My Site Has Enjoyed A Nice Surge. Looking For Advice On The Next Step I Should Take

by Deebs

Posted: 12 years ago 33 replies

INTERNET MARKETING

I started a sports humor site in July, and signed up with Google AdSense. The site had modest growth over the summer and early fall, up until last week. That's when I published a silly article that went viral, and suddenly my hits skyrocketed.

Prior to my viral success, I was averaging around 2,500 hits a day (and many of those were google image searches, which didn't really result in people seeing my content or ads very much). My ad revenue was very small, sometimes less than a dollar a day (I have a VERY low CTR, which I've learned is not unusual for my niche)

But once I went viral, the hits and clicks poured in. On my best day, I fell just short of a million hits, and although it's settled down since then, I'm still maintaining hits in the low hundreds of thousands, and the revenue has been phenomenal this week. My expectation is that I will be able to maintain daily hits somewhere in the 100,000-200,00 area for the next few months.

Which brings me to my question. Now what? Do you think I'm well-served sticking with AdSense? Is there a different ad supplier I might be wiser to choose? I've been contacted by a company who wants to talk to me about becoming an ad supplier, called Federated Media Publishing (formerly Lijit Networks, according to their e-mail). Are they legit? Are they a worthwhile alternative? Are there other alternatives I should seek?

Any feedback/tip/suggestions/etc are very much appreciated. Thank you!

(if anyone's interested, my site is ProFootballMock. I'm not allowed to provide a link here, but if you wanted to see it just add the "www" and the "dot com." The article that went viral is called "NFL QB's On Facebook")

#advice #enjoyed #nice #site #step #surge

UAS Mayhem 12 years ago

Aim for affiliate networks or cpa leads, with the amount of targeted traffic, you can make way more money than you do with adsense.Also look for a high paying CPM ad networks.Turn your impressions into money.Adsense doesn't pay much for impressions in my experience.

Aim for selling products related to sports and such.The revenue you may earn will be great.
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shintaiguy 12 years ago

You could also create a WSO about how you acheived your results, if what you are saying is true then you have the social proof to back it. It might even get you a niche little IM niche list.

Good Luck

Clive
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Will Edwards

12 years ago

My friend - learn from your own success!

First, you need to analyse that article and start writing more of them. Just imagine what another article like the first could now do for you with so many people already visiting your site.

Three more pieces of advice for you:

1. Build a List
2. Build a List
3. Build a List

Well done - now go to it!

Will

Thanks
3 replies

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JeremiahSay

12 years ago

Originally Posted by Will Edwards

I second that, build a list

Thanks

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trevnkam

12 years ago

Originally Posted by Will Edwards

My friend - learn from your own success!

....Three more pieces of advice for you:

1. Build a List
2. Build a List
3. Build a List

Well done - now go to it!

Will

Excellent advice. Everyone should do this. Everyone.

Thanks

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Deebs 12 years ago

Originally Posted by Will Edwards

My friend - learn from your own success!

Three more pieces of advice for you:

1. Build a List
2. Build a List
3. Build a List

Question for you Will (and/or everyone else that seconded this "build a list" plan).

Um, I'm going to sound dumb here, but what does "build a list" mean? I'm very new to this world of webmastering, so forgive my Naïveté.

But I have no idea what I'm supposed to do to "build a list." Do you mean, like, to Santa? 'Cause I can do that. But if you mean something else, could you please dumb it down for me? Thank you!
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- 2 replies
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- phil838 12 years ago
  
  Originally Posted by Deebs
  
  Um, I'm going to sound dumb here, but what does "build a list" mean? I'm very new to this world of webmastering, so forgive my Naïveté.
  
  It means you build up an email list. You place a form on your website to get interested people to sign up for an email newsletter, a weekly exclusive funny article emailed to them, or whatever else you can think of.
  
  Then, mixed in with the content you promised them you sprinkle in some affiliate links, items for sale, or anything else that can make you money.
  
  Instead of getting a few pennies from adsense once you can keep selling to the same interested people that love you over and over again!
  
  Thanks
  
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- Lloyd Buchinski 12 years ago
  
  Originally Posted by Deebs
  
  I thought I would get emailed every time a response was posted to this thread, and for whatever reason, that didn't happen.
  
  The forum default it to email you once a week for any topic you post in. You can change that if you want. About 10 lines below the text box you are typing in, is a box titled 'thread subscription.' It sounds like you wanted instant for this one, and that is available.
  
  Originally Posted by Deebs
  
  what does "build a list" mean?
  
  That refers to putting an opt in box on your pages so people can subscribe to an email newsletter. One of the more repeated phrases around here is 'the money is in the list.' There are a lot of pages here about list building, just do a search. Here is a good topic with some details on it.
  
  http://www.warriorforum.com/main-int...-building.html
  
  I was impressed by your site. It's the kind of goofy humor that people at reddit go for. The graphics (memes) seem to have every possible pun that can be applied to pro football.
  
