Administrators Nathan Posted January 6, 2013 Administrators Share Posted January 6, 2013 Monetization is that even a word? So over the years I have started many different web projects. At first it was just a hobby to learn and have fun with. After I got the hang of things it then turned into how can I make money at this? I then began the long journey of how to create profitable websites. Over the years it's cost me A LOT of money. At first being gullable to schemes and scams, learning little by little. On to "niche" adwords site that were short term income, but soon Google banned these type of sites. I continued to stay optimistic and build on what I've learned with each new site. My last project was a quote site based of a TV show. It was my most successful by far. I put it up on Flippa in in a days time sold it for $3500. The initial cost of the site was $10 for the domain, $50 for a script, a little of my time building maybe 50 backlinks, and probably 10 hours advertising. All in all it was nice to have some success and definitely motivates me to build more. So a few days later I put up for sale another aged project and made an additional $1250. While I have quite a few new ideas my next project as I've already spoken about will be Voice Server Hosting company. Will see if I'm really on the right track with my methods of building these profitable sites. Anyways just wanted to share. It is possible to make some decent money online. You just have to stick with it and find the right methods to gain real targeted traffic and monetize. stutin and jodiann12 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Victor Leigh Posted January 7, 2013 Share Posted January 7, 2013 You seem to make selling sites so easy. I am sure there must be some secret to what you are doing. One question, though. You don't really have to answer if it's a trade secret. Just what is the ratio of wins to losses in the sites that you have bought and sold? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Administrators Nathan Posted January 7, 2013 Author Administrators Share Posted January 7, 2013 Not really a trade secret just finally starting to get in the rhythm and know what works and what doesn't. I would say to learn and get to this point I probably had 20 projects before that made nothing. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ridwan sameer Posted January 7, 2013 Share Posted January 7, 2013 Damn, That's some pretty sweet Progress.I usually never succeeded into these things largely due to region specific problems, Mainly being Cant create a paypal account in my country that can accept money, Only give out moneyBut Good luck on your endeavors nathan.. And.. Share the wealth yeah? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Victor Leigh Posted January 7, 2013 Share Posted January 7, 2013 Not really a trade secret just finally starting to get in the rhythm and know what works and what doesn't. I would say to learn and get to this point I probably had 20 projects before that made nothing. 20 misses before you hit the jackpot? That's quite the long shot. I supposed you covered all your losses with just one win. Right? @Ridwan Where are you located? India? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Administrators Nathan Posted January 7, 2013 Author Administrators Share Posted January 7, 2013 Yeah, but doesn't take 20 fails to make another good one, easy to reproduce now that I've found out what works and what doesn't. No it far from covered my loses. I would say I had spent well over 20k to get here. But I just count that as tuition for what I've learned Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KMRock Posted January 8, 2013 Share Posted January 8, 2013 Nice work, the most I have ever sold a project for was 500, but I have definitely made 1000s more than I have lost! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Victor Leigh Posted January 8, 2013 Share Posted January 8, 2013 Just wondering. What exactly is it that the buyer is paying for? A ready-to-go website that's ready to make money from the word go? Those websites were not sold with guarantees, right? So the price the buyer paid is his own estimate of what he can make after buying the site, right? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KMRock Posted January 8, 2013 Share Posted January 8, 2013 Yes surely they take into account the potential earnings and worth of the site down the track, ie. marketability, money making opportunities, activity, potential resale etc. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ridwan sameer Posted January 8, 2013 Share Posted January 8, 2013 20 misses before you hit the jackpot? That's quite the long shot. I supposed you covered all your losses with just one win. Right? @Ridwan Where are you located? India? No, even India has paypal accounts that can recieve money Im located in Sri Lankan.. Little Island below India Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Administrators Nathan Posted January 8, 2013 Author Administrators Share Posted January 8, 2013 Just wondering. What exactly is it that the buyer is paying for? A ready-to-go website that's ready to make money from the word go? Those websites were not sold with guarantees, right? So the price the buyer paid is his own estimate of what he can make after buying the site, right? No the sites I sold were monetized and bringing in some money. It's hard to sell an un-monetized site. People don't want to buy potential and if they do they are not willing to pay much. I've found that it's worth taking the extra time and effort to monetize it to make something before selling. You will get A LOT more for it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KMRock Posted January 8, 2013 Share Posted January 8, 2013 Hmm true I will take that into consideration actually! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
