Is my slow but steady earning website worth the time trade to keep around?

[Ohmer]

First off I want to say I've been around the site for a bit, but haven't posted much. I plan to be here more often soaking in all the advice of the countless experts that share their time here. Thanks for that by the way, and I plan on doing the same some day once I am in your shoes.

So I've had a DIY home electrical help website for more than 5 years now that generates income via Adsense. Recently I added an Amazon product store to the site, but that has not yet proven fruitful. The website has never made too much money but does generate some steady passive income each month, so I've kept it around.

The problem is, it seems like it stalls out here and there and I have recently put a great deal of time into the site transferring it to a new CMS platform. I could just leave it be I guess, but when I've tried that in the past, it seems to slow down until I freshen it up with new content.

My question is, should a website come to a point where the little steady passive income is not worth the time traded to keep it running?

Thanks to anyone that can give insight in advance.

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[theag]

Hire a VA to tun it, depends on how much money it makes of course.

 

[Ohmer]

Hire a VA to tun it, depends on how much money it makes of course.

Thanks, I'll look into that a bit. It's most likely out of my range right at the moment, but I'll be certain to keep it in mind for future use.

 

[DennisD]

Yes. Outsource content for cheap. check out textbroker.com

If you've got multiple ventures that could benefit from a content writer, you can hire a VA, have them work on 1 story a week for this adsense site and have them spend the rest of their time on your other ventures. Some VA authors know not only how to write, but also how to spin content. You can use them to help with content related backlinking efforts.

If you have decent traffic, you can contact advertisers directly and get a better price. Perhaps you can purpose your content into an infoproduct? I know these increase your time investment but they could multiply your earnings by a factor of 10 or more.

The reason the amazon store isn't profitable yet may be because you're not 'preselling' the items. You can integrate featured products directly into posts to increase sales (or have your VA do it). For instance write a post with statistics of how many accidents have occurred due to inexperienced DIYers working on live circuits. What's the secret pro electricians use to keep safe, even when they "know" they cut the power? Electrical Testers! (insert link to $50-$200 electrical testers).

Never just let a site die that's making money. At the very least sell it on flippa.com so you at least make something off of it.

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[wade1mil]

My question is, should a website come to a point where the little steady passive income is not worth the time traded to keep it running?

What do you value your time at and what are your financial goals in life? Can't answer that question without first answering these.

 

[mohawkdcg]

Originally Posted by Ohmer
My question is, should a website come to a point where the little steady passive income is not worth the time traded to keep it running?

What do you value your time at and what are your financial goals in life? Can't answer that question without first answering these.

Here is the way that I evaluate this type of question:

1) Take the net income you have generated for the year with the website and divide by the total hours for the year spent on it. This is your hourly rate to use as a basis.

2) If you have a job, what is that paying you? This is a second reference rate if you have one.

3) Take stock of alternate uses of your time. List any business ideas you are working on or considering.

4) For each business idea conservatively estimate the net income it could generate for you over a 5 year run and what you could sell if for at the end of that 5 year period.

5) For each business idea estimate your time commitment to get it open and to run it for 5 years.

6) Divide #4 by #5 for each business idea to get your estimated hourly rate while working on that business.

7) Compare your results from #1, #2 and #6 and it should be fairly easy to decide where to focus your time and whether to sell the website.

Hope that helps.

 

[Ohmer]

Some excellent ideas so far, thanks so much. I will be "preselling" the Amazon items soon, what a great idea!

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[AlasdairM]

I'd suggest checking your Google Analytics stats (or server logs if you don't have Analytics set up) very carefully to see what buying stage visitors are in. If they are just seeking info, then it'll be tough to boost the site's income.

Consider surveying your visitors for a few months (a couple of quick questions should do) to find out if they are potential buyers of any products.

I recently discovered on one of my sites (only about half a year old) that people were just looking for info and weren't near the point of making a buying decision, so it'll be very tough to raise the money making potential of the site. For that reason, I'm selling the site and will use the proceeds to buy another one.

I should add that I took the site over from a friend. It's not one I would have chosen to start myself.

 

[Nick]

If you lose interest in your website (aka you know you won't be posting on it in the future), consider selling it while it's still active and makes some money so that other enthusiast entrepreneur can purchase it and improve on it. It's a shame to let what was once a useful resource die slowly due to your lack of attention - because you won't be able to sell it anymore when it's at the bottom and it makes no money.

