What to do with all this traffic?

14 replies
OVer the past year I have had a heck of a time monetizing one of my sites. I've tried all the usual suspects such as adsense, relevant CJ or CB products, etc. I have expertise and success on other sites, this one is just tough.

It is in the gamer niche and basically hosts how to videos. The traffic is solid.

I'm looking for alternative monetization strategies (not just more affiliate or PPC), because Im just wasting this traffic right now...and have been for about two years.


The site stays within 600-1,000 uniques per day, with about 1,600-2,200 page views per day. Average time on site is nearly 5 minutes with a bounce rate of 27%. Im pulling this data year to date, It was slightly more last year.

Any thoughts since the traditional methods dont seem to work here?
#traffic
  • Profile picture of the author Chris Ramsey
    With that much traffic, you could very easily start to sell ad space on your website.

    Sure, it's been done before, but it works. Look at Myspace. They succeeded using that strategy for years. Still do for the most part.
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  • Wouldn't selling gaming devices and games make sense? Since you're doing how-to videos, maybe you could release your own how-to e-book and sell it for a few bucks.
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  • Profile picture of the author meegwell
    I've tried gaming products. I am currently running a get paid to play games ebook.

    Selling ad space...can I sell space based on views/impressions somewhere? Im thinking this crowd comes in and watches the video of choice then they're back to their game.

    If I sell ad space based on impressions, I guess I leave the job/risk of getting clicks to those that want to get their ad in front of my site's audience?

    Any suggestions for a place to start? Is this even out there?
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    • Profile picture of the author Seattle Mike
      Originally Posted by meegwell View Post

      I've tried gaming products. I am currently running a get paid to play games ebook.
      What about writing your own short "Be a Game Tester and Get Paid" free report to build a list?
      You might be able to get a large list with that kind of traffic. You could update them when you have new videos for the email content if you didn't want to write much. And send them the occasional product offer.

      I like the sell ad space idea as well. I have heard good things about textlinkads
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  • Profile picture of the author ChrisByrns
    First 120 seconds of the videos are free.. in order to see everything they'd have to subscribe to a $5/month membership. But to make that happen you need two things:

    1) constant updates
    2) a nice and simple, web2.0-ish tube style setup
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    • Profile picture of the author meegwell
      thanks Chris thats good thinking. The actual videos are youtube hosted, so I cant really limit them. There is a lot of commenting/exchange/additional user input for each video at my site. The visitors seem to like it, so I think there is potential there...just dont know how I would technically acheive the free teaser period. Its a WP based site. Maybe start with just a buck a month. Mybe just flat out ask for one buck donations...
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  • Profile picture of the author ChrisByrns
    Well, let's see.. just brainstorming here.. Are those videos your creation or do you link to third party vid's? ..If you own those vids, you could host the previews on youtube in order to save bandwidth and host the zipped full vids on your server. $1 per download or $5 for unlimited downloads or something.
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  • Profile picture of the author ChrisByrns
    If you just aggregate vids from youtube, you could perhaps integrate a discussion forum to your site and charge a one-time signup fee.. y'know something like "if you still need help or want to add something, join the board ($1 per month) and discuss this with the community".

    perhaps use some microbilling/mobile billing thing, so they won't need to shell out their creditcard and you get those "impulse buys".
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    • Profile picture of the author meegwell
      Originally Posted by ChrisByrns View Post

      If you just aggregate vids from youtube, you could perhaps integrate a discussion forum to your site and charge a one-time signup fee.. y'know something like "if you still need help or want to add something, join the board ($1 per month) and discuss this with the community".

      perhaps use some microbilling/mobile billing thing, so they won't need to shell out their creditcard and you get those "impulse buys".
      Another good option. The vids are aggregated, not mine. I'm juggling many sites now and the reason why Im at this point is because Im stremalining - i.e. shedding junk, focusing on the few better earners. I didn't want to shed this traffic, obviously. I think I'll try to find some ad space first then the forum route - there already is some interaction via comments. Maybe there is a WP plugin to make each post even more interactive....comments on acid or something...that way I dont have the install a separate forum script, login, configure...
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  • Profile picture of the author dndoseller
    I used to run a games site and had the same problem - people want to click on games, not ads - so I know what you mean, my adsense CTR was less than 1%.

    You might want to try incentive CPA offers. Does your game site work on tokens? You could give out more tokens for filling out offers.
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  • Profile picture of the author mikecorp
    Try some affiliates offers?
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    • Profile picture of the author gianne2705
      How about selling products on that site.Traffic is a very large advantage of a site.It is what most marketers are looking for.
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  • Profile picture of the author spycraft
    The niche is hard to monetize imo.

    I would try affiliate
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  • Profile picture of the author Voasi
    Try CPALead.com: Incentive CPA Network 150+ Offers . This site would be perfect for it. Basically, they offer a gateway option. For users to access your content, they have to fill out a survey. You can set the gateway timeframe anywhere from 24 hrs to lifetime if you want.

    I run there program on a couple of sites and simply love it.

    (AFFILIATE LINK to CPALead if you feal so inclined - CPALead.com: Incentive CPA Network 150+ Offers
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