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Any help on how to monetize this particular site?

by syncmaster913n
13 replies
Hi guys,

I don't have much experience in the internet marketing business. Sometime around December last year I launched a website in the weight loss / muscle building niche. The subject is something I have strong interest in and I've written around 100 long, unique, really high quality articles (pure information, well-researched, no BS, basically something that I know is hard to find in this industry that's usually full of scams and dishonest information).

I wrote the articles within 10 or so weeks and then abandoned the site (I wasn't planning to make any money out of it back then). Flash forward to last week, I check my google analytics, and I'm currently getting around 80-90 unique google visits (organic) per day.

The problem tho is that those visits are not 100% targeted; meaning it's not like most people coming to my site are looking for a very specific subject in my niche, such as:

- How to develop abs
or
- gluten-free weight loss supplements

or anything like that which could be easy enough to monetize.

Instead, the keywords my visitors are using to find me are long-tail keywords, related to the fitness/weight loss industry in a general way. Here are examples of a few keywords people used to find my site yesterday:

- lose weight in 3 days
- 1000 calories for two days
- fruits and vegetables
- gluten free weight loss
- how to find lean body mass
- how to get 1000 calories a day
- how to get model skinny

As soon as I saw that I had this many visitors I immediately compiled some of the best content on my site and made it into an e-book (a general blueprint on how to lose fat and build muscle), signed up through Mailchimp and attempted to start collecting e-mails. So far tho and after 1 week (and around 400-500 unique visitors total) I only got 2 opt-ins for my ebook.

I'm pretty sure that it's going to be very difficult monetizing a site like this, but perhaps some of you have some experience or ideas to share?
#monetize #site
  • Profile picture of the author BillyPilgrim
    It's actually very easy to monetize a site like that. You could go the Adsense route, affiliate to products on ClickBank, or better yet (IMO) create your own product line. Regardless which route you take, at least take some of your best posts and turn them into a free ebook and offer that up to create an email list. The money is in the list, as so many have said.
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  • Profile picture of the author travlinguy
    Your problem is you're not in a niche at all. You're in a major market. Actually, weight loss / muscle building are two major markets. There is some crossover but if you want to make sales you need to narrow your focus down a lot.
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    • Profile picture of the author syncmaster913n
      Originally Posted by travlinguy View Post

      Your problem is you're not in a niche at all. You're in a major market. Actually, weight loss / muscle building are two major markets. There is some crossover but if you want to make sales you need to narrow your focus down a lot.
      So would you suggest changing the content on my site and targetting a narrower niche? Or just starting a new site entirely? I would hate to have all this work I've done on this site go to waste, so if there is anyway I could use what I already have to target a narrower niche..
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  • Profile picture of the author syncmaster913n
    Hi Billy,

    Thanks for the post. I have actually already created an e-book like I said above, and I'm trying to build a mailing list, however it seems that I'm only getting 1 opt-in every 250 unique visits or so, which sounds really low to me. So I'm really not sure what I should do/change.

    The subject of my e-book is pretty on-point I woul say.
    I'm advertising it at the top of my right side-bar, as well as in a pop-up window that appears after 10 seconds of visiting my site.

    Granted, there are probably dozens of things I could do to increase my "conversion," but I would expect to have more than 1/250 signups right now. Unless I'm doing something fundamentally wrong.
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  • Profile picture of the author Alexa Smith
    Banned
    Originally Posted by syncmaster913n View Post

    So far tho and after 1 week (and around 400-500 unique visitors total) I only got 2 opt-ins for my ebook.

    I'm pretty sure that it's going to be very difficult monetizing a site like this, but perhaps some of you have some experience or ideas to share?
    There are many people here with much experience (including in your "niches"/"markets", which is more than I can say of myself). 2 opt-ins out of 400-500 visitors is clearly a "major accident" and something's very wrong indeed, with the traffic, the site, the opt-in process, or whatever else might be causing the problem. But nobody can possibly start opining about what's gone so wrong without at least seeing the site: it would be pure guesswork, which probably helps nobody. It does all sound terribly untargeted (i.e. not actually a "niche" at all), looking at it superficially, and that's my first "guess in the dark".

    (Have you read Mailchimp's terms of service very carefully, and do you appreciate what you are and aren't allowed to do there? "Just asking" because so many Warriors have lost their lists and accounts there!).
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    • Profile picture of the author syncmaster913n
      Originally Posted by Alexa Smith View Post

      There are many people here with much experience (including in your "niches"/"markets", which is more than I can say of myself). 2 opt-ins out of 400-500 visitors is clearly a "major accident" and something's very wrong indeed, with the traffic, the site, the opt-in process, or whatever else might be causing the problem. But nobody can possibly start opining about what's gone so wrong without at least seeing the site: it would be pure guesswork, which probably helps nobody. It does all sound terribly untargeted (i.e. not actually a "niche" at all), looking at it superficially, and that's my first "guess in the dark".

      (Have you read Mailchimp's terms of service very carefully, and do you appreciate what you are and aren't allowed to do there? "Just asking" because so many Warriors have lost their lists and accounts there!).
      Thanks. I haven't read the terms of service actually, glad you pointed it out - I'll give it a read right now.

      Am I allowed to post a link to my site over here?

