1 million hits month and little money

3 replies
I have a friend I am trying to help and I feel like I am knocking my head against a brick wall. I haven't seen his stats and am only going on what he tells me.

He has about 1 million hits a month and around 60,000 uniques. He is ranking page 1 of google for most of his pages but in 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 position. His site is multicoloured, hard to read, difficult to manoeuvre and though he has some ebooks, they are hyperlinks with no images. He has a membership list that he charges a low $25 PER YEAR, and doesn't update the pages but leaves the old stuff on. As a member, you can't jump of his home page, you have to have the page bookmarked because he 'can't be bothered' giving out the link all the time....he thinks people should be sensible and keep it bookmarked. So, when he does his weekly newsletter he never includes the member link because he can't be bothered doing teh extra typing......and I could go on and on.

Now, though I am a newbie at my own stuff I believe I do have good advice for him:

Monetize with adsense, ebooklets (10pages), make the large ebooks (100-200pages) click-able images, rent out ad space to multi-million$$ companies, get rid of the multi-coloured pages, make the site more user friendly, target the US market not just the UK and Europe, etc, etc.

I won't tell you his niche or website.........

What I am after is links to info. He thinks he has to know every aspect of IM and he doesn't. Soooooooo, though he is a writer he won't outsource the painstaking technical site setup, won't outsource his ebook cover design, won't do adsense cause he doesn't understand it, thinks face book, twitter, linkdIn are a waste of time because he doesn't see the point......and on and on.

Says he outsourced 3 times in the past and didn't get what he wants and 'can't be bothered running split testing' because it takes so much time.

In the last year I have read things on the use (or lack ) of background colour, and what really works, benefits of split testing, selling adspace on your site, etc, etc.

Does anyone know of a depository of this type of info? When I tell him about needing to monetize he wants to know how much difference it will make in real $$$. When I tell him that his competition have similar sites as each other and totally different to his - and they place 1 & 2 on google page, he says their sites are crap.

I could just walk away and leave him to it, but, the truth is, he has told me I can get 50% of any advertising revenue I bring him. Short of hitting him over the head with a baseball bat.......I need really solid figures to convince him to change. There is no point being in the first page of google if you are only selling a few ebooks throughout the year yet have enormous targeted traffic.

Any ideas, or should I just let him get on with doing things 'his way'?
#hits #million #money #month #uniques
  • Profile picture of the author Tsnyder
    Unless he gave me full control over redesigning the
    site I'd walk away... very fast. People like this can
    be a HUGE time suck with nothing to show in the end.

    Tsnyder
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    If you knew what I know you'd be doing what I do...
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  • Profile picture of the author rlharding
    It's funny, I have been 'working' with him for almost 3 weeks now and don't think I am getting anywhere. After submitting my post and moving away from it for half hour I came to the realization that it won't work. He has his way and he thinks his way works because he is on the first page of google. He likes his site the way it is and to change will take more energy than I think I have right now.

    It's amazing what happens when you get something out of your head. I think I would be better spending my time getting my own IM career in gear!

    Thanks!
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