How to tell if a site is worth promoting?

10 replies
Hi all,

I have several sites and could use some experienced advice. I am hoping that you can point me in the right direction.

I have one site that I built a couple of years ago for guitar lessons, using Ed Dale's 30 Day Challenge. I made the first page of G@@gle, but received very few visitors. After the big G revised the results of their keyword tool, the keyword went dropped from 30,000 searches a month to 800. I tried several affiliate programs, including Legacy Learning and Jamorama. Never a single sale. I switched it to Adsense about a year ago. Last month this site made $2.71.

I have another site where the numbers dropped from 500,000 exact searches a month to 2,600. G revised their results and dropped the searches to 2,600, then my traffic numbers made perfect sense. This site started out as an Amazon site until Amazon fired all of the Coloradans. I then switched it over to Adsense as well.

Last example is an acne related site. I used an info domain and within 2 months I was receiving over 2,000 unique visitors a month, according to G Analytics. I was very excited until I wasn't seeing any Adsense clicks, $$$.

Combined, all of these sites are not even making enough to pay the reg fees for the domains. Two of these three sites were on the front page of Google and still not making any money, (< $100 in 1.5 years).

I understand that my traffic may not be targeted enough. "Get Rid of Acne" seems like a fairly well targeted keyphrase.

Would you build any more links (Articles, backlinks) to these sites?

How do you know when a site is worth putting more effort into?

Any help will be appreciated.

Thanks in advance.

Steve
#promoting #site #worth
  • Profile picture of the author bollingjoe
    pls the hyper warriors should pls ans dis guy's question
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  • Profile picture of the author UMS
    With your Acne site, 4000 unique visitors per month should be enough volume to make some money.

    Is adsense the only way you are monitizing the site at the moment? Without seeing the site, it's hard to say how well you've incorporated adsense.

    The other thing to look at is your bounce rate. Are visitors coming to your site/s and leaving straight away? If so, then you need to look at your site design and content.

    Do you have any opt-in forms on your sites?

    Have you tried any CPA offers on your sites (can be great for health related niches like acne)?
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  • Profile picture of the author UMS
    Got an PM from Steve with his acne site.

    Looking at the site, there's nothing that immediate jumps out, although if you are going to stick with adsense, I would try incorporating a 728x90 adsense banner at the top of the page.

    If you want to try something else apart from adsense, then there's some good CPA and Affiliate sites listed on:

    Health and Beauty Affiliate Programs by MarketHealth.com


    I'm surprised that you get 4000 unique visitors per month as I can't find your site anywhere in the SERP's.
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    • Profile picture of the author SteveSch
      Originally Posted by UMS View Post

      Got an PM from Steve with his acne site.
      Thank you. I actually have a colon cleanse site with an affiliate program from this site. I just used their web page. Not great for SEO. I was thinking about writing a few articles and seeing if I could get that site ranking in G.

      My unique views have dropped drastically over the last few months. I pulled the GA from March 2011. I had 2,580 Absolute Unique Visitors. For May do far I have had 179 Absolute Unique Visitors. I don't even see the 4,700. I guess I saw that on StatPress or on my control panel. Still, 2,580 should have made something. When I was promoting the site I had several months with 2,000 plus uniques.

      Do you think this site is worth putting in some more effort (articles & backlinks)?

      Thanks again for your help.

      Steve
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  • Profile picture of the author shuvo
    I am still thinking its still possible to make money from this site.Try some other programs like payperpost or blogvertise who pay for paid blogging in your sites and they pay around $5 to $25 for every post in your site or blog.Also you may try linkworth.This network allows you to make money in various way from a single blog or site.More importantly if you share your revenue 50/50 with them then they will search advertisers for you.However as adsense need lots of quality traffic to generate clicks try the above networks and I hope it will help you to get all of your registration fees.
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    • Profile picture of the author SteveSch
      Hi,

      Thanks for the help. Here are the URLs so you all can see the sites.

      howtogetridofblackheads2.info

      countryguitarlessons.net

      The guitar site is currently #1 on G@@gle but I have only received 50 uniques in the last 30 days. That's nowhere near the 30,000 searches a month that the keyword tool showed, when I built the site. Currently, the keyword tool shows 800 exact searches a month.

      Thank you for the help.

      Steve

      PS: Here is a screenshot of blackhead for the guitar site.



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  • Profile picture of the author Sheryl Polomka
    Hi Steve

    I can't get the blackhead site - it takes me to bido.com which is a domain name auction site.

    With the guitar site, are you ranking for any other keywords? If you are only getting 50 views at the No. 1 spot then you might want to change the keywords you rank for. Do some keyword research and find a few good keyword phrases and then create pages for those keyword phrases. Do some backlinking and article marketing pointing links back to those pages and try to rank for those keywords.

    I would get rid of the border around your adsense ads too, they will blend in better with your site without the border.
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    • Profile picture of the author SteveSch
      I just copied and pasted the blackhead site and it works OK for me?? That may explain why my traffic has dropped so much.

      I was going to sell the site on Bido but decided that maybe I should hold onto it.

      If the guitar site is worth expanding, I will get more keywords. I have just spent a ton of time and was wondering if it was wasted time.

      Thanks again.

      Steve
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  • Profile picture of the author omk
    I would set up a spreadsheet for all three. Then I'd list metrics like page views per month, keyword traffic and any money from adsense etc., that comes in.

    Pick the best performer from the theree that you have and take it from there. Start your rebuilding process by:

    1- focusing on monetization methods
    2 - SEO tactics
    3 - finding some relavant CPA,CPS and Lead Gen. offers
    4 - create a linking and promotion strategy

    Give yourself a timeline and if you do not see a marked level of improvement ditch the site/niche and move on to something else.

    Look for improvements on a monthly basis and maybe give it 3 months to make a final decision.
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  • Profile picture of the author SteveSch
    Thanks for the help. I fixed the Bido problem. I will put in some more work and get these sites making money.

    Steve
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