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I just made $500 with private advertising on a niche site (suck it adsense!)

by vtotheyouknow
22 replies
If you have a niche site with any amount of SEO value (domain authority, rankings, traffic), listen up:

I've had this niche site in the marijuana niche just sitting there collecting dust, not earning a dime, when ALL OF A SUDDEN this cat contacts me out of the blue and asks me to put a link to his site on my site.

"Sure, no problem," I says. "How's $50 a month sound?".

"Can I get a discount for a year?" he axes.

"Sounds reasonable," I retort. "Let's do $500 for the whole year."


BAM! PayPal money received.


Moral of the story:


You may be severely undermonetizing your niche sites with adsense or poor affiliate offers. So here's an action plan that I'm putting to work and that you're free to use yourself.

1. Put together an email template and send out to relevant sites:

Hi!

I'm Vic and I own http://www.my-niche-site.com.

I was browsing through your site and I began to think that MY audience would love your site as well.

So, I thought I'd reach out and see if you'd like me to put up a link or banner on my site pointing to your site.

It'll basically mean that you get highly target traffic to your site plus SEO benefits from getting a context-relevant link.

I'd love to see if we could come to some sort of reasonable, mutually beneficial arrangement.

What do you think?

Regards,
Vic


2. Get cash money.


FYI, the link I sold this morning was to an eCommerce site. Ecomm is extremely competitive (I know, I work for an ecommerce company!) and many companies have full time link buyers on staff and a huge budget to work with so give them an easy way to contact you somewhere on your site (maybe use an "advertise with us" tab) and sell your email low like in the above example so that you can feel them out on their budget. Learn to negotiate a bit.

I'm off to the races, I hope this helps somebody!

Vic
#$500 #adsense #advertising #made #niche #private #site
  • Profile picture of the author michaelcorvin
    haha...great job!

    Michael
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  • Profile picture of the author Rus Sells
    This is a good niche in the states that have dispensaries as the web masters probably have a real hard time finding sites that will place a link on their site for them.

    Great job on closing it for 500 bucks. Now you can upsell content marketing for him!
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  • Profile picture of the author Lisha5684
    The longer I work on the internet, the more I realize how much I do not like google adsense. I think they are flawed and typically don't give you all the money you deserve. They mark way too many clicks as invalid, in my opinion... I know some people can make good money with google adsense, but I also feel there is something fishy going on with that as well... I make more money with private ads as well.
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  • Profile picture of the author Kierkegaard
    Unless you are in a niche that Google doesn't allow (marijuana is probably one of them) then $100 a month from adsense is easy to achieve.

    Even if you only got half that - at the end of the year you'd be $100 better off. Having said that $500 up front is probably better than $600 in a years time.

    Bottom line is that if you have a site sitting around that someone thinks is worth paying $500 to advertize on - and you're not making at least $50 a month in adsense - then you need to reconsider how your adsense is set up.
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    • Profile picture of the author vtotheyouknow
      Originally Posted by Kierkegaard View Post

      Unless you are in a niche that Google doesn't allow (marijuana is probably one of them) then $100 a month from adsense is easy to achieve.

      Even if you only got half that - at the end of the year you'd be $100 better off. Having said that $500 up front is probably better than $600 in a years time.

      Bottom line is that if you have a site sitting around that someone thinks is worth paying $500 to advertize on - and you're not making at least $50 a month in adsense - then you need to reconsider how your adsense is set up.
      True.

      HOWEVER, you don't need to have ANY traffic coming in for a private advertiser to see benefits so long as your site has some sort of SEO value, which is what the eComm'ers go after, the organic listings.

      With Adsense, on the other hand, you HAVE to have traffic to make money and as you know, building niche sites is something of a numbers game and some sites just never rank too well.

      But if you've built up that sweat equity and your site has some sort of domain authority and rankings, crappy though they may be, it's still a valuable link to somebody trying to inch out their competitor in a lucrative niche.
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    • Profile picture of the author dar2k
      Originally Posted by Kierkegaard View Post

      Unless you are in a niche that Google doesn't allow (marijuana is probably one of them) then $100 a month from adsense is easy to achieve.

