Am I Sitting On A Goldmine?

6 years ago

A thought that comes to mind is to check Google trends on your top keywords that are generating the traffic to see if it's a fad or sustainable traffic.

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NewBwithQuestions 6 years ago

Originally Posted by Crushplanets

A thought that comes to mind is to check Google trends on your top keywords that are generating the traffic to see if it's a fad or sustainable traffic.

Hi Crushplanets,

Thank you for answering. I haven't really written content for keywords/SEO yet.

Traffic splits for November so far:

55.4% Direct
24.2% Referral
11.1% Organic
9.2% Social

Some other Analytics stats. I'm not sure if good or not:

2.21 PPV
3:30 Avg Session Duration
44.61% Bounce
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- Kurt 6 years ago
  
  I think the first thing you should do is add AdSense and an email capture strategy. Not that AdSense is the best way to make money, but it's a quick way to test monetizing your site.
  
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BradKasten

6 years ago

The first thing I would do is create some kind of opt-in form to start capturing email. Come up with some kind of free report to give away in exchange for an email address. Look at similar sites to yours to see how they are capturing email leads.

The second thing I would do is open a google Adsense account and put some google ads on your pages. Google ads is the quickest way to start monetizing your traffic.

After those two steps, you can analyze what your competitors are doing to monetize their site.

I wouldn't quit your job until you can monetize your traffic. Getting traffic and converting traffic are two different things. But it looks like your site has potential.

I hope this helps and good luck.

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writeaway

6 years ago

The bottom line is simple: How much money does your site make?

Is it niche-scalable?

Can you scale up its monetization?

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Bizopboost

6 years ago

Building a Target Email List From That Traffic will be such a Great Idea.

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nicenet

6 years ago

Please don't quit your job!

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Jason Kanigan

6 years ago

Originally Posted by NewBwithQuestions

Hi,

I started a website a few years back, and like most people, when it didn't catch on I lost interest. But about 4-6 months ago, I got the itch to keep going and the site has taken off a fair amount.

To this point, I really haven't bothered with any monetization while I built an audience. However, I checked my stats and think I might be able to do so soon. Basically, since I know next to nothing about all this, I'm hoping I could get some pro input about what kind of CPM ad rates and potential earnings with stats below. I can get high authority links (DA 60-90) from recurring writing gigs if I do this full time, so increasing future traffic should not be a problem.

Here are some Google Analytics traffic stats and Quantcast demographics:

Page Views:
June 1,000
July 1,900
August 17,100
Sept. 6,500 (on vacation)
October 40,200
Nov. (pace) 110,000

Quantcast Demo #s that stick out (been tracking for about a month):

Male (Index Score: 178)
$150,000+ Income (Index: 158)
Grad School (Index: 217)
Gucci (Affinity Score 9.01x)
Bruno Magli (Affinity 7.39x)
Home Equity 160-200K (Affinity 8.42x)
Likely to Refinance (Affinity 8.11x)
Active Military (Affinity 11.21x)
Personal Finance (Affinity 18.2x)
Active Political Engagement (Index 152)

Site topics are news and finance mostly.

Is this "should I quit my day job soon" territory? Can't give out site name.

Thx for your input in advance!

I don't know what this is. What's the "draw"? Why are people visiting your site?

What you have here is some traffic.

I don't know what kind of traffic it is, really, and I don't know what you can do with it.

Traffic is one of two elements you need to make money.

The second element is Conversion.

A conversion tool is something you put in front of the traffic to turn some of those folks into buyers.

What do you think they would be interested in buying? Any ideas? See how this goes back to the question of Who is actually visiting? What this traffic really is?

Goldmine? I don't know.

You have some traffic, that's all. Can you do anything with it in conversion? Time to start testing.

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badboy_Nick

6 years ago

I would try and buy some of the same type of traffic if you can and throw some kind of offer at it to get a good feel for it, as it's just way too difficult to predict what exactly the value of your mentioned traffic really is.

Without knowing true statistics and running the traffic yourself, it's next to impossible to know the true value and conversion rate of your demographic. You really need to hit your traffic with some kind of offer first to see what exactly you are dealing with and then go from there.

Nick

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NewBwithQuestions 6 years ago

That's an interesting idea. Thanks Nick, I might try that.
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NewBwithQuestions

6 years ago

Thanks for the replies, everyone.

I think I should clarify a point. Most of the people who visit are mostly financial newshounds. I wouldn't classify them as "buyers" per se, so I wouldn't think they are good candidates for selling products, affiliate links, etc.

I'm probably going to focus on direct advertising when I do monetize. The sites that I draw traffic from has mostly the same reader demographics: wealthy, well-educated men with an interest in finance.Those site are charging between 10 and 20 CPM.

So I guess my questions are:

1. What can a young website charge advertisers, if I can eventually get between 250-500K page views? Could I get say 5 CPM? Ramping up my trafffic should not be a problem. It will flatline eventually, but not for a while

2. Are there consultants that handle helping new sites with monetization strategies? Where does one find such help?

Thanks guys!

