Good advice needed: How to monetize my sites?

[TJComer02]

Hey guys. Basically, I now own around 1000 websites. The amazing thing is, all of them get alot of traffic, and have been now for awhile, constantly, every single day. Due to the type of sites they are, the money that's made from them will have to be from ads/affiliate links type stuff. First of all, let's talk about adsense. I've heard alot of bad things about adsense and the fact that google just suspends and terminates people's accounts for stupid reasons, and I heard that they do in fact, especially on sites like i have, pay out far less than what is owed. Basically, i guess waht i'm asking is, are there any other ppc companies i can go with that are good enough for me to put up on my sites right now until i can replace them as soon as i start selling ad space? I figure that even if each site earns 25 cents, it's a halfway decent side income (I meant 25 cents per day), I have big plans for the sites to make 3 bucks a day a piece, and honestly i am being conservative, as i always am. With the amount of unique visitors daily to each site, I'd say that number is extremely, extremely low compared to what I can get, but as always in business, I never get my hopes up and always approach with skepticism. Even though i know this is going to work, i act like it's not unless i do something, and that's what i'm doing. It will take some time to get advertisers to buy up the ad space i want them to, so in the meantime, instead of just getting thousands of uniques, actually hundreds of thousands of uniques a day, I can start profiting off of them. Any opinions or thoughts would be appreciated. Thanks guys!

 

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[cmaq]

You can do CPA advertisements and get paid more. Adsense is great in my opinion, but you can use Adbrite instead.

 

[Gymjunkie]

You can use some affiliate links from ClickBank or Amazon depending on niches your sites are. If you are in health/fitness niche use affiliate link from some product you trust and try selling it.

You have real negative view about AdSense.. I haven't heard things that bad about AS. It may not be the best earner but I haven't heard it doesn't pay out money.

 

[rxcknrxll]

I've never heard of Adsense screws people in specific content niches. If I'm understanding your post that seems to be what you're implying? In any case, Adsense pays fairly well as compared to other comparable options as far as I've seen. I recommend testing it. It's not like you can't run it alongside others. Of course if Google rips you off, then you can easily trash it, but I doubt it will happen that way Yeah Adbrite and Kontera and Clickbank affiliate links are pretty common alternatives to traditional monetizing.

 

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[Gymjunkie]

Oh... and having your own product to sell on your site/s is greatest thing. Most bloggers notice that and do it. If they have earned enough trust with readers

 

[Jonleehacker]

You're views about AdSense are inconsistent with my experience. You won't find any other system that even comes close to AdSense in terms of ease to deploy and high payouts.

What ever route you decide to go, make sure you setup some kind of centralized ad server that controls all the ads spots on all your sites. This will allow you to test various offers and centrally control your ads. This type of system is essential for effectively managing ads across 1000 sites.

Google even has there own adserver (free) but personally since I do quite a bit of AdSense, I prefer not to give them too much control (or opportunity for data mining) and I use a third party paid ad server. AdSpeed.com - High Performance Ad Server

Sounds like you're on the verge of becoming quite wealthy, congrats!

 

[Rem]

Do you have people manage your sites? Do you manage them yourself? Are they automated? Where do you get the content?

Sorry just curious.

 

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[TaxGuy]

To add to what GymJunkie said, an info product for building quality websites and gaining traffic while using your portfolio as an example of your abilities comes to mind

In fact, I have to say, when I read this thread in the morning I almost had a heart attack b/c I'm trying to start from 0 and need to make money quick, however, I will soon have PLENTY of time and no more excuses not to focus 100% on this and picturing how much time and effort must've been put into those sites with no monetization scares the bejeezus out of me.

Thankfully, there's plenty of resources out there, namely these forums and a few others I've just come across that will help.

For our experience with AdSense, my fiance's 30DC blog has made about $20 in AdSense revenue with basically no management/updates since Sep, while I was stupid and only stuck to the affiliate offer(Amazon, nonetheless) with no luck :nonod:

 

[TJComer02]

Wow, all good answers. I guess I am skeptical, but at the same time, I am known to be a little of a gambler. I guess if you're a gambler if you win you're a genius, if not you're considered a moron. I"m willing to be considered a moron for awhile if I can be a genius in the end. I know you guys are all giving me honest answers, and actually, I am extremely pleased to hear that adsense is not what i've heard. Apparently, my negative view of adsense is a case of getting information from the wrong sources, or biased in some way. I was thinking about selling each site separately, but the auction fees would add up after a thousand sites. And to JonLee, thanks a ton for the advice on the adserver. As far as me being wealthy, I never count my chickens before they hatch, though i sure would like to! Don't get me wrong, I believe i'll do well, but,I always look at a situation with extreme skepticism. I sure hope this does good, because all the "experts" i've consulted about this told me that I should be able to make X amount of dollars per day by looking at my sites, and if i can do just a tenth of that, i'll still do well. You guys are really cool, and gymjunkie, I have a friend who is creating a patented fitness/diet software program called AccuFIT, but i don't think it's going to be out for another two or three months, I wonder what you'd think of it since you're knowledgeable about fitness related stuff.

