Should we ask for donation on our site?

An act of desperation. IF you have traffic, it is apparently not interested, where is it coming from? Why did you put A LOT of effort and money into it?

GordonJ

The site probably does not have the quality you think it does.

What is your bounce rate

al

Bounce rate is not bad, with people spending almost 4 minutes on average of those not bouncing off. We have a good deal of genuine user comments, etc. However, the revenue just does not match up. We used to generate in excess of $1000 a month with Adsense when the traffic was higher. Admittedly, traffic has gone down signficantly, through years of neglect mostly, but we have now actively been working on it again. But the rise in revenue is frustratingly slow.

Does anyone know any smallish site that asks for donations? If so, what do you think would be the typical size of donation (average)? Our site has helped out loads of people over the years but we are losing motivation because of lack of revenue. We want to be compensated for our time and effort, or money spent.

Is it worth a go? Should we keep adsense ads on (or have them removed) during trial?

Sounds to me like the potential for income is there IF YOU do what is required. If you neglect a site, eventually the profit will decrease due to older material, newer competition, etc.

If revenue motivated you in the past - you would not have neglected the site.

If were my site I'd spend the next 3-6 months diligently building up the site, adding content and user friendly options (can't say what as I have no idea what the site is) - running ads, increasing traffic. I'd test new monetization methods, add products if available, etc.

Money sites are often referred to as 'cash cows' and they can be - but the cow needs to be fed or it will stop 'producing'. I would not use a donate button but maybe that's just me.

Not a good idea I say. Because since you are doing it from a place of fear - because you feel you are not making enough money - you will tell money, and potential donors, to stay away.

I'd delve into your money blocks aka limiting beliefs. Feel and clear those unpleasant feelings, and you will make money through income streams.

How about you share what you've tried to monetize the site? Perhaps we can help with ideas to make it more profitable.

Well i think if its gives awesome value people will donate to your site .But why you dont find a way to monetize the site ? Maybe an email list

There's nothing wrong with asking for donations. Especially if you're providing value. Whether you decide to give an explanation or not is up to you.

I think we can add donation button only in charity related sites. Where most of people are ready for it.

Many previous adsense users have switched to native ads. Try a service like taboola

al

The sites that ask for donations successfully tend to fall into a couple of different themes. One is the obvious charity site, and it's cousin, the "let's raise money to help this person out of a bad situation" site. The other is the personal site, where the donation button is there but monetization is not the prime goal. Unless I'm reading you way wrong, your site doesn't fall into either category.

Google took the first shot against Adsense publishers years ago when they decoupled the content and search networks. Before that, if you ran ads, you paid the same cost per click whether the click came from a Google SERP page or an Adsense page. After the change, an advertiser bidding $1.00 a click on the search network might bid $0.05 (the minimum) on the content network.

I think the change to showing local search ads for mobile may be the final straw that breaks that particular cash cow's back.

I'd seriously look into Al's suggestion about running native ads.

If you do want to try the donation thing, don't just stick a donate button with a plea for donations. It turns your site into the online version of those poor souls sitting at busy intersections with a handmade "homeless and hungry, please help" sign.

Try to make it fun. One idea is to hunt down one of those "buy me a beer" scripts. Instead of "please donate", you say "if you found this valuable, why not buy me a beer" (or coffee, ice cream, donut, whatever). If they click the link, you give them a few "suggestions", like beer for $2, order of wings for $5, etc. along with a fill in the blank option.

Just don't rely on this for more than beer money...

Do you have a cause or a movement that you want people who visit your website to support.

People will donate when you're stand for something they believe in. (whatever that means ), but online or offline, if you are not feeding and clothing needy people or helping people to solve a huge problem like housing people etc. Then you can ask for donations. If your websites are aimed at creating content to generate traffic for adsense revenue, then a donate button won't create much increase in income.

People will only give a donation for a worthy cause

It cannot do any harm to try it and in a month evaluate the results.

The problem I think now is that we get a signficant percentage (around 40%) of our traffic for terms where there aren't any good advertsisers available for adsense to show. It wasn't the case a few years back. Adsense has become strict against those advertisers and we now make more from interest based ads then ads that are relavent to the content.

Donation is not always a good idea. You have to focus on the quality of the traffic. Once you get your targeted visitors, you can promote affiliate products/services to make some dime.

I've had at least 10 people tell me I should add a donate button on mine (in Sig) but I'm always battling with the fact that I intend to monitize it one day so it seems dishonest

I think this thread is bogus and dishonest so going to close it till the owner can prove other wise