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Jason Kanigan

6 years ago

Originally Posted by NewBwithQuestions

Thanks for the replies, everyone.

I think I should clarify a point. Most of the people who visit are mostly financial newshounds. I wouldn't classify them as "buyers" per se, so I wouldn't think they are good candidates for selling products, affiliate links, etc.

I'm probably going to focus on direct advertising when I do monetize. The sites that I draw traffic from has mostly the same reader demographics: wealthy, well-educated men with an interest in finance.Those site are charging between 10 and 20 CPM.

So I guess my questions are:

1. What can a young website charge advertisers, if I can eventually get between 250-500K page views? Could I get say 5 CPM? Ramping up my trafffic should not be a problem. It will flatline eventually, but not for a while

2. Are there consultants that handle helping new sites with monetization strategies? Where does one find such help?

Thanks guys!

If they're financial newshounds they're potential buyers.

People who want to "know the score" are interested and engaged.

That's a great qualifier. Now you need to get more specific on what area of finance some of them are interested in.

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Kurt

6 years ago

Originally Posted by NewBwithQuestions

Thanks for the replies, everyone.

I think I should clarify a point. Most of the people who visit are mostly financial newshounds. I wouldn't classify them as "buyers" per se, so I wouldn't think they are good candidates for selling products, affiliate links, etc.

I'm probably going to focus on direct advertising when I do monetize. The sites that I draw traffic from has mostly the same reader demographics: wealthy, well-educated men with an interest in finance.Those site are charging between 10 and 20 CPM.

So I guess my questions are:

1. What can a young website charge advertisers, if I can eventually get between 250-500K page views? Could I get say 5 CPM? Ramping up my trafffic should not be a problem. It will flatline eventually, but not for a while

2. Are there consultants that handle helping new sites with monetization strategies? Where does one find such help?

Thanks guys!

500K at $5 CPM is $2500 a month, and both are hypotheticals as you don't have the traffic or proof you can get $5 CPM yet. The next question is, assuming results you haven't gotten yet, in the best case scenario can you live off of $2500 a month?

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NewBwithQuestions

6 years ago

Originally Posted by Kurt

500K at $5 CPM is $2500 a month, and both are hypotheticals as you don't have the traffic or proof you can get $5 CPM yet. The next question is, assuming results you haven't gotten yet, in the best case scenario can you live off of $2500 a month?

Thanks for the reply!

I'm unclear on how a place like BuySellAds works. I imagine, and correct me if I'm wrong, that the publisher places his offer for the CPM rate and the advertiser checks through the demographic data of the site to see whether it is desirable to advertise there and/or negotiates a different CPM rate?

I could live on $2500, but that would be per ad, correct? I know you can only have a few ads. But three ads at 5CPM would be $7500. Forgive my ignorance, if this is wrong!

I'm really not going to quit the day job. I guess I just want to see what the potential is if I can keep growing.

Thanks for your patience!

Thanks

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Michael Meaney

6 years ago

Like what's already been said, it all depends on what you do with the traffic.

One of my students has a website that only gets 50 - 100 people a day but he's converting like crazy.

Years ago I had a website that was getting hundreds of thousands of visitors a month, but making next to nothing.

Traffic is just one piece of the puzzle, you need a system in place to monetize it.

You're in a very good position now because you have an audience, now find out what they need and sell it to them.

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lobo22

6 years ago

Two things you you should have on you site. Monitize it with adsense and definitly an optin form with a free offer.

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Randall Magwood

6 years ago

Test it and see. You said the site was about news and finance, that's too broad of a spectrum to quit your job over. Have you identified a problem that people are looking to a solution for? Just because your site has some traffic to it, it doesn't mean that it's going to BLOW instantly. Furthermore..... 1000 - 1900 views a month is terribly small. How are you doing your marketing? What's keeping you back from monetizing it?

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NewBwithQuestions

6 years ago

Originally Posted by Randall Magwood

Test it and see. You said the site was about news and finance, that's too broad of a spectrum to quit your job over. Have you identified a problem that people are looking to a solution for? Just because your site has some traffic to it, it doesn't mean that it's going to BLOW instantly. Furthermore..... 1000 - 1900 views a month is terribly small. How are you doing your marketing? What's keeping you back from monetizing it?

Hi, if it was just a minor spike, I'd agree. But it's gone from 1,000 in June to 100,000 projected in November.

I held back on monetizing mostly to focus on content and getting readers with my time. And also because I'm pretty clueless on monetizing!

Thanks

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Rory Singh

6 years ago

Page Views:
June 1,000
July 1,900
August 17,100
Sept. 6,500 (on vacation)
October 40,200
Nov. (pace) 110,000

Something doesn't make sense here. In June 1,000 views and then in August...17K Views? This is a huge spike for a two month period. What are you using as a tracker if you don't mind me asking?

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NewBwithQuestions

6 years ago

Originally Posted by Rory Singh

Something doesn't make sense here. In June 1,000 views and then in August...17K Views? This is a huge spike for a two month period. What are you using as a tracker if you don't mind me asking?