  The article I read also fit in well. The site seems to suggest that you have a team of people coming up with that material. Is that true, or where do you get it? Or did you do it yourself? I'm mostly just curious and can certainly understand if you don't want to go there.
  
  But anyway, it should be a popular site.
  
  best wishes on it
  
  Thanks
  
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wsmreviews 12 years ago

Congrats on the success and going viral. Checked out the site. Thats some funny sh%$!
Your adsense placements look good, and I really doubt you are going to be able to make any more income, as a publisher with other networks. Like Mayhem mentioned testing out some different affiliate programs would be worth a shot. Maybe try the NFLSHOP . com affiliate program to start.
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thebitbotdotcom 12 years ago

Lead Generation + Funnel...personally, I would dump that Adsense...you're losing the traffic FOREVER...FOR PENNIES..MASSIVE LEAK!

This is a golden opportunity and you better make the best of it or you'll be kicking yourself later.
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murtuza

12 years ago

why don't you scale up your article marketing efforts. Figure out average hits you get per article then scale it up and figure out the average profits per article based on your CTR and ad revenue you get. You could literally outsource your article writing work, get traffic to your content sites and earn more in ad revenue.... that's a serious business in place...

Thanks
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jaiganeshv

12 years ago

Originally Posted by murtuza

Article marketing for a sports humor site??

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vinodtanvi 12 years ago

You can also look at running a ppc campaign
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conanedo 12 years ago

what if you tried with chitika and bidvertiser? i create blog with visitor around 600 per day, and per month i get around $30 and $20 from chitka and bidver..
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- Enfusia 12 years ago
  
  Hi, good job!
  
  If you could please tell us where you submitted the article that went viral?
  
  I.E. list the places you submitted it to.
  
  I for one would be grateful for the info.
  
  Then, provide the address to the article or paste it in here.
  
  We can look at it and possibly tell why it went viral and then you could replicate that.
  
  Patrick
  
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George Lee 12 years ago

Why would you want to change what is working? It is obvious that there is an interest in what you wrote. Take that success and expound on it. You have your own branding right there. Create more similar articles. Then if you want more income later, expand into ebooks, calendars, T-shirts or whatever. You have a whole product line waiting on you.

Leave the advertising as it is. Just keep doing what you are doing and build upon it. Just don't make the mistake of trying to move too fast before you build a following.
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Deebs 12 years ago

Hi everyone. I'm sorry I'm so late in responding. I thought I would get emailed every time a response was posted to this thread, and for whatever reason, that didn't happen. So up until now, I thought no one had responded to my OP. Now I come back here and see all these helpful replies. Thank you all!

To answer some of the comments that were made in this thread...

- Yes, I am doing more of the "Facebook" posts that went viral. I've already published four of them, and they've all been big hits. I plan to put up a new one at least once a week, and occasionally more often than that if the games call for it.

- Yes. I am investigating the idea of selling t-shirts/caps/mugs/etc.

- I have just signed up with Lijit advertising to try out their ads on one of my pages for a week to see if they can beat AdSense. I'm also open to suggestions for other ad suppliers to try as well. (WSMReviews, thank you for the suggestion, but I don't think I could get NFLShop involved. I don't think anything officially associated with the NFL would approve of some of my content).

So again, thank you all so much for your suggestions. And if anyone has any thought on other specific ad suppliers you think I should try out, I'd love to hear your ideas.
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talfighel 12 years ago

I would allow others to advertise their business or website for a fee. You can charge $100-$500 per month for an ad. See how your income goes up from this single strategy.
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webmarke 12 years ago

You could sell your traffic if it is not converting to profits. There are sites that will buy your traffic and redirect it to their client sites. I have not explored this option myself, so I do not know the rates you could make but this option exists.

You could also combine several monetization ideas like cpm, cpc, and cpa.
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JK Nyerere

12 years ago

If I had your talent and blog, I would build up the sites traffic in expectation of selling it. I would not worry too much about ads or adsense at this point as you would not want to seem to commercial prior to becoming an established brand.

You could be looking at a six-figure sale if you do it correctly.

Thanks
1 reply

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Matt Mood

12 years ago

Originally Posted by JK Nyerere

I agree, if you've managed thus far without overt monetization, perhaps it would be best to keep hammering out awesome material and build the brand. You might be surprised by what you could get for a well-branded high-traffic site.

That being said, it very VERY rarely hurts to offer a mailing list optin, which you could hang onto even after you sell the site itself...

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whywork 12 years ago

Awesome job, congratulations! I would create a fan page and push cpa offers through that. Don't spam of course. 1 out of every 7 posts could be an offer.
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whywork 12 years ago

and DEFINITELY build a list! You can generate thousands of leads per day and email them related offers. Oh I wish I was in your shoes. Congrats again!
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Michael Ten 12 years ago

Your story of viral, but natural growth is inspirational!
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themesplice 12 years ago

If you've figured out whats working for you, then replicate and scale that up
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Black Hat Cat Banned 12 years ago

Originally Posted by Deebs

Which brings me to my question. Now what? Do you think I'm well-served sticking with AdSense? Is there a different ad supplier I might be wiser to choose?

