How to optimize the monetization of my site

6 replies
Hello, I've been working on my website now for about a year and a half. My main focus is to keep adding cool new content - quality articles, cool videos, and humorous contet. I want to add at least three new quality pieces of content per week because I want my site to be PACKED with LOTS of great content.

I want to do this so when people find my site, they will want to come back often. I also am just looking at my site as if I was someone browsing the web and coming across a website that I could spend weeks on and still never see all that it has to offer!

Ok so that's the long-term goal - to have a cool ass site that people will really like!

My current monetization strategies are as follows:

1.) Adsense ads - why not? It's so simple and easy although I don't see it actually leading to much income. I still figured I'd advertise on the site just because its another means of monetization.

2.) 4 eBooks that I have for sale at $3.99 a piece. I also offer a package deal where they can buy all of my eBooks at once for $9.99. The eBooks are all displayed on my right sidebar, and when you click on them it takes you to a description page. At the bottom of the description page, there is an "add to cart" button letting them know the $3.99 price.

3.) 2 free eBooks so when they download the book, it puts them on a mailing list.

4.) A direct "sign up sheet" that I have on my left sidebar and at the bottom of every blog/content post and page.


So those are my four means of monetization. Obviously direct sales and ad revenue is a function of how much traffic I get to my site.

I'm not so sure about the list thing though. I understand that "building a list" means keeping in contact with the people, offering more quality free content and also letting them know about offers I may have.

My site remained idle for quite a long time due to lack of motivation, and therefor I only have 56 subscribers. 10 subscribers directly signed up (I guess because they thought my site was cool enough to freely give me their email address).

About 42 subscribers came from downloading my free eBook.

The remaining 4 subscribers came from purchasing of my eBooks.

Now I'm not exactly sure what to do with this "list" or these "lists". I usually just send all of my subscribers a message when I create a piece of content that I am extremely proud of, and they wouldn't know about it unless they visited my site. This results in recurring visits to my site (and let's them see my book offers more).

I also avoid coming across as an annoying salesman, because I hate when Internet marketers do that to me. Basically, I attempt to keep my messages all about "giving values" as opposed to me trying to sell stuff. For instance, I sent out a message last week telling all of my subscribers that I would be launching another free eBook in the upcoming weeks and I would let them know when it was available for download.

So as you can see my strategy is geared towards giving away as much quality content as possible with a few different monetization streams. I guess if I stick with this long enough and continue to build traffic and followers, then "the money will follow"?

Or is there something else I could/should be doing in order to optimize my earning potential.

Right now I make practically nothing from my site, but then again I haven't started attempting to build traffic hardcore yet, because I'm still doing some final design tweaks and whatnot. I'd rather wait until the site is exactly as I want it until I start seriously promoting it. I do have a good deal of content already though, so I am getting some organic traffic.

Sorry for the long post, but I wanted to explain my thought-process first so that maybe people could offer some suggestions.

Thanks!
#monetization #optimize #site
  • Profile picture of the author lotsofsnow
    Originally Posted by Bkelly301 View Post


    Or is there something else I could/should be doing in order to optimize my earning potential.
    You need to promote.
    Originally Posted by Bkelly301 View Post

    Right now I make practically nothing from my site, but then again I haven't started attempting to build traffic hardcore yet, because I'm still doing some final design tweaks and whatnot. I'd rather wait until the site is exactly as I want it until I start seriously promoting it. I do have a good deal of content already though, so I am getting some organic traffic.
    If you want to get organic traffic you also have to promote. In that case it means produce more content.

    If you just sit there and wait, nothing will happen aside from a few random visitors.

    Get going with cranking out articles. Write and publish one article per day or a longer one every few days. Then after a month or 2 doing that you will have much more data to operate on.

    It is not really possible to optimize something based on a few random visitors.

    So, get going!
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    • Profile picture of the author China Newz
      Amazon Affiliate is a good option, too. You can use them to sell products in your related niche. You earn a commission on that item every time you sell something.

      In terms of list building, maybe you could run contests offering free novelty items, to encourage people to sign up on your list. Give them a free product related to you niche and it might help attract and retain visitors.

      For aggressive growth in content creation, 3-5 posts per day is expected. For average growth, post daily (5 times a week). Anything less than that and you might not see the growth you expected.
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  • Profile picture of the author Bkelly301
    Thank you both for the replies!

    So the course of action to take is: keep updating with new fresh content on a daily basis, and promote the hell out of my site by every means possible.

    After a few months, use the analytics programs (Google, aweber, YouTube hits) to track my results.

    Once I have some data to work with, then I will know what direction to take.
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  • Profile picture of the author eman2011
    There a re lots of ways to monetize a website. What is most lucative for one site may not be for another. The answer is experiment. Try adsense for few week, thaen affiliate marketing etc. and stick with what works the best for you.
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    • Profile picture of the author jwmann2
      I would also look at how many Adsense ads you currently have per page. You're allowed to post 3 ads per page. And as long as they're not intrusive to the readers, your earnings will definitely go up. Just think, blank space on your site means you're potentially losing out on money. You should aim to at least reach that $100 threshold every month so that you get a check every month. It can be done, it just takes a little time!
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  • Profile picture of the author Bkelly301
    I like the idea of setting that $100/month goal by testing ad placement strategies. thanks!
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