, url submission, traffic trading etc.
-Popups/popunders (tends to turn surfers away, but could be potentialy useful on certain pages and or sites).
-Partners section where you could work out certain deals with partners that offer something that can go along with the basic genre of the site.
-Subscription service and members area that contains more of what your offering on the main page as well as advanced versions of whats already offered.
-Site search engine aimed to search your site and a database of affiliate programs youve signed up to for specific offers/free stuff/best services and so fourth. Theres alot you could create with these.
-Caffeshop.com store that promotes items with your sites insigna and logo on it for diehard members to purchase.
-Webstore section of your site where you can signup with dropselling companies such as agsmembers.com etc, and offer great goods at low prices for your members to purchase.
-Free subdomain with hosting, provided youve got the bandwith and space you could set something up like this and brand it with affiliate links/banners.
-Free email service branded with affiliate images and links.Could also setup a pay to read system where users are paid so much for every offer they read and or complete.
Those are just a few ideas of mine im using myself that seem to work out quite well. Hope this helped you with some more ideas. ;D
I also use Google adsense, and so far I love it! I have a very consistent CTR and income from them.
I have plenty of pageviews and unique visitors to qualify for doubleclick, but I applied there (when I was 13, a few years ago) and they didn't like me because I'm a kid, not a company.
I haven't had any luck at all with affiliate programs like CJ. I have more luck selling software through Amazon.
Bravenet has an affiliate program running now that pays you $1.00 per sign up, which is great since it's free to sign up. I've been doing very well with them since my site is about Web stuff.
Good luck!
Instead I would build themed interest areas for free newsletters and promise great detail about the topics covered. Of course you would have to deliver on the promise but as you do you can enrich the content very nicely with affiliated content and services (bring it into strong context of your theme) and other related sales (your own products and services, bundling or new promotions).
I'd do them with Autoresponders that you could even chain up so there would potentially be a never ending stream of messages (not more than 2 a month) as long as they stay subscribed. But content and relavancy are key here.
Nice about this: take top paragraphs and re-use for more pages, teasing for the newsletter details, getting more subscriptions in. Use the same teaser paragraphs for your forums with similar topics to feature on top and again tease for subscriptions to the newsletters.
An additional approach to build valuable subscription based service would be to ask a little fee for news delivery on the above mentioned themes and topics. Lookout for someone who provides these reports and such (like industry coverage) and ask for syndication, re-syndication, database utilization and commission on directly sold reports off their web site.
The workload could be minimized using autoresponders and databases wherever possible but if you want to do it right and cover interesting areas you would need one FTE to bring it all to live and maintain, add-up, update, entertain + grow partner network etc.
Basically you don't collect for an obvious subscription but do it in the second and third row of using the newsletters for free, people love free stuff, especialy if it's content-rich and relevant, supportive to their field of interest.
Affiliates
Good mention of CJ as a startup and playground. Their tools are outstanding and payment always on time, on top: they let you chose to wire the money or cut a check.
Once you know what drives CTR (again, CJ is perfect for measuring due to their great tools) you can branch out and find great potential affiliates, that you can limit to top performers (ask them to re-use some of their content, I haven't met any partner yet who would refuse if you can show dedication and wave with serious traffic). You will need to limit anayway when you don't go with a network.
Once you found a great partner to work with do your keyword research and buy a new domain where you build a niche for them, re-use their content, enrich with what you can offer and ask your users to participate (thus grow the site and add value).
Syndicate
Having many users interested in content-heavy areas you could consider to syndicate content to their company sites as well.
You would have to build a content stream yourself first though: this is how Epinions started out, they just built a web site structure and it was filled by willing users to be paid and motivated by the writers competition and voting psychology. Epinions just watched and the site grew. After growing you could offer this very content for a fee.
Commerce
Quality classifieds (you need good offline support not to be considerd another weak me-too) and to build their own store, selling stuff from your site, if done right and simple, this is where the money is, especially when combining the two.
Good luck! Jens
I'm sure nobody cares, but I made $10,500 last month from my affiliate site. My program splits profits 50/50 with people who generate sales from their sites.
That would give us a better handle on how to target your traffic. For instance, if its mostly teenagers, they don't have the money to earn you larger bucks. If they're Baby Boomers, you definitely want to give them very tasty credit card food.
