Where is the Money? | Content Marketing




Where is the money?

 #1396274  by walter from walterorlowski.com 
 17 Apr 2018 18:35

I already know what can be accomplished by running a local-traffic-oriented website. I know that a local-traffic-oriented website can generate a significant amount of money from a tiny trickle of traffic. My website has rarely attracted more than 100 visitors per day, but in spite of that, it would consistently generate tens of thousands of dollars per year.

What I don't know is how does traffic translates itself into money, for a general-traffic-oriented websites. I don't know this, because I've never had one.

I have always made it a priority to check how deep is the water before jumping in. And because I decided to try my luck with a new, general-traffic-oriented website, I started asking questions. I started asking questions because there are only a few things which I hate more than wasting time on the unprofitable ventures.

The first step in my research of the SBI-website-potential for my chosen niche was to ask on the forums, and I was cautioned about pursuing what I thought was a good choice for me. I was basically told that my ideas would not make me money.

I was told why it would be difficult to make money from my ideas, and simply changed these ideas, until I started receiving a positive response.

Getting a positive response to my ideas was great, but it was still in the realm of theorizing. I needed more than a theory, and went after the specifics.

My research objectives were simple. I went around asking carefully selected SBI people: “What are your website statistics? What levels of traffic does your website generate, and how does it translate into money?”

Getting this kind of information was not easy, but through sheer persistence, I have learned a great deal.

However, what I have learned was not very encouraging.


read the rest here: Where is the money?

>>Where is the money?

I know a lot of people like to promote going with affiliates, adsense and "general site topic" ebooks, but I've been running my site since 1996 and I've never found these to make more than penny a day, barely reaching a few hundred dollars a year - even before Panda. Obviously my site was not hosted by SBI when I started it and it changed web hosts, I think, 5 times, before I moved it to SBI in 2013.

When it comes to affiliates, I live in Maine, one of the 11 states where use of affiliates is banned. The ban was lifted April 17, 2017, so a year ago yesterday, I started using affiliates and have not seen that reach more than a few hundred total. Though it is slowly increasing, it doesn't look like it'll increase significantly and seeing more than $500 a year from affiliates, appears to be something I can not expect. And while changing to different affiliates is a possibility, I think in the case of my own site, it's not going to help, because I think the problem is that my typical site visitor is not the type of person to click on affiliate links.

My site traffic fluctuates dramatically from one month to the next. In the "off season" (winter and spring) it gets around 14,000 visitors a month and in the "on season" (summer and fall) it gets around 70,000 visitors a month. I saw a dramatic increase in visitor traffic upon moving to SBI, because prior to being on SBI, the most visitors I had in one month was 3,000. So SBI has definitely lived up to their claim that if we follow their steps, we will see traffic.  

>>Where is the money?

When you look at why my site traffic fluctuates, you then see, where the money comes from: local tourists.

I live in Old Orchard Beach, Maine. A tiny fishing village hick town most of the year with 3,000 year round residents. Old Orchard Beach becomes a bustling summer tourist beach front resort town that gets on average 2 million tourists in the month of August. Not many people live here year round, because the first snow fll will hit us in October, come February the temps have dropped to -40F before windchill factor, with wind chill fact it's -120F to -160F most days. We get on average 21 feet of snow each winter, however, some years, like the 2017/2018 year we are having right now, we get more then 100 feet of snow. Today is April 18, 2018, and while most of the country is planting flowers and getting ready for summer... for use, we just got 3 more inches of snow today, and there's another 8 inches expected tomorrow. Snow won't start melting till May. Most of the year we only get 5 hours of daylight, we are that far north. We may be in American territory, but find us on the map and you'll quickly see we are nowhere near the rest of the country and sit firmly jammed up Quebec's **profanity auto removed**, icebergs and all.

And then June comes, and there is no spring, no slight glide into warmer weather, no. We go immediately from 10 feet of snow on the ground today and 120F heat wave tommorow that causes serious flash flooding and deadly mudslides as the snow and ice comes crashing down in meer hours, sending the few people who dare live in this harsh climate to huddle on their rooftops and hope the flash flooding and fast melting snow doesn't take their house and throw it in the ocean and it's way to sea.

And as quickly as it started, the flash flooding ends, ushering in tourist season, with July and August, seeing the onslaught of outsiders, who marvel at the beauty of our state, and tremble in terror at the thought of attempting to live in America's wild untamed forest frontier the rest of the year.

Now....

>>Where is the money?

Head to Google and look for our town. There exists on the internet only one website, exact one website, about our town. Guess who owns it?

You can find business sites: hotels, campgrounds, restaurants... but you want to know ABOUT our town, what life is like here outside of summer, you want to see vlogs of the everyday life of the everyday people who make this town tick... you have to come to me. I have the ONLY website that tells you, EVERYTHING about this town - from the current FBI investigation of the Gypsies who live here and have been dumping bodies in the ravine for the past 40 years, to the lobster war shootouts where lobster men armed with machine guns shoot at each other from their boats, video footage of the Ku Klux Klan marching around town setting fire to the homes of non-whites in our 99.9% white town. The weekly shootouts between drug dealers and police. The Maine mailita as they take 18 wheel logging trucks and empty 100 foot tall pine logs across the roads to close off towns so they can march in with assault rifles and proclaim themselves king of their "sovereign nation". And that's just ONE town in Maine, one tiny town with 3,000 residents.

Business websites, cater to the tourists, show the rare "good" side of our town. Fakeness, made to bring to bring in tourists.

Me? I show the REALITY of our town. What it's REALLY like, behind those postcard perfect photos on the hotels sites. My vlog camera runs 24 hours a day, I never turn it off, and if it's happening, I'm there and I'm recording, and it goes up on my site.

While many hotels HATE me with a vengeance, calling my site bad for business... the fact remains, every summer, on average 30,000 people from all over the country, show up in my driveway, to meet me in person, and tell me how much they love seeing the real every days lives of the real every day people of this town.

>>Where is the money?

I'm an author, artist, and art car designer. I'm also a professional CosPlayer, costume designer, and Voodoo Priestess. Novelist. Most people buy my novels, not ebooks, paperbacks, then seek me out to get me to sign them, mostly so they can tell people they survived the wilds of Maine and meet face to face Maine's infamous wild woman, who was the inspiration for Stephen King's Thinner movie (I'm the Gypsy witch) and to meet the world's most haunted car (the REAL car the that King based Christine off of, which I've owned since 1975) the one with the 20 foot signs in her driveway - 144 of them If you've ever heard of that crazy wild woman author in the woods of Maine with all the crazy signs, that would be me.

>>Where is the money?

Not from adsense.

Not from affiliates.

Not from ebooks.

People buy my novels, buy my art, and buy my services (Voodoo priestess - I perform spells castings, curses, exorcisms, curse removals, do card readings... and I'm not cheap - the average house exorcism costs $500 MINIMUM starting price.)

>>Where is the money?

From my experience? Not online. Direct sales, face to face with locals or tourists in my case, is where the money is. Something, you already knew.

As you stated yourself, it only takes 100 visitors per month, to bring large amounts of income to a local focused site. This is true. Locals are my primary target... or rather tourists seeking to visit here. And the more traffic I get from them, he more my income increases.

You say you already have a local focused site bringing in income... I'd say stick with what works. Stay local. In my experience, local focused niche sites are the winners.











Ads by Amazon