5000 UV's a Day, 10000 Page views, and only earning 80 dollars!

15 replies
I have a dating and relationships website that been doing pretty well with respect to SERPs. I'm getting around 5000 visitors a day and over 10000 page views every day. I'm using adsense with a low click through rate of around 0.3% (I think it's way lower though). Tried a few affiliate programs but the EPC just isn't remotely close to what they claim.

The website is around 7 months old, has unique content and a clean magazine style layout with good images. I'm waiting to get more visitors so I can tie up with someone like tribal fusion or anyone who provides a good CPM for traffic in major countries. But is there any way I could make more money now? I could sell ad space in the website over time, but I'm waiting for the brand to build for a couple of years before doing that so I can charge better CPMs. I'm getting 300,000 page views a month and making only 80 dollars a month!

I was wondering if anyone could suggest ways to earn more money now, instead of waiting for a couple of years. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Any affiliate programs, etc?

Thanks.
#affiliate program #day #dollars #earning #low adsense #low ctr #page #views
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  • Profile picture of the author Cosmit
    tried promoting any clickbank products such as The Magic of Making Up, Confidence building, etc?
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    • Profile picture of the author loonymonkey
      @masterjani, I'm following almost all of the tips you've given. Still just doesn't seem to work. Adsense ads, text ads within texts and image ads with images. But it's not really merging though if that's one issue. The ads are distinct because of the fonts and the layout.

      @cosmit, unfortunately, the guys on top don't want to sell books because we already provide relationship advice.

      And I've been using a few affiliate programs in dating niche like eharmony, match.com and itsjustlunch, but the EPC is bad.
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      • Profile picture of the author Rob Howard
        Originally Posted by loonymonkey View Post


        @cosmit, unfortunately, the guys on top don't want to sell books because we already provide relationship advice.
        THIS...

        Is just plain stupid.


        I've found that it really doesn't matter how much free info you give away - if you write/build a product that explains things in the most direct, step by step manner and even gives a few tid bits of extra material that you don't include free - you can hit it out of the ball park.

        At 10,000 uniques a day (or whatever the number is), you should be easily doing 100+ dollars (or 500 bucks if it's highly targeted) or more in sales a day.

        I don't know who the guys are "on top" but it seems to me they need their head examined.

        What about list building also?

        You could easily be building a list, a huge list, and making a crap ton more money.

        I'm not sure why they are chasing the pennies instead of big dollars but oh well - to each their own. They can continue to struggle and ask questions as to "why" - but the answer is staring them in the face.

        Not sure why some people are so scared to "sell stuff" online, which I imagine that is their fear.

        Rob
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  • Profile picture of the author misterkailo
    You have to play around with the colors, placements, different ad sizes. For example, when I switched from the traditional blue links to red link colors, my CTR went up by over 5% consistently month after month.
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    • Profile picture of the author loonymonkey
      @Rough Outline, am not able to send you a PM. Low posts. But it's a relationship website like yourtango.com or ivillage, etc. But i get what you mean, about not being able to judge the adsense placements without taking a look at the site.

      I checked with someone sometime ago, and he said that websites with good content get lower click throughs, and once they get decent traffic, they get higher CPM with the right networks. And that I'll just have to deal with the issue until I get about 30000 visitors a day.

      Could you suggest any affiliate programs or sites affiliate network sites that could be good. Tried CJ, the discrepancies in the clicks according to my plugin and thier count on CJ was huge.
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  • Profile picture of the author loonymonkey
    @misterkailo, tried changing the colors, but like you say, it's about constantly changing and trying. I'll do that for a couple of months and see how it goes. But is there any other affiliate prgrms or something?

    Just the other day, I read a warrior's post where he had written that he gets 1000 visitors a day, and makes around 2000 dollars a month using dating affiliates! WTH.

    Now why can't I do that? Is it all about the right partner or does location matter for affiliate links too? I use a 160x600 affiliate banner on the left within the post layout.
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  • Profile picture of the author loonymonkey
    @ccmusicman, I get what you mean. I spoke about it with them last week, and they did explain it to me. Basically, we're a publishing media house, and that's why we can't sell other books. And the guys on top do intend to launch their own range of relationship books after a couple of years. So they don't want to dilute the brand value, and instead, they say they want to build a reputation over time.

    I don't know if what they say makes sense, but the guys planning the whole thing seem to have some kind of a plan for the long term I guess. So I'm really open to affiliate programs and sales, but just not dating books unfortunately.
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    • Profile picture of the author Rob Howard
      Originally Posted by loonymonkey View Post

      @ccmusicman, I get what you mean. I spoke about it with them last week, and they did explain it to me. Basically, we're a publishing media house, and that's why we can't sell other books. And the guys on top do intend to launch their own range of relationship books after a couple of years. So they don't want to dilute the brand value, and instead, they say they want to build a reputation over time.

