Making money from an informative site

[hlopez22]

I have an idea similar to another one written on this forum, a directory and resource for natural alternative medicine cures. I would like to know if going the wikipedia route "donations" would be better vs charging people to view information ?

 

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[wiredniko]

Wikipedia is an exception to the rule. I actually respect Wikipedia for going that route.

Having said that they would make more money if they had advertisements, even if it was Google ads.

Also its about repeat visitors. How many times have you gone to Wikipedia in 2011, for me its about 500 times give or take.

For your site how often would people visit it? Would they visit it enough to want to donate money to you? I suspect a first time visitor is much less likely to donate than repeat visitors.

Even Wikipedia says if people donated for their visit in one day they would be done...of course that does not happen.

So my suggestion is use Google Network to pay for your site. Then figure out products (affiliate marketing?) that you can push on your site. It takes more work that google's automation but most likely it will make more money in the end.

 

[healthstatus]

I tried the donation system on my health website a few years ago when I was getting about 7,000 visitors a day. Had the donation system active for 6 months, number of donations = 0

If you look at clickbank, there are lots of natural cure type programs, having comprehensive reviews with affiliate links will be your most profitable way to generate revenue. There are also several drop ship supplement providers in the natural cures space. Once you get to 8,000 to 10,000 visitors a day, you can start selling banner advertising through the health networks and places like ContextWeb and generate some decent cash. The health market is tough to get traction, there are quite a few sites like mine that have been around for 13-15 years, with hundreds of thousands of backlinks. So you can pay for traffic, but at this time of year it is really expensive, and the rest of the year it is just expensive, so you have to have a very optimized sales funnel.

 

[hlopez22]

I am now a little curious what does your website do or have?

 

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[Brander]

I was getting about 7,000 visitors a day. Had the donation system active for 6 months, number of donations = 0

Did you nag them once in a while and made them feel guilty in a indirect way that they are getting awesome stuff for free and they should donate to save their souls ?

 

[healthstatus]

I am now a little curious what does your website do or have?

Health Status Health Risk Assessments and Health Calculators

health calculators, health assessments, health articles, videos is what it has, makes me money is what it does.

Roark - obviously I didn't nag enough, I also believe your site needs to have a "little ol me" look to it for donations to succeed, my sites don't have that.

 

[Gold777]

If the websites going to be pulling in massive amounts of traffic (50,000+ monthly) and there's no affiliate products you can find that's related to the topic of your website then Adsense would be the best way to go.

 

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[healthstatus]

If the websites going to be pulling in massive amounts of traffic (50,000+ monthly) and there's no affiliate products you can find that's related to the topic of your website then Adsense would be the best way to go.

Sorry, but no, it isn't. If you have that much traffic there are plenty of ad networks that will pay you CPM revenue versus CPA revenue. I make 10x the revenue with these networks than I ever did with Adsense. Also, if you get that much traffic on your topic and there are not affiliate products filling the need of that topic, create one yourself.

 

[hlopez22]

My site would focus on diseases that plague Americans and have alternatives for people to use instead of traditional medicine. Can you give me a ballpark of what you make on your site?

 

[healthstatus]

My site would focus on diseases that plague Americans and have alternatives for people to use instead of traditional medicine. Can you give me a ballpark of what you make on your site?

more than enough to support my style of living.

 

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[hlopez22]

Damn I wish I had that too.

 

[healthstatus]

Damn I wish I had that too.

quit wishing and get busy....

 

[Gold777]

Sorry, but no, it isn't. If you have that much traffic there are plenty of ad networks that will pay you CPM revenue versus CPA revenue. I make 10x the revenue with these networks than I ever did with Adsense. Also, if you get that much traffic on your topic and there are not affiliate products filling the need of that topic, create one yourself.

Sorry but you have no idea what you're talking about. If he starts getting 50,000 visitors monthly (50,000 impressions) and even IF (and that's a big if) he chooses a CPM ad network that pays $1 on average then that's only $50.

I know someone right now who gets paid $100+ through Adsense just from 10,000 visitors monthly. They would be getting $10 monthly if they were to go your route.

Also Adsense isn't CPA it's CPC (although they do have a CPA program).

 

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[healthstatus]

Sorry but you have no idea what you're talking about. If he starts getting 50,000 visitors monthly (50,000 impressions) and even IF (and that's a big if) he chooses a CPM ad network that pays $1 on average then that's only $50.

Sorry, I have 15 years experience running a health website that got over 37,000 visitors YESTERDAY (alexa - Healthstatus.com Site Info), I know exactly what I am talking about, your credentials are you know somebody? The CPM ad networks I run with pay me over $7.00/thousand in the health field, plus I can get direct sales in the $15-$20 cpm range. Yes, I miss-typed Google is CPC, but the best you can do is get one ad clicked on a page with Adsense and then your visitor is gone, with a CPM network you can easily have 3-6 ad placements, plus interstitials between pages and the longer you can keep the user on your site viewing your own content, the more loyalty you build AND the more money you make. I am sure the OP appreciates your time in responding, but your advice is incorrect.

 

[Gold777]

Sorry, I have 15 years experience running a health website that got over 37,000 visitors YESTERDAY (alexa - Healthstatus.com Site Info), I know exactly what I am talking about, your credentials are you know somebody? The CPM ad networks I run with pay me over $7.00/thousand in the health field, plus I can get direct sales in the $15-$20 cpm range. Yes, I miss-typed Google is CPC, but the best you can do is get one ad clicked on a page with Adsense and then your visitor is gone, with a CPM network you can easily have 3-6 ad placements, plus interstitials between pages and the longer you can keep the user on your site viewing your own content, the more loyalty you build AND the more money you make. I am sure the OP appreciates your time in responding, but your advice is incorrect.