Hi, I'm using Google Analytics for the #s. The spike is due to a guest writing gig with a super high DA site, which I can do more often if I need to increase traffic faster.

Thanks

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dragoshs

6 years ago

i would quit my job when the average of last 6 months are enough to do so. you'd probably want to calculate last 3 months of a year and the first 3 months of the next year because that is the most unstable period.

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agmccall

6 years ago

Originally Posted by NewBwithQuestions

Is this "should I quit my day job soon" territory? Can't give out site name.

!

only you can answer this. Are you making enough money to quit your day job. for me it was double what I made at job. Why?

Have to fund my own retirement, no company match anymore.

Health and life insurance, no longer subsidized by company

Still have to pay income tax as well as business taxes.

the list goes on

al

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tritrain

6 years ago

I think you should start slowly to monetize it. Try different things out. Ease them into it.

I'd also keep the day job until you are much more established and (hopefully) have another good income stream. That's the more conservative approach.

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Steve B

6 years ago

Originally Posted by NewBwithQuestions

Is this "should I quit my day job soon" territory?

Without any income or plan for how you are going to create full time income, I would say definitely not! Unless you have substantial savings, or no monthly financial obligations or family to worry about, I think you would be very foolish to cut off your current income with nothing more than "hope" that you can build a quick Internet income stream.

I would suggest you keep your day job, work hard nights and weekends to get your web site earning on a steady basis, then (and only then) begin to think about how much money you will need to make online to live the lifestyle you want. Work your business until you can consistently draw that preferred income for six months time . . . then you might be in a position to think about ending your local employment.

As others have pointed out . . . you haven't monetized anything just yet - so don't underestimate the amount of work and time it will take to do that sufficiently to meet your financial needs. Most people come online with quite unrealistic expectations about how lucrative, and how fast their income will be.

The very best to you,

Steve

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NewBwithQuestions

6 years ago

Originally Posted by Steve B

Without any income or plan for how you are going to create full time income, I would say definitely not! Unless you have substantial savings, or no monthly financial obligations or family to worry about, I think you would be very foolish to cut off your current income with nothing more than "hope" that you can build a quick Internet income stream.

I would suggest you keep your day job, work hard nights and weekends to get your web site earning on a steady basis, then (and only then) begin to think about how much money you will need to make online to live the lifestyle you want. Work your business until you can consistently draw that preferred income for six months time . . . then you might be in a position to think about ending your local employment.

As others have pointed out . . . you haven't monetized anything just yet - so don't underestimate the amount of work and time it will take to do that sufficiently to meet your financial needs. Most people come online with quite unrealistic expectations about how lucrative, and how fast their income will be.

The very best to you,

Steve

This seems like really sound advice. My learning curve for getting traffic is a lot faster than for getting the nuts and bolts biz plan. Thanks!

Thanks

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GordonJ

6 years ago

Originally Posted by NewBwithQuestions

Hi,

I started a website a few years back, and like most people, when it didn't catch on I lost interest. But about 4-6 months ago, I got the itch to keep going and the site has taken off a fair amount.

To this point, I really haven't bothered with any monetization while I built an audience. However, I checked my stats and think I might be able to do so soon. Basically, since I know next to nothing about all this, I'm hoping I could get some pro input about what kind of CPM ad rates and potential earnings with stats below. I can get high authority links (DA 60-90) from recurring writing gigs if I do this full time, so increasing future traffic should not be a problem.

Here are some Google Analytics traffic stats and Quantcast demographics:

Page Views:
June 1,000
July 1,900
August 17,100
Sept. 6,500 (on vacation)
October 40,200
Nov. (pace) 110,000

Quantcast Demo #s that stick out (been tracking for about a month):

Male (Index Score: 178)
$150,000+ Income (Index: 158)
Grad School (Index: 217)
Gucci (Affinity Score 9.01x)
Bruno Magli (Affinity 7.39x)
Home Equity 160-200K (Affinity 8.42x)
Likely to Refinance (Affinity 8.11x)
Active Military (Affinity 11.21x)
Personal Finance (Affinity 18.2x)
Active Political Engagement (Index 152)

Site topics are news and finance mostly.

Is this "should I quit my day job soon" territory? Can't give out site name.

Thx for your input in advance!

Burn your ships brother and go for it. Be bold, strive confidently in the direction of your goal with a certainty you will conquer and rule.

Don't be wishy washy, COMMIT

Listen to your heart, not this common sense BS you are getting. I say

GO FOR IT.

After all, I got nothing to lose.

GordonJ

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NewBwithQuestions

6 years ago

Originally Posted by GordonJ

Burn your ships brother and go for it. Be bold, strive confidently in the direction of your goal with a certainty you will conquer and rule.

Don't be wishy washy, COMMIT

Listen to your heart, not this common sense BS you are getting. I say

GO FOR IT.

After all, I got nothing to lose.

GordonJ

LOL. I catch your drift.

Thanks

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colmodwyer

6 years ago

"The only bank that takes eyeballs is the eye bank" said Bill Bonner.

In other words, you probably shouldn't quit your job until you know you can turn that traffic into cold hard cash.

Cheers,
Colm

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