Current website, how to monetize it?

[AJ.]

Hello!
I help run a website, and we were wondering what would you suggest for making money out of it.

The Google Analytics for the last 30 days are:::
View attachment 2041

Would Google Adsense be worth a try?
We run vBulletin, and installed vBSEO barely 3 days ago... so we'll work with that aspect of SEO and measure the results.

Any thoughts? Ideas?
Much appreciated your time!

View attachment 2041

 

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[LightHouse]

LOL I've never been asked how to monetize something and just been shown traffic? What are you trying to show with traffic? How are we supposed to suggest ways to make money if we have 0 detail on the site itself.

 

[Halli]

What kind of site is it? That is the first thing we need to know before making suggestions

 

[Anon3587x]

Adsense
Affiliate links
Non- ppc advertising

Without much more informaton about your site, this is all I can think of..

 

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[Forbes]

sell product related to whatever niche your website traffic draws.

 

[AJ.]

Hello again!
Much thanks for the replies.
I didn't post the website name as I didn't want to appear I was 'trolling' it.

It is a niche website for surfers (ocean-wave surfers... not 'net surfers').
The traffic is pretty steady every month, and slowly increasing.

In the past, we worked two times with a 'major' rum company, which netted the company $3,000 each time.
Each one of those times, the "online advertisement campaign" lasted 3 months.
So I guess it would be roughly 1,000 $/mo
Yet those were those two times in the past... not in the present, and not planned for the near future to repeat.

The one small deal I feel really proud/happy about, is one with a local surf shop.
That contract pays 50 $/mo, for a "banner" on one of the most-visited pages.
I feel proud about that one because I think it is more in-line with having a "steady monthly income" for the company, instead of chunks of money.
Kind of moving money via a small trickle of water, instead of bucket-fulls.
Now we have to work on increasing that trickle of water.

I went to the bank today to get some orientation as to the loan options.
I'm reading this blog to get more information and knowledge.

Much appreciated the feedback!

-- AJ
.

 

[biophase]

$2000 hits a day, how many on the page with the guy paying $50 a month? I think he is getting a deal if the page is targeted and he's actually getting some traffic. This a forum only site right?

 

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[Halli]

Can you put affiliate ads? Can you charge membership fees? How is your on site SEO? Or your offline SEO for that matter

 

[LightHouse]

Two options if it is a forum only (as they are hard to monetize) Getting an ad broker, or doing the ad brokering yourself. An ad broker is going to take some sort of cut, if it were me I would be calling surf related companies as well as alcohol/party lifestyle companies and sell them adspace. You can install an ad manager like openX or something more sophisticated and just start cold calling/using your resources.

 

[Rick]

Great traffic. Create a theme related opt-in freebie and market to the list.

 

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[AJ.]

Thanks for the replies!

$2000 hits a day, how many on the page with the guy paying $50 a month? I think he is getting a deal if the page is targeted and he's actually getting some traffic. This a forum only site right?

On the page that has the surf shop's banner (the 50$/mo), that page is getting aproximately 27,200 hits (these past 30 days).

This is a "mostly" forum site.
The thing that drives the surfers to our site is that we setup a couple of "live surf cams" covering a couple of the local beaches.
So instead of the surfers getting in the car, and arriving on the beach to see no waves... they go bananas at 6:00am in our website and check out a live view.

That's the beauty of the site so far... every 10 minutes, there's "fresh content".
I can't explain how somebody would look at a beach view for more than 10 minutes... yet that's what they do!

The forums are there because since Day-0 I wanted vBulletin installed.
I know the power of communities, as I've seen it my self with a couple of sites I've been part of.

Can you put affiliate ads? Can you charge membership fees? How is your on site SEO? Or your offline SEO for that matter

Affiliate ads... I thought to try Google Adsense... see where we get with that.
We could charge membership fees... yet somehow I think the 'free' part is the main driver to get those 1,200 people every day to check the site out.

I would like to try and make money from the "big companies"**, and give the content for free to the users.

Regarding SEO: Well, we barely installed vBSEO a couple of days ago.
I suspect we are not doing very well, because our 'keywords' in Googly Analytics are basically our website's name.
So they aren't searching "surf cams" and getting to us... they're searching for our website, and getting to us.
=\


Offline SEO... to be honest, I'm going to google this... I have no idea what this means.
Ok, just searched.
The only offline SEO we've done was about 12 months ago, where we placed about six advertisement banners in a couple of the surf beaches (banner's dimensions: 2ft wide x 3ft tall).
Other than that, nothing else.

Two options if it is a forum only (as they are hard to monetize) Getting an ad broker, or doing the ad brokering yourself. An ad broker is going to take some sort of cut, if it were me I would be calling surf related companies as well as alcohol/party lifestyle companies and sell them adspace. You can install an ad manager like openX or something more sophisticated and just start cold calling/using your resources.

Yes!
I thought to contact these main people:::

• * Local surf shops (they're not in a position to fork over 200+$/mo, IMO)
  * Alcohol companies (pitch to Coors Light, Corona Extra, Budweiser, etc.)
  * Beverage companies (Coca Cola, Pepsi, RedBull, their affiliates like Monster Energy Drink, PowerAde, Gatorade, etc.)
  * Beach-wear companies (Hawaiian Tropic, Panama Jack, Coppertone, Banana Boat, Zinka, etc.)

======
Those are the plans.
At the moment, the most pressing thing is our monthly bills.
We have to pay $321 for various things (wireless modems, business cellphone (err... which is mine), location's internet, etc.).
All had gone well until next month, when we are actually out of money.

We had toyed with the concept in the past to provide live images of "nightlife" places.
We actually installed two cameras in two different locations.
There is a local bar (nicely financed) which wants to install a camera for their "nightlife outlook".
My credit card is maxed out at the moment, so I came up with... nothing.

I believe that if I can cover our monthly expenses ($321), and get some additional money in (say $150), we can apply for a business loan (say $10,000?).

Anyway... that's a little more information on this specific website.
I'll keep on working it here in the computer, and update this thread with new developments.

The help and input everyone has provided is much appreciated!!

 

[AJ.]

Great traffic. Create a theme related opt-in freeby and market to the list.

Thanks!
That's the other thing I'm working on... a newsletter.

I've been astounded by the various companies that run Newsletters and the efficacy of them.
So I'm working on setting that up at the moment.
I would say it's 90% done... have to figure out a small script to save the images with the latest date, etc.

 

[Rick]

I'm working on... a newsletter.

Yes, a newsletter is a very useful marketing tool. Those who have opted-in have shown interest in your website and the related products. And, of course, a newsletter is a good reminder to surf by again and see what's new.

 

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[Bond]

You can try put some affiliate stuff for your target audience like this:

http://www.goprocamera.com/products/hd-surf-hero-camera.php

They have an affiliate program running through CJ. I guess you can make a few bucks on this. The image quality is awesome and it seems a solid product for surfers...