Forum Moderators: martinibuster
$0 expenses is $0 expenses. Majority of labour costs were paid for in 2004, and since then its been a fraction of my original costs to keep the site going. If I never looked at it for the rest of the year, it'd remain about the same. Has for two years now.
This is the great thing about a static site vs. a blog. But its way harder, IMO, to start and run that static site. I find writing and researching or hiring articles much harder than tossing off blog posts.
$0 expenses is $0 expenses. Majority of labour costs were paid for in 2004, and since then its been a fraction of my original costs to keep the site going. If I never looked at it for the rest of the year, it'd remain about the same. Has for two years now.
This is the great thing about a static site vs. a blog. But its way harder, IMO, to start and run that static site. I find writing and researching or hiring articles much harder than tossing off blog posts.
But thats just great though. Congrats
"@Wolf: I mean, when you started your site, did you use Google Keyword Tools to estimate the kind of CPM you could get for your topics? I like to use the 2% CTR rule - even though overall CTR tends to be higher than that - for estimating the kind of CPM or CPC that a topic will bring in."
I did use the google keyword tool as well as overture and some inside information on my niche. My first SEOed website started in 2005 for a niche topic; it had a CTR of 6 to 8 percent in the first two years, then it gradually decreased to curretly around 2%. Traffic increased gradually, but slowly.
I cannot give the URL, because if I do in 2-4 weeks from now there will again be many copy-cat sites, and eventually the traffic to my site will again be cut in half. That was the reason why I posted in the first place: to share that a fight against the content thieves has paid off. And it seems like I'm going to cross the $5000.00 mark this month, not because I've added any new articles (haven't for the last 6 months) but I now have many, many unique articles.
> 1) how much traffic do you get
Currently an average of 9,000 page views per day. Six months ago when there were many copy-cat sites, average page views were half of that, and income as well.
> 2) net or gross? - how much do you spend to get the traffic
Not paying for traffic, though I spent about $25000.00 over the years on articles and images, and also spent a lot of time writing articles myself.
Oh, Kontera, Tribal Fusion, neither could muster more than $10 profit a day for us
Tribal has been dropping lately for us. Kontera is steady since we have a CPM deal with them.
...from now there will again be many copy-cat sites, and eventually the traffic to my site will again be cut in half. That was the reason why I posted in the first place: to share that a fight against the content thieves has paid off.
It's interesting that there are a lot of threads here about possible reasons for low or declining revenue - advertisers spending less, Google getting "greedy", buyers not clicking, etc.
Seldom do threads start with people wondering if content thieves are causing the problem. Like SusanPilot I've found a lot of people who have taken my content.
Maybe if all the honest publishers got really serious about fighting content thieves more people would experience good results, as did the original poster in this thread.
Of course, there would probably be a few new threads of people complaining their AdSense account just got shut down and they don't understand why. :}
FarmBoy
It was at that point when I told her I had the screenshot, and it was going up on my site forthwith, so she caved.
It was at that point when I told her I had the screenshot, and it was going up on my site forthwith, so she caved.
I've had to resort to similar tactics at times.
But the little guys can be just as annoying. Tons of my photos and content get put on blogs, or posted to forums or groups, without a link, credit, or whatever.
It's very time-consuming to track them down, complain, and take action.
Bit I'm not so fond of the guys who take 20 or more photos and make their own website with them.
Don't get me started on the guys that think "fair use" means they can use other peoples content any time and way they want! Stuff like that has made me a lot less inclined to knowingly share my photos.
No thanks, they can spend several years of their own time accumulating their own photos while traveling the country, that would be fine with me.
But back on topic.
Getting to the point where you make 4,000+ per month from AdSense is one thing, staying there is another.
Like others, my site has grown since 2002. Added AdSense in 2003, and income has been growing along with the site since then.
Last year, monthly average was about 3k, but rising to 9k monthly in the last quarter (plus 1-2 k from other sources). Someone mentioned making a site centered around a seasonal event, and it can definitely be worth it.
Thank goodness for that because if getting there was easy everybody would be doing it.
Someone mentioned making a site centered around a seasonal event, and it can definitely be worth it.
That was me. I pretty much have summer and fall covered; I need to come up with killer ideas for winter and spring, and even it out a bit, heh.
If you ever need any help sorting your money, just give me a shout :O>