      Overall though, yeah, I'm pretty sure the problem is with the target audience (or lackthereof). So do you think it would be advisable to entirely change the content on my site and try to target a much narrower subject? Or should I just start a new site entirely, in your opinion?
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      • Profile picture of the author Alexa Smith
        Banned
        Originally Posted by syncmaster913n View Post

        Thanks. I haven't read the terms of service actually, glad you pointed it out - I'll give it a read right now.
        Here are a few little threads, too, full of "Warrior warnings" about relying on Mailchimp as an autoresponder service ...

        http://www.warriorforum.com/main-int...ml#post3762385
        http://www.warriorforum.com/main-int...ml#post7961543
        If You're Wondering Whether to Use Mailchimp, This is For You
        Stay away from MailChimp - Read my story
        MailChimp Free Email Marketing -Read The TOS Carefully
        How do you feel about Free Auto Responders?
        MailChimp Improved? Versus Aweber, Imnica, Get Response
        FREE alternatives to aweber
        Cheaper (free?) Alternatives to aweber

        Originally Posted by syncmaster913n View Post

        Am I allowed to post a link to my site over here?
        Well, yes and no. Generally it's frowned upon for people to put links to their own site (especially "IM sites") in the text of their posts, but in reality, if it's clear that people are genuinely asking for help/advice (as in this case) I think the moderators never delete those posts. You certainly won't be risking being banned, if you try it. There's no real downside, in these circumstances, in trying it.

        Originally Posted by syncmaster913n View Post

        So do you think it would be advisable to entirely change the content on my site and try to target a much narrower subject?
        It seems very clear from what you've said that you're not actually targeting a "niche" at all (but a collection of huge "markets"), so it's very difficult indeed to see how the answer to the last part of this question can be anything other than "yes".

        Originally Posted by syncmaster913n View Post

        Or should I just start a new site entirely, in your opinion?
        Again, who can answer this without seeing it? Post a link; nobody will complain, when you're just asking for advice.
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        • Profile picture of the author syncmaster913n
          Alexa, great feedback thank you

          Here is the site: http://helpmeloseweight-coach (add .com at the end please).

          The domain name sucks, I know, but it was given to me by a friend, and since I didn't really care about making money through a mailing list and just wanted to start writing and maybe get a few clients to hire me as their weight loss coach (which did happen actually, btw), I took it

          Some of the articles have relatively recent dates (like Feb/Mar this year). That's not true tho; these articles are older, I just changed their dates in Wordpress so that the site wouldn't look entirely dead over the past few months.

          You can check out the first article near the top for an example of what I have in my e-book. (Don't bother downloading it, as it's literally just a collection of a few articles from my site like I already mentioned.)

          This is a free wordpress theme I'm using there.

          Thanks in advance for any feedback! And I will thank you once again once feedback is received
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  • Profile picture of the author dmca
    my girlfriend sells weight loss pills here in thailand and its great with no website and no marketing (just a facebook page) we have a lot of reviews and if you are interested we can make custom packaging for you and you can get a percentage from whatever you sell (its not an expensive product) let me know
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    • Profile picture of the author syncmaster913n
      Originally Posted by dmca View Post

      my girlfriend sells weight loss pills here in thailand and its great with no website and no marketing (just a facebook page) we have a lot of reviews and if you are interested we can make custom packaging for you and you can get a percentage from whatever you sell (its not an expensive product) let me know
      Hey man!

      I do appreciate the offer, tho definitely if I'm going to sell anything (as in a product), I want it to be my own Plus I don't really like weight loss pills and similar stuff; I don't believe they are necessary at all for weight loss or muscle gain - only knowledge is required to achieve those. So I'm definitely going to sell knowledge, not physical products (even if there is a lot of money to be made by selling pills).
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  • Profile picture of the author syncmaster913n
    Alexa, I just came up with an idea on how I could use that site to make money without having to change anything on the site. Basically I would be using this site as a "research center" to find different niches for new sites. I'd basically just leave the site as is, and check google analytics to try and find new ideas for targeted, narrower keywords. So, for example, I just opened GA and see that I am getting some visits from people searching for:

    "How to lose weight in 3 days"

    I check it in Google Keyword Tool and it's getting a fair amount of attention (+12,000 per month). I could then start a site devoted entirely to things you can do to lose as much weight (water/stomach content mostly, and a bit of fat too) over the course of 3 days. I would obviously be unable to collect mailing lists in this particular example cause my visitors would be people in a huge rush and I most likely wouln't get to sell them anything in the future; so instead I could immediately try to sell them through the site a cheap e-book that will help them lose as much as possible in 3 days. (I'm just thinking aloud right now.)

    What do you think of such an approach?
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    • Profile picture of the author Alexa Smith
      Banned
      Originally Posted by syncmaster913n View Post

      I would obviously be unable to collect mailing lists in this particular example cause my visitors would be people in a huge rush and I most likely wouln't get to sell them anything in the future
      I think this is far from obvious, I must say.

      I completely understand that people looking for "how to lose weight in 3 days" want something now, and you therefore need to try to make a quick sale to them, but these are surely also people who go through their lives losing and re-gaining weight (the World Health Organization says that without bariatric surgery, the proportion of "general dieters" who manage to lose a significant amount of weight and keep it off for the long term is as low as 1%), and I would have thought they'd be absolutely ideal for list-building?

      Also, very few people buy anything at their first visit to a sales page, and the primary benefit (even in the short term) of list-building is that it's a way of keeping them returning to it, greatly increasing your conversion-rates even for the initial product. So it doesn't follow at all that "the need for a quick sale" is a reason not to build a list.

      Your list is the valuable asset of your business. Without building a list, it isn't really a "business" at all, many would say.

      http://www.warriorforum.com/main-int...marketing.html
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  • Profile picture of the author syncmaster913n
    Bump (fell down to page 4)
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