Maybe, maybe not. You said revenue has been phenomenal this week. What do you mean by phenomenal? $5 a day, $100 a day, or what?
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- Deebs 12 years ago
  
  Originally Posted by Black Hat Cat
  
  Maybe, maybe not. You said revenue has been phenomenal this week. What do you mean by phenomenal? $5 a day, $100 a day, or what?
  
  Since I went viral 11 days ago, my profits have been in the "hundreds-of-dollars" territory every day but one (and I juuust missed, that day). Many days, I'm over $200, $300, or $400. I've had one day over $600, and my first viral day netted me almost a thousand dollars (that was fun). So that's what I mean when I say that AdSense has been very good to me. But I've also heard that, especially with large amounts of traffic, there are alternatives to AdSense that can maximize profits even more, which is why I'm trying Lijit this week. And I'm very open to suggestions as to other suppliers I could/should try.
  
  Thanks
  
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Deebs 12 years ago

Wow, this is an AWESOME forum, Thank you everyone for all the nice words and good advice.

Just to hit broadly on a few things that have been said here...

Since I went viral a couple of weeks ago, the site has been very nicely profitable through AdSense. I don't know if I'd be doing better with another ad supplier, but the AdSense money has been quite impressive. But as I mentioned in a previous reply, I am giving Lijit advertising a chance with a prime ad block for a few days to see if they can beat AdSense. If they can, I'll give them even more of my space.

Lloyd Buchinski, to answer your question, yes I do write all the site's content myself, which is certainly keeping me busy. But as an NFL addict, it's definitely a labor of love.

I guess I will get going on the "build a list" thing since everyone believes so strongly in it. I think I'm resistant to the idea because I don't want to add anything else to my "to-do" list (I'm EXHAUSTED, people), and also because I seem to be developing a very nice relationship with a large, and so far very loyal fan base, and I don't want them to see me as someone just trying to sell them stuff. Since I'm already making nice AdSense money, there's a temptation to just leave well enough alone. But I suppose if I can make an entertaining weekly email-only article then folks wouldn't mind seeing an ad or two in the email as they read it.

JK Nyerere, the idea of selling the site for a large payday does sound nice. On the other hand, I'm really enjoying doing it, so I'm not sure I want to rush into selling it too quickly. More likely, I will try to hire some writers to ease my burden and make the site grow even more by adding new content with greater frequency.

phil838, talfighel, Lloyd Buchinski, webmarke, JK Nyerere, whywork, Matt Mood, Michael Ten, jaiganeshv, and themesplice, thank you all again so much for the advice and kind words. If anyone has anymore helpful hints they can think of, I am definitely all ears!
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evilsaigon 12 years ago

It's better to sell advertising space than to publish adsense. You get paid for delivering impressions without requiring viewers to click just to earn, but since you are doing so well with adsense now, you can leave that as a backend option (God knows what google policies are up to next)

Focus on building a list from your viewers is a good direction to head next.
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wsmreviews 12 years ago

IMO no need to worry about building a list for this type of traffic. In fact I think it would do more harm then good. You dont want to push your visitors away, instead you want to create a pleasant visitor experience and build a loyal fan base (that will keep your advertising revenue steady). Remember you are getting advice from a bunch of IMers who typically market to other IMers in which building a email list is essential. For your type of website it is not. Focus on building your brand and continuing to add more content...maybe clean up the design a bit. Keeping your weekly QB FB chats entertaining will keep fans coming back and keep the viral effect going. I actually saw a link to this on my personal facebook feed last week.
Keep it up!
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rackspace 12 years ago

there are scripts that will let your site break out of google image. try those.
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prasad90

11 years ago

I've been contacted by a company who wants to talk to me about becoming an ad supplier, called Federated Media Publishing (formerly Lijit Networks, according to their e-mail). Are they legit? Are they a worthwhile alternative? Are there other alternatives I should seek?

I have also got an email from federatedmedia.com about 0ne month ago. I also searched on internet I could not find any good searches. But the most important thing is that they have grown considerably fast, and I have taken that has positive points. and there was no negative review to neutralise that. So I have joined and it looks good for me. Any way I have decided to write my experience with them as a review from my side.

Regards
Sajith

If interested visit the following link where you can find my experience with federatedmedia
Federated Media Review | Sajith

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FitMarketer 11 years ago

Adsense is a great passive income earner but I would suggest monotizing your site with several methods

Clickbank or RAP bank products work well

As does Amazon products
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My Site Has Enjoyed A Nice Surge. Looking For Advice On The Next Step I Should Take

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