Google AdSense
How Do You Monetize A Low Traffic Site?
A strange thing happened with Niche Site 1. It went live, we forgot about it while working on other things, and then it started getting a trickle of traffic. This amazes me. I mean, the site has almost no SEO (bad), is on a new domain (worse), and has no links to it (terrible). Or so I thought.
Google Webmaster Tools gave me some clues as to why it did not just die in cyberspace. The site is very detailed and has a lot of obscure words. Googlebot loves it. To be fair, it was created for some super non-competitive keywords but the site ranks high for words and phrases I never imagined. The unique, detailed content thing is something we can really apply to other sites.
Now we have an interesting dilemma. How do we monetize a low traffic site? Using AdSense or some other contextual advertising program is probably a waste. Getting enough clicks to make even a dollar would take forever. Another concern is that the ads displayed may not be relevant because searches for this niche often show the wrong results. Making a single sale of an affiliate product could make a decent amount of money though. Most of the time when people visit the site they look around some so a few related affiliate products might catch their attention.
What else could we do? I am not sure yet. It will never be our main focus but the site might be worth a second look and a few creative ideas.
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Discussion
2 comments for “How Do You Monetize A Low Traffic Site?”
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Hi there, one question about your blog since I’ve had the same thought. To document my journey as a website maker and owner in a live case study. Why not give the names of the sites your working on? Is it too much you think, does it leave one open to a copy cat, clone or such?
The reason this came to mind while reading your post is that I can only guess what kind of niche site you are talking about. I’d like to take a look at it both for my sake (you’ve obviously hit on something here) and to be better able to give advice and suggestions. But as I say I understand if you’d think that is too much. I’m debating myself if I should throw caution to the wind and risk having someone copy my ideas with possibly better results thus becoming a fierce competitor. Then again the serious thieves would just use a certain online tool (http://www.domaintools.com/registrant-search)to find all sites I’ve already registered, even if I’d like it’s too late to make them anonymous now, but it’s something to keep in mind for future.
@Webjourneyman
Thanks for the comment! You touched on two things I’ve been thinking about for a while. The first is the purpose and branding of this site. The second is if, when, and what to disclose about the other sites.
I don’t really have a good answer for you right now. I think it depends on the type of site though. This topic could make a good blog post. Actually, I will write a blog post about this. It will be nice to get some of my thoughts written down.