How much does your CONTENT-related site make?

[tylercruz]

Please only post if your site is a CONTENT-ONLY site.. I'm not interested in knowning how much e-commerce or services-sites earn.

I'm trying to eventually make a living off of my content site, and was wondering if anyone else is.

Also, please mention what type of ads you are using to gain earnings.

I'll start:

I'm currently making $10-14 a day on average.. (I say it by day, and not by month, because my site is currently in a boost-period.. ) But you could estimate around $300 a month currently.

I'm currently using FastClick, with a banner ad on every page, and on about 80% of the pages I have once-ever-24 hour pop-unders and invue ads, and the very ocassional interstial ad.

[bignet]

I do not run a content site yet but I think you should try Google adwords as well.

[tylercruz]

I have tried Google. It doesn't work for my site. I made about 20 cents.. hahah..

[Shannon Moore]

Doesn't sound like much content, apart from ads, then... or the popups/unders are driving your traffic away. Then again, sounds like you're doing alright by that, so I'm not knockin' it. :)

[tylercruz]

We are the largest direct-source of movie reviews that aren't 'rants' on the net...

I've been holding 'back' on driving more traffic to the site because I couldn't handle the flow... but once I finish getting my dedicated server up and running, I'll be sure to try to attract as many as possible :-)

[graywolf]

I think it depends heavily on what your content related website is about. If you put adwords on a website about lemurs, there is not a large market for people purchasing lemurs or lemur related products, so there will be few ads if any and the dollars per click will be fairly low.

If you put up content about a good or service that people could purchase, you would make more. You would have to be careful to not be too spam like, I think adsense has a TOS about a website that exists soley for the purpose of generating ads.

[tylercruz]

greywolf - most agencies do for obvious reasons..

My site doesn't work with AdSense for the following reasons:

1. Ad Blindness, making CPM my best friend.
2. Similiar to #1, my competitors all use MAD ads, so my visitors are used to not clicking on them.
3. My genre is extremely vague (movies!)
4. A lot of my traffic is from direct links to news or reviews, and most people do not browse a large portion of the site.. making them pure 'knowledge-seekers' and not general 'browsers'..

[killroy]

Currently make areound 1.5k with a content site, about 3/5 adsense, the rest aff links...

SN

[401khelp]

Our content site generates over $3k a month which represents about 40% of our business income.

[dwilson]

My content site on Geocities makes about $10/month.

I just lauched one with a real domain, but Google hasn't deepcrawled it yet, so the 1-2 visitors per day aren't buying anything yet.

So I'm on the low end ... hope to have better things to report next year!

[kevinpate]

Not so much as a bright shiny penny directly.
The site is in support of the mission and operations
of a non-profit org. We don't incorporate paid ads in
any form. But then again, all content, coding and SEM is provided gratis by the membership, so the site likewise isn't a drain on resources.

Indirectly, the productivity savings within the org.
are significant. The site makes it easy for the
membership to find info, answers, and forms online
instead of contacting the operational staff for
every need. Having the site available as a 24/7
point for accurate info is enough to justify its
existence and the time that goes into it.

[ken_b]

It's pretty hard to make any reasonable comparisons or statements without more detailed info.

Can you make a living with a content site?

I'm sure you can, with the right content and a lot of other factors figured in.

Saying a site generates $10.00 or $10,000.00 per month is almost meaningless.

A "content" site that gets 100 vistors and 300 page views a day and generates $1,000.00 a month is one thing.

A "content" site that gets 100,000 visitors a day and 1,000,000 page views and generates $100.00 a month in revenue is another thing.

[tylercruz]

Hi Ken,

I think you are over-complicating things. If a site is making $10k a month, then they ARE making money.

[jcoronella]

I think you are over-complicating things. If a site is making $10k a month, then they ARE making money.

I think Ken is on the right track. A better way to phrase the question, is how much do you make per visitor on a content site.

I'm at about $0.01 per session for an entertainment related site with banners, adsense, and a smattering of affiliates.