Why High Website Traffic Can’t Guarantee Profit & How Monetize It
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I remember 10-15 years ago my dad called me to announce a “great news”, he was a 1 000 000 visitor to some website and now he wait when people call, email, or mail him information on how to receive a prize. I was just laughing at him… Yes, 15 years ago people used to click banners, submit forms, and follow sponsored links. Today it is hard to trick users and make them believe in online offers and promotions. It is almost impossible to convict people to click ads even when banner or link has perfect match with your design, niche, or content. According John Chow, Google AdSense used to be a perfect tool to make money several years ago. Average earnings from Google AdSense was about $5-8 for 1000 impressions. Today earnings dropped to less than a dollar for 1000 impressions. It means, that you can get 1-3 clicks if 1000 people will visit your page. Easy to guess, only $100 for 100k visitors and $1000 for million visitors. 99.9% websites and blogs don’t have 1 000 000 traffic in a year.
I still meet a lot of people who believes that they can make a fortune with Google AdSense but all their efforts end with desperate jumps from AdSense to Yahoo Ads, from Yahoo ads to AdBrite, from AdBrite to Bidvertiser etc. Capturing leads, selling stuff, and professional use of affiliate programs is the only way to make money online and monetise your website.
How website look:
How reader see it:
Average website visitors ignore ads, banners, links especially when they come from social networks like Facebook, Digg, Twitter etc. For example, link to another website from Twitter discussion bring Twitter users who involve in discussion. Most of this readers still think about topic or discussion on Twitter and the only way to behave for them is to click “back button” to tweet more. Visiting your site people don’t even feel that they been on another website and consider it as part of the Twitter content. Take example above and imagine Twitter logo on the top… it is exactly how Twitter user will see your website in his mind.
Recently I hit 11 000 Twitter clicks in 1 day for one of my stories, all I got was $4 worth of clicks on sponsored ads. More than 90% of this users left my site in less than 20 seconds without visiting any other page.
So, why do you need banners and ads?
You are the one to decide weather you need banners and ads on a website or not, as for me, I see banners and sponsored links as piggy bank to save on gas.
How to make money & monetize a website:
The best way to make money on a website is to collect leads, sell your own products, and use affiliate programs (if you know how to use them). Why Facebook or Twitter can’t just fill entire site with banners and make money for clicks? Why all new social sites look for ways to monetize free services and create business model which can make profit? Simply because, billions pageviews will turn into couple thousands dollars which will be not enough to pay hosting bills, office, and salaries. All social sites are looking for a ways to create their own PPC programs, affiliate programs, and tools for advertisers.
Selling your own products:
I hate to hear when people say that they have nothing to sell. I mean, look around! What about something you know, some people are able to pay money for it. I know a woman who used to work as babysitter and clean lady in rich houses, one day she said: “F**k it! This people got so much money but they got no taste & their houses look like a pig farms!”. Today she offer home organising consulting services maiking 20-30 times more than $7-9 an hour (money she used to make before).
Produce goods, distribute already made, resell from wholesalers, publish books (paid content, ebooks), offer services. There are plenty things you can do.
1000 visitors on a website can turn into 1 customer who buys $30 ebook, but it is way better than 2 clicks which can make you less than a $1.
Capturing leads and visitor information:
In the beginning it seems useless, but it makes sense when you have solid database. Even if you have only 1 submission per day it creates 300-400 people in your database. Using database you can establish trust which will turn into sales and more leads. I would like to mention John Chow again, he uses database to offer affiliate products and it generates 70% of his profit (According his video on how to make $40 000 per month).
September 22nd, 2009 at 7:21 pm
I have the same problem with twitter traffic… and stumble upon too. Lots of traffic but little to show for it… very high bounce rate.
when you start looking at your stats with google analytics, you’ll start to see how your website traffic really effects your blog, and your income
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September 22nd, 2009 at 7:47 pm
That’s why you need to work hard and convince people to submit forms, subscribe, and be active on a website. By capturing email you can work in the future to build trust and convert person into regular visitor, acive user, and customer.
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