Website Idea

[HCBailly]

Question: Can you make real money with a website that doesn’t directly sell anything?

My Definition #1: “Real Money” - At least $1000 per month.
My Definition #2: “Directly Sell” - To sell a product or service of your own to someone who came to your website.

I’ve had an idea for a website for a little while now, but have hit a mental hurdle that I do not know how to overcome: how to make money from it. Driving hundreds or even thousands of people to my website wouldn’t be a problem, as I have already created a pre-existing demand for it with my YouTube account. The problem is that I’m not actually selling anything.

It would sort of be like a blog, but with videos, articles, and other related content. However, since I’m not selling anything, how can I make money from it?

I’ve heard of adsense and affiliate marketing. From what I’ve seen, they seem to pay extremely little amounts of money. I cannot fathom how anyone makes and real money off of that, but I’d love to find out how it can be done.

Without directly selling something, my research efforts have shown me that I would have to make my money with advertising. I’ve heard that depending on the company, I can get paid per lead or per sell. Given the amount of traffic I can generate and the little amount I have found to be able to get paid per lead, I don’t think that method alone would be enough. Thus, I would need my links to be able to sell things to people.

To be honest, I don’t know a single person who would consciously click on a banner on any website, let alone buy something from one. They are so common nowadays, we just tune them out. If that’s the case, then how would anyone buy something from them?

I’m quite passionate about this idea, but seem to have hit a roadblock. Please tell me that I’m wrong about this. I look forward to discussing this idea further.

Thanks for your help.

 

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[Luke12321]

Is it possible? YES! Plenty of sites make thousands of dollars per month but do not own a products in the physical sense (stock)

 

[GoldenEggs]

I am pondering a similar question. My idea came about because of our apartment investment. I had an idea for a website and set it up through aptohosting but am stalled. I still want to do my website even if it does not bring in "real" money but I am stuck. My sticking point is that maybe no one will visit my site or think it worthwhile. I have too many what if's holding me back from moving forward on my project. I have sketched out how I want each page to look like and it would not require a lot of effort to maintain it. My husband says I am a closet Type A personality. I want things to work well but am so afraid of failure that I pretend to not care and end up not doing anything.

I don't have any personal experience with adsense or affiliate advertising but if it works for other people, why not you?

 

[royemunson]

I have a website that talks about travel to Florida that makes around 1K per month and at this point it's all passive - even when i do work on the site it's enjoyable and rewarding.

there are many many ways to monetize your site through ads, affiliate programs, membeership subscriptions, sellign a service, etc...

granted as mj says you don't want to be a passenger in the fastlane, but that's why you want to make sure you have multiple streams coming through.

it sounds like you want to create a huge content-based site. how you monetize will depend on your market, how much traffic you can generate, etc...

Hope that helps

Joe

 

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[John]

Question: Can you make real money with a website that doesn’t directly sell anything?

My Definition #1: “Real Money†- At least $1000 per month.
My Definition #2: “Directly Sell†- To sell a product or service of your own to someone who came to your website.

Absolutely! There are a ton of sites out there that make a lot of money using only advertising or affiliate programs. Sure you'll make a tiny amount per view, click, or lead. The trick is to have a lot of traffic. If you can keep enough people coming to your site then real money is definitely possible.

Here are some rough numbers for your goal of $1000 per month. I'm using some wild assumptions, but hopefully they'll at least give you a rough idea of what you're shooting for and show you that it's possible.

Assume an eCPM (amount you earn per 1000 ad views) of $0.50 . This should be pretty easily attainable if your site's subject and visitors are even somewhat attractive to advertisers. The amount could go way up or way down depending on your site's subject matter.

To earn $1000 at $0.50 eCPM, you need to show 2 million ad views
($0.50 / 1000 = .0005 per ad view. $1000 / $0.005 = 2,000,000 ad views).

Assuming 30 days in a month that's 66,667 ad views per day.

Assuming you have 2 ads per page, that's 33,333 page views per day.

Assuming that your site's users visit an average of 4 pages per visit, that's 8,333 visitors per day. Round it up a little to account for ad blockers, defaulted impressions, etc. and you've got a goal of around 8,500 visitors per day.

So, based on all of the relatively conservative assumptions above, you'd need an average of 8,500 visitors per day to earn $1000 per month.

