Help! How to Monetize a Site with a 2,000% Traffic Increase
October 7th, 2008 Posted by ChanyaI’ve been spending most of my time working on my niche sites. On one of my sites I write reviews of books that fall into a particular fictional genre. 8 weeks ago I set a goal of trying to get 100 unique visitors a day at the site. After 3 weeks I slowly crept up to the 150 mark and eventually made it to 300 uniques a day.
Until I wrote a review of a new TV show.
From that point on, things have been crazy.
You see, one of the books in the genre was recently made into a TV show. Because I thought my readers would be interested in learning about the show (since it’s based on the books), I wrote a review of the first episode of the series.
The next day I had over 1,000 people at the site.
I kept writing reviews of the show . . . .
Yesterday there were over 2,500 people at the site.
You’re probably thinking: “great! Time to make some money!” I’d agree except, I DON’T KNOW HOW TO MONETIZE THE SITE. Why? Because these are READERS. Those 2,500 unique visitors represent over 6,000 page loads. Sure, 90% of the traffic comes from search engines, but once they’re on my site, they tend to sit a spell. And read.
Based on my stats the people coming to the site are primarily interested in 2 things:
- learning more about how the books compare to the TV series
- figuring out how to watch the new show online (it’s a cable TV show)
I’ve written articles on both of those topics which I think partially explains some of the recent increase in traffic.
My Monetization Efforts Thus Far
Amazon: There are links available on the site for purchasing the books from Amazon but thus far, out of all that traffic, I’ve only sold 6 books. My earnings? About 40 cents per book. You do the math.
Adsense: because of the title of the show and the titles of many of the books in the genre I get Adsense ads for things like “blood banks”. I also get ads for companies offering advice on how to write a book. Neither of which interest my visitors. I left the ads up for all of 2 days and then took them down because I was afraid I would get smart priced.
So, my question to you MMO experts is this: How would you monetize a book review site that’s suddenly getting between 800 and 2,500 uniques a day (and over 6,000 page loads)?
Anyone?
Tuesday, October 7th, 2008 at 5:19 pm and is filed under blog tips. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
I am definitely not the expert. But that is some impressive traffic. You could try AdSense again but throw in some additional content that would trigger a higher paying ad, while getting the traffic there with your reviews. Or test out some affiliate programs from clickbank or pepperjam. I remember seeing an affiliate or an ebook somewhere that taught people how to get free TV on their computer. Or maybe just test some stuff the TV watching crowd would like, dating or free screensavers or something. Good luck, I know you’ll figure something out.
Emma: thanks for the suggestions. I too thought dating ads might be a possibility. I plan to try a few things this weekend. I’ll provide updates of my results at this site.
Thanks again!
Market Leverage has a CPA from “PCTV4ME” or something like that that pays $19. Click Bank has DishTVforPC.com that pays 75%.
Perhaps yoy could work one or both of them into one of your “How To View It” posts as well as rotating a couple of banners.
Those are what I could come up with quickly.
Thanks so much for the suggestions. I just applied for the Market Leverage program and I’m checking out the Clickbank products now.
Thanks again!