 

[TJComer02]

Do you have people manage your sites? Do you manage them yourself? Are they automated? Where do you get the content?

Sorry just curious.

The sites were bought from a guy awhile back. It was a very weird situation, and I came out with a steal. I can honestly say, that if i monitored every single transaction on the internet where people are buying/selling sites, there wouldn't be any deal that's even close to this. Sometimes I think to myself "what a genius I am for doing this" , but i am reminded that if the situation was different, someone else would have jumped on this deal. It was really just being lucky and fortunate. I do pay people to do stuff to the sites and handle all the work on them and upkeep. The guy who owns my hosting is really cool, and he's done alot of work for me. I can't say enough about him. Although, the guy i had working on my sites was trying to steal money from me, so i had to fire him, and he's still got a few thousand dollars he hasn't paid me back yet!issed: And i'm assuming he's not going to.

 

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[TJComer02]

To add to what GymJunkie said, an info product for building quality websites and gaining traffic while using your portfolio as an example of your abilities comes to mind

In fact, I have to say, when I read this thread in the morning I almost had a heart attack b/c I'm trying to start from 0 and need to make money quick, however, I will soon have PLENTY of time and no more excuses not to focus 100% on this and picturing how much time and effort must've been put into those sites with no monetization scares the bejeezus out of me.

Thankfully, there's plenty of resources out there, namely these forums and a few others I've just come across that will help.

For our experience with AdSense, my fiance's 30DC blog has made about $20 in AdSense revenue with basically no management/updates since Sep, while I was stupid and only stuck to the affiliate offer(Amazon, nonetheless) with no luck :nonod:

I put amazon on some sites i had, and it didn't do that well, then again the content of the site and the type of visitors that came I think had more to do with it than amazon not being a good program. You talked about me selling an info product, but if you['ll notice on my other posts I bought the sites from someone awhile back, and to be honest they didn't know what they inherited, so let's just say I got a very good deal, probably better than buying a ferrari for 25 grand! The truth is, I'm really not that good at anything, except for the fact that I am constantly looking for a case when someone sells something I know i can make money with, no matter how much it costs. You can't control when an opportunity is going to come, and at the time, I was helping a friend develop a product that me and him own called AccuFIT, which is a software program that has several patents, and we'd already had endorsements and large health club franchises interested in it. As a matter of fact one health club was working on a program exactly like it, but we finished way ahead of them and the patent is on the idea, so they cannot copy it! I may sell the program to them and use the profit for my sites or something else. If you need any help with your online businesses, let me know. Marketing is basically what I do best. I literally failed so many times trying to get visitors and sales to some of my sites, so that's how i learned.

 

[Gymjunkie]

I put amazon on some sites i had, and it didn't do that well, then again the content of the site and the type of visitors that came I think had more to do with it than amazon not being a good program. You talked about me selling an info product, but if you['ll notice on my other posts I bought the sites from someone awhile back, and to be honest they didn't know what they inherited, so let's just say I got a very good deal, probably better than buying a ferrari for 25 grand! The truth is, I'm really not that good at anything, except for the fact that I am constantly looking for a case when someone sells something I know i can make money with, no matter how much it costs. You can't control when an opportunity is going to come, and at the time, I was helping a friend develop a product that me and him own called AccuFIT, which is a software program that has several patents, and we'd already had endorsements and large health club franchises interested in it. As a matter of fact one health club was working on a program exactly like it, but we finished way ahead of them and the patent is on the idea, so they cannot copy it! I may sell the program to them and use the profit for my sites or something else. If you need any help with your online businesses, let me know. Marketing is basically what I do best. I literally failed so many times trying to get visitors and sales to some of my sites, so that's how i learned.

Hmm...

I'm definitely interested in seeing that software T, so lemme know more about it

Now, maybe you should just flip the sites? If you don't want to work a lot on monetizing them and you got a steal you could probably earn a good amount of money by selling them to some internet marketer on a forum (can link you up to good one)..
It would help to know the niches of your sites though, then we could offer more advice, maybe more specific

 

[CMCarlin]

Bad comments about adsense are usually from people that may have been banned. If you follow their terms of service (put up a privacy page, do not place more than X ad spots per page, etc) and provide quality content you won't have anything to worry about. A lot of people try to game adsense by creating 'thin' sites make specifically for adsense clicks (lack of real content, dupe content etc). Google eventually catches up with these people and ban their accounts.