You should probably change around the numbers in my assumptions to more closely match what you'd expect for your particular site. For example, if your site is providing free Myspace layouts to teenagers you can drop the expected $0.50 eCPM way down. If your site is about a subject that attracts high paying advertisers, such as consumer electronics or real estate, you can bump it way up.

 

[rxcknrxll]

Yes, monetizing web traffic is the same type of thing magazines and such have been doing for decades. Don't be fooled into thinking you're not directly selling anything, because you ARE directly selling...ads. Popularity is a commodity in and of itself. If you can get the traffic, you can monetize it. My current web business doesn't make huge money, but it makes way more than what you're describing here, and I don't directly provide any product or service. You're right that clicks and impressions are very low pay, but the above poster is right on...you get 3-4 page views per visitor and several ads per page and it can potentially add up very quickly.

 

[vietdiesel]

Absolutely! I have sites that make revenue through monthly ad placements. It's not unheard of to make $10k-100k/month on ad sponsors. You just NEED a lot of targeted traffic though.

 

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[HCBailly]

Thanks for the numbers. That really helps put it into perspective for me.

The idea came to me from one of my subscribers who asked that I create a website. Since then, I’ve gotten much greater demand for a website, and today, I have over 1500 subscribers, steadily gaining 10-15 new ones per day. I don’t think that’s nearly enough to achieve my goal at the moment. Then again, this has merely been a hobby of mine for now. If I decided to take it seriously, perhaps I could really do something with it.

Where would I go to find companies that are interested in advertising on my website? I know what I want the website to be, how to develop it, and generate the traffic. I just need to know how to research the opportunities that are out there.

Thanks again.

 

[Jonleehacker]

I know what I want the website to be, how to develop it, and generate the traffic. I just need to know how to research the opportunities that are out there.

Just build the site and get the traffic, and the advertisers will find you...the web is good like that

I average about 5 people a day contacting me asking to advertise, in one way or another, on my inactive blog and I don't even have a page asking for advertising.

Besides, no one serious will advertise until they see your traffic numbers anyways.

 

[tiredofworkin]

Sure, A guy, in the UK, did by selling little tiny fractions of a web page that everyone wanted after it leaked out and he was selling them for big bucks (don't remember the amount but maybe something like $100) for a little tiny fraction of the web space.

I think he was in college and needed money for tution and came up with this plan. He made over a $1,000,000 with it.

Sorry I don't remember much of it, other than you can be successful, if your creative and get the people there.

Eyeballs command $$$

 

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[mtnman]

Sure, A guy, in the UK, did by selling little tiny fractions of a web page that everyone wanted after it leaked out and he was selling them for big bucks (don't remember the amount but maybe something like $100) for a little tiny fraction of the web space.

I think he was in college and needed money for tution and came up with this plan. He made over a $1,000,000 with it.

Sorry I don't remember much of it, other than you can be successful, if your creative and get the people there.

Eyeballs command $$$

You mean selling pixels? http://www.milliondollarhomepage.com/

 

[mtnman]

I agree with JonLee... Traffic is the hard part, once you have that, the money will come. The monetization methods are nuts for high traffic sites.

It's quite simple really, produce value and create a name for yourself. People will flock to your site as long as they continue to receive value.

 

[John]

I'd recommend leaving the advertising off of the website for a while at first while you are building traffic and making a name for yourself. People are much more likely to bookmark, link to, and recommend an ad-free website. Then, once you've built up a good amount of return visitors gradually start putting some ads up. This will cost you some money in the short-term, but I believe that it really pays off in the long-term.

 

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[HCBailly]

Thanks for the responses, everyone. I’m definitely motivated to move forward with developing the website now. So my next question would be:

Where do I go to learn how to create a website?

I would imagine that it couldn’t be that hard for me, since I have an extensive background in computers, both in personal experience and with a college degree. A lot of it would be pure text, like the articles and maybe a blog, if my subscribers are interested. There would be some other more complex things, like sortable data tables, that I would eventually want to introduce, but I would take it one step at a time, of course.

I’m very much interested in developing the website myself, not so much to avoid costs, but because I’d like to learn how to create a website. I think it would be fun to expand on this hobby in that direction. Once I’ve got traffic going, then I’ll turn more of my attention towards monetizing it.

Thanks a lot, everyone.

 

[White8]

Coffeecup software has a good HTML editor that includes WYSIWYG editing which saves a lot of time and coding. There are also templates available and scripts to download such as forum scripts which save even more time.