healthstatus

I have a health and wellness website that gets about 16k-22k visitors each day, generating about 80k page views. I rank high in the search engines for things like calories, weight, body fat and similar terms.

I am currently using adsense for about 70% of my ad slots. I have experimented a little with CPA and CPM networks and haven't really hit on anything that will compete with my adsense revenue. So I am either doing it wrong or adsense is my best option. What should I be expecting to make from a site with this level of natural search engine traffic in the health niche on a daily basis? Anybody have any suggestions on offers or networks that it would make sense to get hooked up with? I feel like I am probably leaving a lot on the table, but maybe I am doing OK.

Add .com to my user name and you will see the site. I would prefer this thread not get picked up by the search engines with my site name.

GENIX

Have you looked into MarketHealth? It's a CPA network based on health offers which would probably be most suited for your site, which is a really nice one by the way. Being an established content site you could use some incentive offers to block content.

healthstatus

My health store section is full of Market Health products, about 1000 clicks and no sales. Also tried healthconverter, there I got 1 sale in about 4700 clicks.

I don't understand your comment "Being an established content site you could use some incentive offers to block content." can you elaborate for me?

GENIX

What I meant was using a gateway from networks like CPALead or AdscendMedia that blocks the content of your page and then the visitor has to complete a survey to unlock it. You then get paid somewhere between 0.5-10$ depending on the survey.
Hope it's clear now.

CPA_Ian

Healthstatus -- feel free to email me at Genker1@gmail.com

I have quite a lot of experience in CPA marketing, and I agree that CPA is the best way to monetize the site. I know it will be many times more profitable than Adsense. Send me a quick email and I'll help you out.

healthstatus

OK, haven't heard of that before. I have thought about interstitials, this sounds like a whole new level.

indexphp

errrrrr..... let me monetize it and we'll split the proceeds

looking at your site, I think you need to work on layout in the sense of leading the eye where you want it to go. You could drop optin forms in the middle of articles (or at the end) and build targeted lists. There is really no reason why you shouldn't be making $20k/month with a site like that

www.TrafficPlusConversion.com

healthstatus

indexphp, I am not opposed to any of your ideas, shoot me a pm or send me an email through the site info email address info (at).

healthstatus

Genix, I have some PLR content that is pretty good that I have been trying to figure out how to use, would your survey blocking concept work well with that? In my mind ==> click here for free health course ==> survey ==> plr course. Would that fly?

GENIX

I think that would be perfect. People love free stuff and this is a great way of monetizing this kind of products. Your conversion rate will be much higher than selling it normally and if you choose some offers with payout of say around 5$ you can make some good money.

Cheers!

bigbrian

^^ Listen to what this guy says... He is absolutely on the money. Your site looks like a very good "informational" type site but it seems "dry" in the sense there is no eye catching call to actions and/or paths to follow on the site that sell the user on a product. If you make some of the article clickthroughs go to a "news/informational" type landing page where you presell the user in a general sorta way it will help you a lot. Make the "news/informational" page in the same format you have all your pages now, but capture the users attention by telling an experience/story that relates to someone's real life experience - it can be fictional, just make it sound real. Then towards 3/4 of the way through start talking about a specific product that helped you overcome the person's real life experience and lightly start to sell them on the product. Don't sound pushy though and don't make it sound like a sales page. Work them into wanting to know more about the product and then at the end or within the article link to the product.

You don't have to do this on the entire site, but strategically place these types of landing pages on the higher volume internal pages. Make sure you are capturing analytics via Google Analytics so you can see what pages on your site are being hit the most.

If you are getting that many views you can monetize off the site, you just need to spice it up and do the above - it will work. The only other suggestion I have is to throw some more 'bling' on the site but not too much - it just needs a little more 'spice' to make it a bit more attractive because it looks real bland right now.

I hope the above makes sense... Sometimes I ramble and can't quite get my message across right but hopefully you will understand what I am trying to convey. Good luck on the site!

Brian

DPM70

I disagree with all of the above. When I go to your site all I see is ads (some of which are penny stocks and I-phone), drop-down menus, opt-in boxes and columns - none of which I know where to start in.

Granted, you gave us the URL so I wasn't looking for anything in particular. Like a couple of guys above said, you need to lead the reader somewhere (hopefully towards a money out at the end) - but don't you need to give them a bit of value first?

I'm sure you have it there - but where is it?

I don't build in order to have clients. I have clients in order to build. - Ayn Rand

healthstatus

DPM70 - did you look at the right site? We don't have drop down menus or penny-stock ads (unless adsense is running them). We have our own iPhone app of health calculators and we do advertise for it, as a substantial amount of our traffic comes to look at our website calculators. We have several thousand pages of content indexed and all our backlinks are natural, we didn't create or build more than a dozen or so on our own. I don't think I would be getting 80k page views a day if there wasn't any value. I would appreciate any comments you would have on thoughts on monetizing this stream, but busting this in the mouth and saying there isn't any value, what is up with that?

healthstatus

bigbrian, I can go with having stories that sell, but they have to be true. I see your point on the paths to buying something. I run analytics and have a good understanding of where my traffic comes from, and from data we collect through our calculators and assessments I have a really good handle on the demographics of my visitors. That has been part of the frustration, we have put some ads in front of them that should really convert, only to have them either be a wash or slightly less than what we are making with adsense on the same number of impressions. We have a redesign planned for this fall, I will make sure we add some bling.

DPM70

Hi Healthstatus
1)There was a penny-stock ad, ok went back and checked, it was the left hand bottom Google ad on main page. Now it's BUPA - perhaps context from where I came in from?
2)Absolutely agree, I was wrong about the dropdown menus. Think I clicked the health ad at the top banner and got the wrong impression because that ad is kinda blocky.
3)Iphone-app calculators would explain the ads for that.

OK you busted my balls on the above

I just gave my quick flash opinion on what I saw when you provided the URL.

"I'm sure you have it there - but where is it?" I said this in relation to your content/value, because with such traffic I knew it must be there.

I still contend that if you go to your main URL (which is where I went) - it's a little tricky to find the content.

Hey, best of luck and no mouth-busting. Just saying what I saw.
And, I agree, I got some wrong.

I don't build in order to have clients. I have clients in order to build. - Ayn Rand

healthstatus

DPM70 - we are good. my home page is actually about my 15-20th most popular page, most of the search engine traffic comes to deeper pages. I take your point, once a visitor gets to the home page now what?

ChrisBa

What are your demographics??

healthstatus

I have two primary groups 18-26 year olds split 50/50 male to female and women aged 26-51. Women's group tend to be slightly overweight, with 2 children. Younger group is all over weight wise, we have a pretty big following of people with eating disorders. All groups are generally non-smokers.

bestbuddy1986

Try Zip/ Email submit offers.

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healthstatus

bestbuddy1986 - any recommended networks?

stephan231

i also think offers at MarketHealth is a good choice, it is considered one of the best network for health product which suits your website

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