Lol seriously we're both right, but the fact is that it DEPENDS on certain factors, my advice is not wrong and my credentials run a lot deeper than just knowing people. So lets look at these factors...

Factor 1: You got 37,000 visitors in ONE day, OP just has an IDEA he hasn't even started. When he starts out he won't even be getting 1,000 visitors that often unless he's an experienced internet marketer. So if you're getting 37,000 visitors a day then that's GREAT for CPM but he has none and you have to take that into consideration.

Factor 2: The NICHE he's choosing is for alternative medicine cures, it's a big competitive niche and it's going to be hard for him to find good keywords to rank for. Then again finding the keywords is one thing, ranking for them is another. Your site has been up a while and you were lucky enough to start ranking for some of those keywords early which gives you an edge.

Factor 3: Experience, you have 15 years of experience and this guy likely has none. Not to mention how long your site has been up for. This guy won't make anything getting 500 visitors using CPM networks but he could make at least a few dollars in Adsense which is better than nothing. Once he starts bringing in thousands of visitors per day (and not just monthly) then I would agree CPM networks may very well be a better decision but until then I wouldn't recommend it.

Also if someone clicks a Google Ad on your website they're not gone forever, in fact the Ads open in a new tab which means if the visitor start fiddling around with that website they're still going to end up coming back to yours. No one is going to click an Ad and just forget about the website they just searched for and opened up for a reason, especially for informational purposes.

 

[hlopez22]

Correct I have none but my niche I feel would be different than healthstatus but to each their own. My idea seems broader

 

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[rsteele]

Hello,

Im brand new to the forum so good to meet you. I would pay for the info personally if i knew it was high quality, accurate, and trusted you or the source

 

[hlopez22]

I'm new too. Nice to meet you. Thanks. for the input the information acquired would be from research done and methods tested to work.

 

[mmtprofile]

what about selling ad space?

 

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[Gold777]

what about selling ad space?

Anyone purchasing Ad space wouldn't be dumb enough to purchase it from a site that's not receiving considerable amounts of traffic, so that's out of the question.

 

[mottdog]

Some great info on this thread. Keep it up people!
Thanks.

 

[healthstatus]

When you have low volume of traffic, you need to sell products (which can be ebooks, amazon hard goods, etc, so each sale can bring you $20-$30 of revenue) and you work on list building, bringing in more traffic and creating more depth and width to your site with good content. As traffic builds you can start looking at monetizing more people on your site via mobile apps, paid content, contextual advertising, cpc and cpa. Once you hit a critical mass and have enough pageviews and visitors per month, you can launch into the cpm networks and selling ad space. Without much effort in the health market you can make $3.50 to $6.00/thousand ad views (put 3-6 ads on a page), with more effort and the right niches you can make as much as $20/thousand. There are also opportunities for companies or products to sponsor a section or all of your site, content placement, selling links, selling advertising on your newsletter emails, and more, just depends on your time, effort and ability to run your team.

 

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[mmtprofile]

Anyone purchasing Ad space wouldn't be dumb enough to purchase it from a site that's not receiving considerable amounts of traffic, so that's out of the question.

All models assume traffic.

 

[s_sherrell]

I have to agree with healthstatus on here. I appreciate gold's thoughts, but I do not think his/her advice is taking the whole picture into account. Ranking for keywords and doing seo is a portion of a site making money. There are plenty of ways to make money as long as you have a product to offer. It would help to have a better knowledge of what the OP is putting together, but at the very least you can make free giveaway report, software, webinar, etc where people optin and you build a list of prospects.
Then find a mailing list that fits your target. Usually people charge about .30 to .50 per unique click. So you can probably buy like 75 clicks for $20. After a person opts in to get your freebie, they can be directed to an upsell offer either you make or an affiliate product. You should be able to make money just from that while you are building your list. Just reinvest back into your business. Eventually if you see you have it dialed in and see you are making say 50% ROI, you can scale to bigger buys (these are called solo ads btw). Here is the biggest thing though, you are building a list of people you can market similar products too forever. If you are giving value and they trust you, you can make a living just doing this and grow. Start adding SEO and ranking and you are well on your way.
You can do other forms of paid traffic, but for bang for your buck this is the way I recommend. Then you can start selling ad space (healthstatus number of $7/cpm sounds right. Remember you can sell multiple spots at that too). Also you can charge others to send solo ads to your list.
Honestly I would reach out to healthstatus with a PM and ask for some tips. People are cooler than you think.

 

[Cavking]

more than enough to support my style of living.

Are you up to Millionaire status from the site?

 

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[healthstatus]

Are you up to Millionaire status from the site?

How does that information really help you? Of all the information I have provided in the thread, the amount of money I make would be the most useless. You figure it out, with all the numbers I have provided, is a website that gets 1 million+ visitors a month all from natural seo, in the evergreen health market give me an asset worth more than a million?

 

[Cavking]

Most likely - that's awesome.

I like success stories.

 

[healthstatus]

Most likely - that's awesome.

I like success stories.

I like success.

 

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[InMotion]

I like success.

Touché....

No disrespect to any posters but its good a point. Most people spend to much time reading success stories instead of making their own. I find little value in any of them anymore; I used to read them alot but no longer. There is usually little value in them in the form of concrete advice.