johnthomas1433 Posted January 9, 2013 Share Posted January 9, 2013 Good work in getting your website sold in Flippa for $3500! Just out of curiosity, what was the revenue model for that website? How did you make money from that website? Google Adsense or some other affiliate programs? The reason being that websites with good revenue model fetch such prices in Flippa, and yet I fail to see it in your case. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Administrators Nathan Posted January 9, 2013 Author Administrators Share Posted January 9, 2013 It was monetized with Amazon Affiliate links. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KMRock Posted January 10, 2013 Share Posted January 10, 2013 Have you found amazon affiliate links to work better than adsense? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Administrators Nathan Posted January 11, 2013 Author Administrators Share Posted January 11, 2013 Have you found amazon affiliate links to work better than adsense? Depends on the site. For this one yes. Even if people went to Amazon to look at what I had on the site and didn't purchase that product but purchased something else I still got a % since I referred them to Amazon. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KMRock Posted January 11, 2013 Share Posted January 11, 2013 Ah very nice, I'm not sure this would always work well though would it? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Administrators Nathan Posted January 12, 2013 Author Administrators Share Posted January 12, 2013 Ah very nice, I'm not sure this would always work well though would it? Sure it would as long as you pick the right products for the niche. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bigbigfan Posted January 12, 2013 Share Posted January 12, 2013 (edited) Great post, Nathan, it makes me want to launch yet another site I look at websites in a different light today than I did when starting out over a decade ago. Back then I thought if I built it people would come, and they did but not nearly as much as I'd hoped and certainly not enough for the time I put in. Today I look at websites as if they were tools, tools to help me get my message out wether it be for money or not. If you own a site that sells a product it's so much easier to get traffic to that site if you can leverage your other websites and so those other sites become tools. If you have a forum for example you can leverage that to let visitors know about your other site. If you own a link directory you can prominently feature your other site in the directory. Toplist, other related sites, newsletters, social profiles... all of these are potential tools to help promote your website. If you can't improve your website any further then improve the tools you use to promote it and keep moving forward. Edited January 12, 2013 by bigbigfan Nathan and KMRock 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
johnthomas1433 Posted January 15, 2013 Share Posted January 15, 2013 Depends on the site. For this one yes. Even if people went to Amazon to look at what I had on the site and didn't purchase that product but purchased something else I still got a % since I referred them to Amazon. True. But you have only a 24 hour window to make them buy some product from Amazon. If they add some product to the buying cart, you are in luck, as they can buy it in 90 days, and you shall still earn the commission. But your conversion should be terrible. How much was it ? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KMRock Posted January 15, 2013 Share Posted January 15, 2013 Great post, Nathan, it makes me want to launch yet another site I look at websites in a different light today than I did when starting out over a decade ago. Back then I thought if I built it people would come, and they did but not nearly as much as I'd hoped and certainly not enough for the time I put in. Today I look at websites as if they were tools, tools to help me get my message out wether it be for money or not. If you own a site that sells a product it's so much easier to get traffic to that site if you can leverage your other websites and so those other sites become tools. If you have a forum for example you can leverage that to let visitors know about your other site. If you own a link directory you can prominently feature your other site in the directory. Toplist, other related sites, newsletters, social profiles... all of these are potential tools to help promote your website. If you can't improve your website any further then improve the tools you use to promote it and keep moving forward. ^^ This +Rep! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Administrators Nathan Posted January 15, 2013 Author Administrators Share Posted January 15, 2013 True. But you have only a 24 hour window to make them buy some product from Amazon. If they add some product to the buying cart, you are in luck, as they can buy it in 90 days, and you shall still earn the commission. But your conversion should be terrible. How much was it ? 2.43% Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KMRock Posted January 16, 2013 Share Posted January 16, 2013 Thats not a bad commission rate actually! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Administrators Nathan Posted January 17, 2013 Author Administrators Share Posted January 17, 2013 Thats not a bad commission rate actually! 2.43% is the conversion rate. The commision rate was at 7%. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bigbigfan Posted January 17, 2013 Share Posted January 17, 2013 When I look at conversion rates I aim for 1%, anything less isn't worth my time. I'm very happy when I achieve 1.5% and anything above that is pure gold. 2.43% is awesome Nathan, but, too bad it's Amazon where that translates into just 7% on extremely low prices. On a retail site the payout would likely have been 15% to 25% with a higher base price. Amazon is the McDonalds of affiliate programs. Fast, efficient... and cheap. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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