Amazon is great in my opinion but if your sites are not focused on the products that sell there then it will not be as effective. CPA works great too. If your in the health field I recommend markethealth.com. They have some very nice CPA programs and have been around for a very long time.

1000 sites is a lot and if you're getting traffic then you've won half the battle. Just keep the content unique and engaging and don't focus on plastering ads all over the place. Keep it simple and targeted. In other words, find exactly what your viewers want and then give it to them.

 

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[LightHouse]

Its hard to recommend anything without knowing the content of the sites, the way they are laid out, how much traffic and how targeted, etc. There are a bunch of options out there, just depends on how much time you want to put into it.

 

[TJComer02]

The traffic that I get is very good traffic, and it is extremely consistent across the board, which i find to be amazing. Of course i bought it because i saw that the owner did nothing to get more traffic, and it keeps coming. Basically right now it just is about finding how to maximize the revenue of each site, and with 1000 sites, it can be hard. The sites have made very good money from ad revenue in the past, but the guy had people paying for ad space, I think he did adsense, and i also think he fooled around with affiliate links. The amount he made on each site was stupid, I couldn't imagine even making 25% of that, but I know i should try to. At first, I have a minimal goal of making a certain amount per site, and then after that i'll start to maximize it, so i can get some income coming in right away. I want to use at least 25% of what i make to put back into getting more traffic, and constantly updating the sites and adding stuff to them. There's alot of different tools my guy is working on adding to the sites right now, so as you can imagine that's going to cost me quite a bit for 1K sites. We shall see. I should have my ads up in less than two weeks or so, i'll update you guys on the breakdown of what i'm making per site, and stuff like that.

 

[LightHouse]

The traffic that I get is very good traffic, and it is extremely consistent across the board, which i find to be amazing. Of course i bought it because i saw that the owner did nothing to get more traffic, and it keeps coming. Basically right now it just is about finding how to maximize the revenue of each site, and with 1000 sites, it can be hard. The sites have made very good money from ad revenue in the past, but the guy had people paying for ad space, I think he did adsense, and i also think he fooled around with affiliate links. The amount he made on each site was stupid, I couldn't imagine even making 25% of that, but I know i should try to. At first, I have a minimal goal of making a certain amount per site, and then after that i'll start to maximize it, so i can get some income coming in right away. I want to use at least 25% of what i make to put back into getting more traffic, and constantly updating the sites and adding stuff to them. There's alot of different tools my guy is working on adding to the sites right now, so as you can imagine that's going to cost me quite a bit for 1K sites. We shall see. I should have my ads up in less than two weeks or so, i'll update you guys on the breakdown of what i'm making per site, and stuff like that.

Are they all operating from a single server? Same Mysql instance? Why not have someone program a manager to deal with all them at the same time, and then you can also get an admanager program and administer ads across all of the sites based on trafic and relevancy. I know a lot of the modern platforms will also display better converting or higher paying ads first, and typically they are very customizable.

 

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[Gymjunkie]

The traffic that I get is very good traffic, and it is extremely consistent across the board, which i find to be amazing. Of course i bought it because i saw that the owner did nothing to get more traffic, and it keeps coming. Basically right now it just is about finding how to maximize the revenue of each site, and with 1000 sites, it can be hard. The sites have made very good money from ad revenue in the past, but the guy had people paying for ad space, I think he did adsense, and i also think he fooled around with affiliate links. The amount he made on each site was stupid, I couldn't imagine even making 25% of that, but I know i should try to. At first, I have a minimal goal of making a certain amount per site, and then after that i'll start to maximize it, so i can get some income coming in right away. I want to use at least 25% of what i make to put back into getting more traffic, and constantly updating the sites and adding stuff to them. There's alot of different tools my guy is working on adding to the sites right now, so as you can imagine that's going to cost me quite a bit for 1K sites. We shall see. I should have my ads up in less than two weeks or so, i'll update you guys on the breakdown of what i'm making per site, and stuff like that.

If previous owner had someone paying for ads then you can have them too! Just contact them and say you are the new owner etc. I think if you put some good old hard work in it and go contacting potential advertisers you are in for a good treat! You will be earning a lot. You probably don't grasp fully what you have in your hands for now.

