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7000 Visitors per month - How Can I Monetize This Site Further?

by George Montagu Brown
10 replies
Hey Guys,

Thanks for checking out this post and I hope you can help me make some more money from one of my first ever niche sites...

It's world of warcraft related and about 10 months old now. It's been growing steadily each month, with very little work on my part since it's initial launch. I totally forgot about it to be honest.

Recently reaching 7,000 uniques per month.

I'm writing this post today to ask, how can I make more money from this site. I'm aware of all the methods, list building etc (I have a few other lists) but am wondering what your opinions are on this site in particular?

Here's some figures:
Conversion ration: 326:1 (326 visitors to get one sale from one of the merchants I promote)
Profit: $522 per month
Sales: 18 - 24 per month

I was thinking about selling the site, but I don't know much site flipping. The traffic breakdown is basically, 45% search engines, 50% referring sites, 5% direct.

Any advice is very much appreciated I'd also love to hear what you guys think of the conversion rate. What's it like for your SEO presell sites?
#monetize #month #site #visitors
  • Profile picture of the author Jesus Perez
    Sounds like you've got your head on straight.

    So what can I recommend?

    Take those 2 big traffic pages and remove every single link, sidebar and menu. Make it into a 1 column salesletter type layout (maintaining the look and feel ofcourse) and only leave links that earn sales. See if that increases your conversion rate. I mention this because upon first impression, your site is promoting surfing around and clicking. This can kill sales.

    Try emailing the owner of the affiliate products to get an idea of their conversion rate for comparison. It's quite possible that 326:1 is awesome in WoW although it sucks in other niches.
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  • Profile picture of the author Bob Monie
    Hi George, I would call that very poor conversion. I think anything below 1% conversion is poor.

    Poor conversion would be due to untargeted traffic or lack of call to action links on your site.

    Out of 7,000 visits a month, how many actually click through your affiliate link? Are you tracking that?

    What are the keywords used by people to find your site in the search engines? 326:1 might be resonable if your traffic isnt searching for what your selling.

    If your not tracking everything and you want to maximize your profits, you should start.

    You dont have a call to action link on your home page to the iDemise Leveling Guide , just the image link. A call to action link as simple as "[Click Here] to get your copy" will increase your affiliate link CTR.

    Like Bluesquares said, you have to many nav links taking visitors away from your page. If adsense isnt paying you much, take them down.

    Could also test how well the product really converts with your traffic by redirecting your most popular pages straight to your affiliate sales pages for a week or so. This takes away a navigation click and will increase your profit 5 fold.
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  • Profile picture of the author Debbie Songster
    BlueSquares - great advice.
    Basically if you do what BlueSquares suggest then that will answer the questions posed by Bob

    Ad some tracking or analytics to the page and links

    Also have a look at your stats and see what keywords are bringing your traffic in. You might find that people are arriving at your site expecting one thing and getting another.
    Thats a conversion killer too.
    Once you know what your traffic keywords are - monetize for them if you aren't already.
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  • Profile picture of the author George Montagu Brown
    Ok, thanks for the thoughts so far guys.

    But just to clear a few things up:

    Everythings being tracked. And conversion rates are actually excellent at around 5% for those who actually click my aff links.

    And the main 2 traffic pages shown are very relevant to what the average searcher's looking for.

    I suspect that the problem might be that the visitors are getting what they want from the guides, and then leaving straight away...

    Also, how about selling the site? Does anyone have any opinions on that?

    And Bluesquares, won't removing all of the links ultimately harm my SEO rankings? Or not?

    Thank you
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    • Profile picture of the author Lance K
      Put together some sort of WoW contest. Make it appealing and require pople to opt in to get full details. Redirect them to one of your affiliate offers when they hit submit.
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    • Profile picture of the author gorri
      You need to make it more action taking, it's so hard to find the place to actually spend money. Make them take action, make it a little easier to find the place to actually buy stuff.
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      • Profile picture of the author Jesus Perez
        Originally Posted by gorri View Post

        You need to make it more action taking, it's so hard to find the place to actually spend money. Make them take action, make it a little easier to find the place to actually buy stuff.
        I completely agree. There's no clear call to action. Everything should be a straight arrow towards your BUY NOW button. Instead, it's an arrow to a Review page. Too many steps I think. I understand you're preselling, but you can Presell and link to the aff on the same page.

        It also presents one of the problems I've always personally had with "Review" style pages. "Options". When a person reads a review page, they suddenly realize there are other 3-4 other options besides a single product. When multiple options are presented, some buyers will feel the need to review the additional options "just to make sure" they're spending money in the right place. Those extra searches could kill your sale.

        Disclaimer: These are my personal thoughts based on observations of my own buying habits. Everytime I hit a "review" page, I start checking the options which usually kills the initial affiliate cookie along the way. I'm not sure how many others do this nor have I tested this theory.
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    • Profile picture of the author Jesus Perez
      All the links on the sidebars are internal. Nothing should be affected.

      If you think you're giving away too much info...you probably are. Leave some teasers. Treat the internet like the local news station treats "upcoming" special reports. They tease you until the last 5 minutes of the newscast and give you a subpar report. In your case, tease them into buying.


      Originally Posted by George Montagu Brown View Post

      I suspect that the problem might be that the visitors are getting what they want from the guides, and then leaving straight away...

      And Bluesquares, won't removing all of the links ultimately harm my SEO rankings? Or not?

      Thank you
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  • Profile picture of the author Bob Monie
    Now that iv had a better look at your site set out (sorry, should have done that before), I would consider 326:1 conversion quite good.

    From high traffic pages to review page to sales page to checkout. Thats alot of navigating. Just wondering if the visitors from high traffic pages really need to go to the review page or can they be sent straight to the affiliate sales page from those links? If not, cutting that one step out should increase conversion.

    I dont think you need to delete your navigation menu becuase none of those links take you away from your site, they all go to pages within your own site. You arnt actually losing a visitor through them and it could hurt your SEO quite easily.

    Its the Adsense that should be taken down. The ads are crowding out your content and they dont really suit your site. Maybe test if conversion increases without them.

    Never give away to much info either, you may actually solve their problem rather then pointing them to a product that can solve their problem.
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  • Profile picture of the author George Montagu Brown
    Thanks a lot guys. Yeah I think I'm going to cut out links to the review pages and see how that turns out

    As for offering too much info, it's hard to explain to guys who aren't familiar with the niche but the info is minimal anyway.

    WoW players are mostly savvy internet users and understand that info is available for free and so aren't as easily convinced into the 'click here to get your solution' as say... the men's dating niche

    I've cut the crummy adsense ads right out, thanks for pointing it out Bob, they've been making a measly 50cents per day on average lol.

    By the way, if anyone is looking to get into the niche and needs any advice be sure to pm me. And be pre-warned: A lot of the sales pages SUCK.
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