      I don't know if what they say makes sense, but the guys planning the whole thing seem to have some kind of a plan for the long term I guess. So I'm really open to affiliate programs and sales, but just not dating books unfortunately.
      Well, if they have the financial backing to keep going then more power to them.

      From the way you describe it, honestly, not much is going to improve what you are already doing - 80 to 100 bucks a month.

      No list being built...and all your traffic is dependent on the Big G, doesn't sound like long term planning to me. My biggest scare would be "What if Google decides to change something BIG" and you take a huge cut in your traffic.

      Hopefully that doesn't crash down on them before they implement their plan, otherwise it's all for nothing.

      Personally, I would strike while the iron is hot.

      My next question is, if they are building a brand, do they have the backing for traditional media? TV, Newspaper, Magazine? That would dramatically increase their "Brand" - but again, if they aren't selling anything or gathering a list of prospects, then I'm not sure what else they can do.

      Rob
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  • Profile picture of the author Dimitris Skiadas
    Joel Comm has done a nice course about Adsense and how to make the most out of it.I started reading it a couple of days ago and it has some very good ideas there to implement.Hope this helps
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  • Profile picture of the author loonymonkey
    @ccmusicman, you've got some great suggestions. I don't really know all the details, but I don't think they're going for any tv campaigns. From what I saw, they see a potential in the dating niche, and using a couple of websites, they want to expand into different niches online that revolve around dating and relationships.

    At present, the site gets around 60% of visitors via search engines. My only restriction is that I can't sell books and pdfs, anything else is just fine. So i was wondering, could there be no other way?

    As I mentioned above, a warrior was making a lot of money through affiliate links. I can put up links for dating websites, sell clothing, anything through affiliates, just not dating books.

    And about striking while the iron is hot, I think it's just getting warmed up, lol. The site is a little over half a year old, and its climbing quite steadily.

    They're already creating the lists and getting the details, but they've asked me to come up with ways to monetize the site while until they reach whatever reach they're targeting. My guess, 30,000 UV's a day before they go to the next stage. And from what I heard, they want to achieve that in around a year.

    So yeah, I'm stuck in the middle, and sort of confused with the options/ Do dating affiliate links like eharmony, match, work? It didnt seem to work for me, or was that because of commission junction's way of working?
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    • Profile picture of the author Rob Howard
      Originally Posted by loonymonkey View Post

      So yeah, I'm stuck in the middle, and sort of confused with the options/ Do dating affiliate links like eharmony, match, work? It didnt seem to work for me, or was that because of commission junction's way of working?
      Well they do - but you are GOING to have to sell it. I mean REALLY sell it. Testimonials, professional reviews, unsolicited reviews.

      You can send the traffic via banners and text links if you want - but your conversions won't be that great.

      I mean, lets think about this for a second: Match.com and eharmony have been around forever.

      They had huge media advertising (and still do). A lot of affiliates are promoting them. You are probably losing a big chunk of sales to them.

      As for the rest of your traffic:

      It sounds like your traffic isn't terribly targeted - it's a lot of general traffic with lots of "subniches" invovled (Like how to pick up women all the way to relationship advice/repair)

      What I would do is this:

      Break your site up into HIGHLY targeted and FOCUSED groups.

      Each group is a subniche and each subniche has one product you are selling.


      The ONLY problem is this - since this is a HUGE info product niche - you can't sell info products, so your only choices for monetization is dating sites like match.com and adsense/advertising.

      So the traffic isn't going to be that high converting, because, I gather, only a small part of that traffic is actually interested in dating sites.

      The rest are looking for info and are willing to pay for it.

      So, basically what I'm saying is this - break your site into small, targeted niches (meaning, different landing pages for each keyword), and sell the audience what they are looking for.

      How to pick up women - an ebook about picking up women!

      Online dating - match.com

      Get your ex back - magic of making up. (ebook)


      You could also do gifts from Amazon.com (like flowers/jewelry, etc.)

      But that's about it. Without the info product section, you are kinda limited in what you can do.

      Rob
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  • Profile picture of the author loonymonkey
    @Garage667, Joel Comm, is that a warrior?
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    • Profile picture of the author Dimitris Skiadas
      Originally Posted by loonymonkey View Post

      @Garage667, Joel Comm, is that a warrior?
      I am not sure if he is a member of the Warrior forum but he is a very known Internet Marketer,expert at Google Adsense.And recently has released a great course(e-book) Adsense Secrets 5. If you google it, you will find it immediately.It has some awesome ideas on how to better optimize your website and Google ads for better ROI and results.Try it
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  • Profile picture of the author loonymonkey
    @ccmusicman, thanks rob, I guess I could try what you have to say. YOu're right about dating websites, they're hugely advertised and people would rather go there directly as they would have already heard of it. I'll probably see if any of the other methods you say work.

    @Garage667, thanks for the heads up on Joel. I'll see what his tips can suggest for me.
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