Hi there, I have a 4 year old site that is presently getting 2,000+ unique visitors daily on autopilot, but I am only making less than a dollar a day, and on some days $1-$2
I also have a forum on the site with 32,000+ members, and ~100 active or more users online at any one time: http://www.pimpmywalk.com/forum
It teaches people how to cwalk, a popular “dance” worldwide, but mainly in the US. The number of daily unique visitors has been pretty steady these past few years without much work on my part.
I have currently monetized the site with Adsense, which brings in about just under a dollar a day, or $1-$2 on some days. I just want to be able to make enough to not have to worry about the VPS (hosting) anymore, which costs about $76.50 per month. Adsense currently only brings in $50-$60, and even if I do manage to earn enough, adsense payment is pretty slow (NET-30) and the payment threshold is pretty high - $150 AUD for me. Not sure how much that is in USD.
Other things I’ve tried:
Selling banner ads on the site/trying to find advertisers. No luck
CPA. No luck. Got $1 leads here and there, but nothing compared to what I am earning with adsense now.
Selling Clickbank products. No luck, only ever made a sale for a “hip hop instrumentals” product once in a 3 or 4 month period.
Things I do not want to try:
Popups: I don’t want to annoy my users with popups though, or restricting access to the content/tutorials using programs like CPALead.
Selling the site: Some people have suggested selling the site, but I do not want to go this route. This is the only site that has been with me this long, and it has sentimental value to me. I also personally cwalk myself and upload videos on YouTube from time to time to help promote the site, and I’ve also met some good friends from my site.
Any advice?
Does anyone have any advice for me? I don’t want to annoy my users with popups though or restrict access to tutorials using CPALead.
What would you recommend for my situation? I also have another site that teaches a different dance, which gets about 400 unique visitors a day. Have monetized the site with adsense, but only earn about 10 cents every other day, lol.
Try placing ads more places like on the side. At the bottom of forum posts, etc…
I think you could do this without being annoying. You could also try selling stuff through Amazon Affiliates.
I don’t think your ad placement is integrated very well. The ads stand out too much, they don’t seem to be part of the site.
Without looking too much into your site, have you considered a ‘premium’ membership package of some sort? Ever asked for donations? A pimp walkathon where some proceeds go to a charity?
As you’ve noticed, just putting ads up on your site hap-hazardly does not equate to profits. Monetizing a website is a VERY tough thing to do. You have to approach your website from a completely different perspective. Put your adman hat on, take off your website administrator hat… step back and take another fresh look at your site.
Perhaps choose a wider theme for your blog or if you can change the CSS of this one a bit wider to accommodate the adsense codes below.
I would suggest you use a 300x250 adsense block and use it in your post and on top of your video - or the side of the video - and also on the bottom. Use the same colors of the blog and blend the adsense units and choose “text only” for a t least 2 of the 3 of them.
Put the sidebar 160x600 unit near the top (I would choose text only and blend it).
Same deal for the forum, make more visible.
If you want to make money you need to put in Adsense where they will get the most exposure.
I’m a total newbee to all of this , so please take this into account and correct me if I’m wrong. I am actually on the forum looking for info.
Anyway, I checked out your site and the thing that struck me is that nearly all the ads shown are for Spain (holidays etc…) which is where I am. This suggests that adsense is showing ads based on user location rather than site content.
I imagine that visitors to your site would be more interested in ads relating to music / fashion / street culture etc and therefore more Likely to click on them. I would therefore sugest that you add written content to your site so that adsense can then show properly optimised and relevant ads for your visitors based on keywords.
As I said I’m a newb and here to learn so please feel free to correct me if I’m wrong
Who are the majority of your visitors? If they’re returning visitors (forum members) they’ll probably have become ad-blind and won’t click on your ads.
You could try also adding inline text adverts like clicksor and i think adbrite do them aswell but clicksor is the only one that i have used and it did improve revenue,like you i help out about CPALeads thinking that in the long run visitors would be scared off and you would only improve revenue in the short time.But i added it to my rapidshare site and revenue has shot up and gaining traction ecery day so i am also looking at adding it to a few other sites.
Get their email address for a newsletter via a subscription form, then offer them via the newsletter, every month, good content, and include an ad of own of the affiliate programs you promote.
Make sure you have good content in your newsletter, otherwise, they will start unsubscribing, or get tired of your messages, and won’t open them.