      ...... you're not making at least $50 a month in adsense - then you need to reconsider how your adsense is set up.
      my adsense sucks, barely scraping $100 a year. What am I missing??
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  • Profile picture of the author Vonmoore
    I have never understood the appeal of using ADsense. You are completely at Google's mercy. The slightest infringement or screwup and they close your account. I've read about marketers getting big checks and then, POOF, its gone due to an innocent mistake. Some people abuse their system, true, but many lose the income stream through no fault of their own.
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  • Profile picture of the author perfectpixel
    Banned
    I agree, it's just too risky with Adsense from personal experience
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  • Profile picture of the author vufxteam
    great idea! i also have a site that is receiving a decent amount of views each month, but it is not monetised. much of it is due to the fact that it may not be compliant with adsense rules and regulations. will try it soon.

    Originally Posted by vtotheyouknow View Post

    If you have a niche site with any amount of SEO value (domain authority, rankings, traffic), listen up:

    I've had this niche site in the marijuana niche just sitting there collecting dust, not earning a dime, when ALL OF A SUDDEN this cat contacts me out of the blue and asks me to put a link to his site on my site.

    "Sure, no problem," I says. "How's $50 a month sound?".

    "Can I get a discount for a year?" he axes.

    "Sounds reasonable," I retort. "Let's do $500 for the whole year."


    BAM! PayPal money received.


    Moral of the story:


    You may be severely undermonetizing your niche sites with adsense or poor affiliate offers. So here's an action plan that I'm putting to work and that you're free to use yourself.

    1. Put together an email template and send out to relevant sites:

    Hi!

    I'm Vic and I own http://www.my-niche-site.com.

    I was browsing through your site and I began to think that MY audience would love your site as well.

    So, I thought I'd reach out and see if you'd like me to put up a link or banner on my site pointing to your site.

    It'll basically mean that you get highly target traffic to your site plus SEO benefits from getting a context-relevant link.

    I'd love to see if we could come to some sort of reasonable, mutually beneficial arrangement.

    What do you think?

    Regards,
    Vic


    2. Get cash money.


    FYI, the link I sold this morning was to an eCommerce site. Ecomm is extremely competitive (I know, I work for an ecommerce company!) and many companies have full time link buyers on staff and a huge budget to work with so give them an easy way to contact you somewhere on your site (maybe use an "advertise with us" tab) and sell your email low like in the above example so that you can feel them out on their budget. Learn to negotiate a bit.

    I'm off to the races, I hope this helps somebody!

    Vic
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  • Profile picture of the author Lyanna
    Sweet! Looks like thinking outside of the box and not relying on CPA or Adsense can be very profitable.
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  • Profile picture of the author jenn1
    Vic

    Great info, thanks for that
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  • Profile picture of the author icegin
    Never considered doing anything like this before. Thanks for sharing your experience and nice work!
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  • Profile picture of the author Rough Outline
    Sent you a PM.
    Signature
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  • Profile picture of the author Anish
    Agreed, targeted private advertising can be a fantastic way to earn. Recently I was contacted by an online advertising agency offering $120 a year for a single contextual link on a PR0 page (the site being PR3). Limiting yourself to adsense can be a huge mistake. You gotta expand your horizons and see what works best for you - there are plenty of options waiting to be explored.
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  • Profile picture of the author monkseo
    That is a nice chunk of change, congrats!
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    500 Views Per Snap
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  • Profile picture of the author richrowley
    Nice cash flow injection for a couple of emails. Well done!
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  • Profile picture of the author AfteraDream
    Do you have Infolinks in there too? You can combine them with private advertiser.

    Also did you sell one banner to them or did you sell all ad placements on your site? (usually you have at least 2 ad placements available on site). Multiple ad placements= multiple 50 bucks a month (or 20 for smaller banner etc).


    I'm real interested in direct ad sales. I got a site that doesn't do well with AdSense because of low CPC, like 6 cents so I would love to sell some ads on it too..
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  • Profile picture of the author BlissUk
    Nice, thanks for sharing
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  • Profile picture of the author TryBPO
    Sweet, Vic, that's a nice little chunk of change for one link, eh?

    Just a warning...I would try to make that link less obvious. The fact that THEY reached out to YOU is a bit concerning, though. We get these requests too and, of course, it's easy money...but there's always the question in the back of my mind, wondering about all the other people they're requesting to buy links from...and wondering if I'm going to get caught up in their web.

    Now...if you're doing the reaching out and selling to individual site owners...that's interesting. You'd only be mentioning your site to those that were really interested, of course...
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  • Profile picture of the author GodMode52
    Well done and that's a good solution for some particular niche. But honestly i think that you can earn far more than 500$ with a adsense friendly niche.
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