I think your site's layout is not really great for ad placement, which is why that failed. It's very much a brochure like layout that you'd see for businesses. Contrast this with http://net.tutsplus.com/ where it's "blog" like, but still a great format for presenting tutorials. If you're getting 1.3 million page views, you're almost certainly ranking high in search results, which is great, because those are the peopl…
Ask HN: How to monetize 1.3 million page views?
11–20 of 20 posts
Re: Ask HN: How to monetize 1.3 million page views?
#12I have thought about doing something similar but with mathematics. My suggestion would be to package up various tutorials into a course. Instead of static pages I would add videos using Camtasia or Captivate. There are lots of colleges and universities that sell courses on this stuff and you could sell such courses for a lot cheaper.
Re: Ask HN: How to monetize 1.3 million page views?
#13A lot of people have suggested an Amazon affiliate situation, and unless my assumptions are wrong it just won't pay. The following is a copy/paste from a quick spreadsheet assuming some basic information. Amazon gives affiliates 4% of a standard sale, I assumed a CTR of 1% (which I think is very generous), I guessed a 2% conversion rate, and an average sale of $45.
You can see that your monthly take will still be quite low.
Traffic 1300000 CTR 1% Delivered 13000 Conversion rate 2% Converted 260 Avg Sale $45 Your cut/sale $1.8 Your take $468
It is entirely possible that your CTR would be higher, but I tend to think not.
You said that with Adsense you only earned $400 in a month, which means you were getting a $0.30 CPM. This is pretty low, and even in this ad market I think you should be able to pull off $1.50 or more. An Ad network would help you do that, and your traffic is high enough that they would be willing to talk to you. Of course this means ads on the site.
This is what I would do: * Add a forum; with your traffic I think you could have a community discussing issues pretty quickly. I would probably do this as a sister site given your niche name. Of course this 'only' increases your pageviews. * Optimize the site for ads, forget Adsense, and work with the ad networks. Better still, try to beat down doors of people who might want to advertise directly. * Despite the small payoff I do like the idea of selling books related to the topic and would try it. I tend to like the idea of dealing directly with a specific publisher however; your cut will likely be better. * I like the idea of premium content as well. I despise sites that show you only part of a solution, but your site shows that you have enough taste to do this in a way that users would embrace.
Good luck, Jer
Re: Ask HN: How to monetize 1.3 million page views?
#14Chris, A lot of people have suggested an Amazon affiliate situation, and unless my assumptions are wrong it just won't pay. The following is a copy/paste from a quick spreadsheet assuming some basic information. Amazon gives affiliates 4% of a standard sale, I assumed a CTR of 1% (which I think is very generous), I guessed a 2% conversion rate, and an average sale of $45. You can see that your monthly take will still…
They loved the traffic, but couldn't deal with the fact that it was a tutorial site. They seemed to think of themselves as Builders of A Great Online Editorial Empire, instead of what they are: ad brokers.
"We work with blogs. This isn't a blog."
"It's better than a blog. The content is more targeted."
"Uh, you're not a blog."
Maybe I'll hit up No Starch Press or somebody like that. Thanks!
Re: Ask HN: How to monetize 1.3 million page views?
#15Chris, A lot of people have suggested an Amazon affiliate situation, and unless my assumptions are wrong it just won't pay. The following is a copy/paste from a quick spreadsheet assuming some basic information. Amazon gives affiliates 4% of a standard sale, I assumed a CTR of 1% (which I think is very generous), I guessed a 2% conversion rate, and an average sale of $45. You can see that your monthly take will still…
Re: Ask HN: How to monetize 1.3 million page views?
#16Either a premium rate phone line or possible a prepaid call in 10 minute units.
Re: Ask HN: How to monetize 1.3 million page views?
#17Package up similar content in a way that is easy to deliver to employers for them to give to employees for training. Enroll your employees in our MS Word training, $45 per employee, just as effective as having a consultant or courses but at one-tenth the cost. You don't even have to develop the course yourself -- there are almost certainly a million available, and since they're infinitely scalable information products they should have generous affiliate payouts.
It doesn't matter if most people are using your site for work. They're the fuel in the rocket, the upsell to the course is the payload.
Re: Ask HN: How to monetize 1.3 million page views?
#18Chris, A lot of people have suggested an Amazon affiliate situation, and unless my assumptions are wrong it just won't pay. The following is a copy/paste from a quick spreadsheet assuming some basic information. Amazon gives affiliates 4% of a standard sale, I assumed a CTR of 1% (which I think is very generous), I guessed a 2% conversion rate, and an average sale of $45. You can see that your monthly take will still…
I run a tutorials site for programmers (its much more loosely focused than your site though, with code tutorials, career advice, a few open source projects I've built, etc.), and my Adwords CPC is similar but Amazon earnings are historically 5-6 times better than Adwords.
The key is to link to relevant books within the text of an article. In your case what might work is add references section to each category page that contains links to reviews on books on the subject. Review the book well, describing what type of user the book is geared toward, and only recommend books that you personally stand behind. This problogger article contains some nice tips for getting free review copies of books: http://www.problogger.net/archives/2009/02/14/how-to-get-fre...
Good luck to you.
Re: Ask HN: How to monetize 1.3 million page views?
#19I have thought about doing something similar but with mathematics. My suggestion would be to package up various tutorials into a course. Instead of static pages I would add videos using Camtasia or Captivate. There are lots of colleges and universities that sell courses on this stuff and you could sell such courses for a lot cheaper.
We did a research study sponsored by the U.S. Dept. of Ed that showed that for learning basic skills, black-and-white screenshots are best. Walking people through tasks step-by-step with static pictures is most effective. Video is really good for some things (showing the correct hand movements to operate an iPhone, for instance), but for basic "click here" stuff, simpler is better.
At the college I teach at we have courses for administrative assistants and I thought perhaps you could sell courses that are cheaper and better.
Good luck on figuring out how to monetize your site.
Re: Ask HN: How to monetize 1.3 million page views?
#20What about additional phone based tutoring, eg "struggling? phone XXXX-XXX-XXX to speak to a tutor now". Either a premium rate phone line or possible a prepaid call in 10 minute units.