Problems monetizing WoW blog - help?

Well, we can't give you any advice if you don't let us know where the site is (I realize that you don't want to link to it since that would seem spammy).

Type the URL without actually posting it properly (e.g. www.google[dot]com).

Apart from that, the WoW game itself seems to be dying. Good work for sticking to a niche but unfortunately I think you're on a sinking ship.

Good luck.

My brother, I would sugguest you use an afflilate product of some kind to monetize your WoW site.

There are people who own businesses and products designed for the WoW game and community. Some that I am aware of (through having a friend who is hooked on the game!) are "Mining Services" [where Gold? and other things are mined or trained on an account for real dollar] and Training Services [fighting attributes and levels are trained?].

I do not know of any affiliate programs myself off the top of my head that I can point you towards, but I recommend you do the following research:

1) Search CJ and Clickbank for Affiliate Products.

2) Search Google for WoW style services, then when you find one which you believe in, check at the bottom of the website to see if there is an affiliate program offered, or contact the webmaster of that site/service to see if they will deal with you as an affiliate.

Because you are not having much success with your AdSense programme, it may be a much better idea to monetize in a few different ways to increase your chances of earning from your website.

This is why I recommend promoting affiliate products aimed at WoW players.

Giving a genuine review on your page is an excellent way to pre-sell and promote a product as an affiliate and I most certainly recommend it.

To give yourself an extra attack angle: If you know any kind of useful and factual information about WoW which you have gained from experience, then compile that knowledge into a .pdf - wrap it up in some nice professional graphics and give it away for free to your visitors.

Be sure to highlight the key value points of your free ebook and use an email submission form so that visitors must submit their email details to gain access to your ebook - from there you can start an email marketing campaign.

Student X

I think it is a burned out niche from newcomer point of view. There are internet marketers who created products around WOW niche so many people copied their websites.
Adsense on my gaming sites performs very bad due to the low cost of click.

You can try to advertise new games that come out, something that generates curiosity, because your visitors know about 90% they need to know about WOW, they don't care about WOW ads.

Hi,

I can understand you probably not wanting to show your site.

You sound like you are probably doing the right things.

I few years ago there was lots of very popular guides on WOW sold on clickbank.

Actually one of Mark Ling's (a very successful Internet marketer) paid courses used WOW as an example and showed how he went from zero to making some nice money from the niche in a relatively short period of time (can't remember exactly how much he made).

The problem might be a number of things but here are some options:

1. You are not ranking for buying keywords
2. You don't have any good affiliate products that entice your customer to buy
3. You aren't preselling your customers

My guess is that you are probably not ranking for buying keywords. On some of my sites I rank for some keywords that send me thousands of visitors a month but hardly make me a sale because they are not buying keywords.

These are not keywords I am actually targeting as such they just happen to be on my site and I happen to be ranking because there is hardly any competition (could that be because they are not buying keywords - Yep).

With out knowing more about your site it is difficult to give any more input, but that might give you an idea as to what might be wrong.

Thanks for the advice, as I wrote in the OP i did switch from adsense to clickbank recently. That transition obviously can't be measured yet, but we'll see!

I totally agree with your points. The blog isn't created with selling in mind.

Actually the new games thing was something i did, I found some SWTOR related clickbank products and threw them in the mix (very new game.)

I guess I'll just have to wait and see the results of this new campagin.

I was just a little struck by 3,500 adsense pageviews with no clicks. In comparison a little math blog i have that get absolutly no traffic (1200 pageviews in a few months) generated 12 clicks. Now the CPC is pretty low, but still its the same concept behind the math blog, where I just supply free information, i dont go out of my way to promote anything.

Now, this is definitely something I'm working on, on my newer sites but I just wanted to see if anything could be done to this site. In my mind 1500 unique visitors per month isnt that awful, but we'll see how these new products convert!

How about putting Diablo 3 content on your site?

Even WoW are offering a Diablo 3 download if you subscribe for a year, so it should fit the market well. There is a beta running and forums full of information...

It's worth considering! No idea if there is any affiliate products etc yet though. Might be something to keep your eye on until release.

Creating your own product is a great idea and I strongly recommend it.

I don't understand why you say your blog isn't targeted? Is it not targeted towards WoW players? and can it not be further targeted (for example, I know in WoW there are different "types" of players, Mages, Warriors etc.? or Valuable Item Collectors, or in-game money focused players?)

AdSense also CAN make you good money from your blog - it is all about your keyword choices and Ad Placement.

(I am sure you are aware that with AdSense you can blend the colour of the ad's to match your website etc. - It is a common AdSense tactic to make the AdSense appear to be a navigation menu of some sort on the website, by placing a blended AdSense box either above or below in in between the actual navigational hyperlinks on your page.)

Keep testing new things brother and keep a record of your results.

You would be suprised what you discover when you keep a detailed record log of what you are doing and what results you are getting - after some time you can see at a glance what appears to be working and what doesn't - and from there you can further test new theories by mixing and matching a few "tactics" together which your research has proven successful. This way you can discover for yourself "true knowledge" and really start to develop a programme which you can apply to different websites and projects.

(Testing is key, I really can not stress how important it is)

If you don't see a product within your niche.. and you have people going to your page specifically for that. Build your own product. Make sure you build your list too.. this way you can keep in constant contact with them. Don't expect them to always visit your page.

That's how people make it. They fill a need. Good luck dude!

I also have a gaming blog, and I haven`t tried to monetize it yet.. I really hope that this niche is a good niche and I understand that its hard to rank well in this niche. The way I am thinking of it making a product and a free report to build a list is our best option.

P.s If you want to exchange links PM me please!

Okay I'm just about ready to throw in the towel. The site's traffic has increased even more (80% google) and I would estimate monthly uniques to be around 3000 now.

I have started a list, written a report but only 0,3% of impressions lead to a list signup. I also attempted some products from the niche through typical in-content rectangle ads. With no sales.

Now I'm back to Adsense and I'm lucky if I get a click a week.

I've just about had enough. I guess I'm just not passionate enough about the content, not good enough to monitize and not good enough to seo/linkbuild.

I'm grateful for the experience though, as it was my first site it taugh me many lessons and I want to thank the warriors for their tips and advice.

Now I just want to sell it, if there were any buyers out there, do you guys have any advice? I'd be more than happy with $100 honestly.

what about amazon products?
wow gaming devices or wow clothes