And LightHouse is correct, listen to him

 

[TJComer02]

My sites are all on the same server, and the guy who owns the hosting company is creating a script so i can change the ads all at once. Now, as far as this higher converting or higher paying ads, is this adsense you're talking about? I guess my question to you is how should i charge for ad space? Should i charge per click or per 1000 uniques/pageviews or what? I figure that creating a system of my own that measures clicks would be pretty hard. I know i can make a certain amount off of adsense, BUT, right now, i'm trying to maximize revenue. I have contacted a couple of companies that handle advertisements and stuff like that, to see what they think about it. I'm interested to hear what you guys have to say about my question of whether or not i can charge per click on my own ads i approve or should i simply charge a flat rate? I really wish I could charge let's say 25 cents per ad slot per site, or even 50 cents, which would be really cheap considering traffic. Does anyone know what advertisers are paying for a certain number of visitors? It seems most people pay per click these days.

 

[LightHouse]

CPM depending on industry is around $1-3. Again these are all questions no one can provide a valuable answer to you without knowing what you consider to be high traffic and good niches. Its all relevant.

BTW why have him build something thats already built? Just get something like OpenX. Build your business here. | OpenX or some other OS ad server program to handle it for you. What you are going to bring in and who you are going to be able to feild as advertisers is all relevant to what you are providing to them.

 

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[Toiletcake]

Sorry for the amateur question but did someone have to handle the SEO work for all 1000 sites in order to get the free traffic rolling in?

 

[TJComer02]

The guy before did all that. I just bought the sites from him:groove:

 

[CoMp1eX]

I have a mix of 20+ blogs/forums running and it takes a lot of work to build and maintain. And I'm barely starting my strategy... I can't even imagine handling 1,000 sites.

Just wondering, are they mini-sites, forums, or blogs?

And are you able to cover all yearly domain renewal costs? Should be more than $7,000...

 

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[TJComer02]

Update: Basically, the guy I hired decided that we would pay some guys to do "manual online labor" that means posting links to all my sites and other free traffic generating stuff we don't have time for. That means paying a couple guys. We're parking all the domains and pointing to one, so basically instead of 904 sites getting good traffic, there's going to be one site getting ridiculously stupid traffic. I won't say what we're getting yet, but it's enough to get some attention. The guy i hired has connections with some ad firms, so, that's good, and also, we're redesigning the page we're directing all the park sites to. Basically, our page is going to be really unique. Actually, this is a guy i'm partnering with who had some great ideas, so what i did was basically told him i'd pay him a percentage of what the sites make as long as he stays on board, which i'm guessing will be forever. I don't have a problem with that, the way i look at it is this: 90% of the profit me and him created is better than 100% of the profit that the sites would produce if i did things myself or hired someone from rentacoder or something like that. Basically, this guy has made alot of money before, and he's worked on sites that've made a ton of money, and he's taking this on without charging me because he believes he's going to make alot of money I'm thinking. At this point i'm getting really anxious, because in a matter of days we'll be getting ad revenue, at first from adsense then we'll fill it in with ad space, and perhaps keep some adsense depending on how good it's doing. I also own a few sites that have products that my visitors would be interested in so, we can market those too with the sites. I will give you guys traffic reports before we started "trying" to generate traffic, and i will update you guys every day or couple of days. I'm hoping you guys can learn from some of the mistakes i almost made before this guy came on and helped me out so much. I'll post later, but now i've got to get to bed. Alot of work tomorrow. :sleep:

 

[LightHouse]

Most of the traffic is search traffic right? If so, prepare for your traffic to take a dump as the 301 redirects to the main site will fall since the indexed pages are going to be removed from the SERPS from those sites, leaving only the main sites ranking pages. I hope the guy knows what he is doing. Good Luck!

 

[TJComer02]

Actually, most of the traffic on the sites that are redirecting isn't search traffic. The site it's redirecting to (main site) does get search traffic. Anyway, i got the best seo guy working on this anyway, on the main site, so hopefully we really step it up a notch soon. Right now we're basically analyzing the sites and building the sites, (turning it into something totally different) The same services are still offered on the site, but they've just become alot more attractive.

 

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[theBiz]

"If so, prepare for your traffic to take a dump as the 301 redirects to the main site will fall since the indexed pages are going to be removed from the SERPS from those sites, leaving only the main sites ranking pages. "

I thought the same thing. From what i have heard is that if you do a redirect those sites you are redirecting will just lose traffic because search engines see its just a redirect.

 

[sanoy]

Interesting discussion. Like others I was also wondering how you are handling 1000 sites but now almost I understand your method. Also I made a complete calculation about your earning suppose if you earn 25 cent per day from each site then at the end of the year your total income will reach (.25*1000*30*12)$90000. Now If i deduct $50000 as expenses (More then enough) then still you can earn $40000 per year and that's great because its a minimal income.
Well done buddy and best of luck.