And yes, websites tend to die if left inactive, since there are always new competitor websites being created, new websites being updated, promoted, marketed, etc... A website is rarely a passive source of income.

Curiosity, how much does your website make? Are we talking xx$ per month, xxx$, or x,xxx$? That might give a clue on whether it's worth investing any more time in the venture.

 

[Ohmer]

And yes, websites tend to die if left inactive, since there are always new competitor websites being created, new websites being updated, promoted, marketed, etc... A website is rarely a passive source of income.

Curiosity, how much does your website make? Are we talking xx$ per month, xxx$, or x,xxx$? That might give a clue on whether it's worth investing any more time in the venture.

Ah, you are right, point taken. The site usually brings in on the lower end of xxx$ per month, sometimes higher end of xx$. It costs about 8 dollars a month to run, and I probably spend about 15 hours on average a month keeping it up. Lately I have spent about 80 hours getting it how I want on the new platform though, but I know that will level out in time.

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[splok]

I'd be more interested in how much traffic it gets than how much money it makes. If you have enough eyeballs on your site, you can find a way to monetize it. Test different things until you find something that works. If the problem is that you just aren't getting much traffic, that's a very different problem to solve. If you don't have the traffic and you're not interested enough to build that traffic, then ya, outsource or sell as others have said.

 

[Ohmer]

I'd be more interested in how much traffic it gets than how much money it makes. If you have enough eyeballs on your site, you can find a way to monetize it. Test different things until you find something that works. If the problem is that you just aren't getting much traffic, that's a very different problem to solve. If you don't have the traffic and you're not interested enough to build that traffic, then ya, outsource or sell as others have said.

Traffic is another problem I have at the moment. Starting Q3 2011, my monthly traffic has fallen from 15K to about 5K a month in Q3 2012. I am working on it, but it seems especially with Google that I have fallen off the search engine map. I have mostly been trying to update and optimize my content to please the search engines. It does seem like their is a finer line now between pleasing the customer and the search engines though. I don't like to give up, so for now I have decided to stick it out and use some of the great advice I have been given so far here.

 

[healthstatus]

You need to sign up for Google Webmaster tools, Google may have a flag on your site for unnatural links or quality issues, webmaster tools will help you determine that. The amazon idea is OK, but if you are only selling 20-30 items a month, you are only going to make 4% commission from Amazon. If you are promoting a $100.00 item that is only $4.00 per sale. It may be better to put together some step by step guides for troubleshooting electrical issues, how to replace a light fixture, that sort of thing and sell them for $10.00 each. Traffic is very difficult to get, you have some, you used to have a good amount. So I would definitely spend time on looking into getting it back. You can also tailor your articles to get the biggest bang from adsense ads. You can research what people are PAYING on adwords for specific phrases and create articles with the higher price phrases in them. This will increase the chance one of those high paying ads is shown and if you get the click it can increase your revenue.

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[stranger]

you have to drive tons of trafic to your site for making money from amazon. Ok, find device which help people to save electrical power and re-sell it on your site. Xmas lights go ok during xmas season.

 

[Ohmer]

Ok, find device which help people to save electrical power and re-sell it on your site. Xmas lights go ok during xmas season.

Good idea, will start looking for a good affiliate power saving device.

You need to sign up for Google Webmaster tools, Google may have a flag on your site for unnatural links or quality issues, webmaster tools will help you determine that. The amazon idea is OK, but if you are only selling 20-30 items a month, you are only going to make 4% commission from Amazon. If you are promoting a $100.00 item that is only $4.00 per sale. It may be better to put together some step by step guides for troubleshooting electrical issues, how to replace a light fixture, that sort of thing and sell them for $10.00 each. Traffic is very difficult to get, you have some, you used to have a good amount. So I would definitely spend time on looking into getting it back. You can also tailor your articles to get the biggest bang from adsense ads. You can research what people are PAYING on adwords for specific phrases and create articles with the higher price phrases in them. This will increase the chance one of those high paying ads is shown and if you get the click it can increase your revenue.

My site has lots of DIY step by step electrical troubleshooting articles available to read for free. One idea I was toying with was producing some sort of electrical troubleshooting ebook to sell on the side.

Thanks again for all the responses, this is why I love this site and I plan on paying it back down the road. For now I must concentrate on getting my traffic back. They have wandered off, now I must corral them back in.