How to Monetize? Funny website with 100 000 unique visits/month

I am the owner of a funny pictures website that I have been keeping advertising free on purpose.

Having hit the 100 000 unique visitors mark constantly for a couple of last months I feel that I should go ahead and monetize the site.

What do you guys think are my best options to start converting my traffic into money?

The site in question: www.moneyandshit.com

 

My best bet will be adsense or maybe putting an amazon widget in the sidebar selling some funny movie dvd's..

 

I've tested with adsense actually for half a day.

Got something like 5000 impressions but 0 clicks.
It seems that people are too busy looking at the pictures to bother clicking on ads.

 

I'm guessing most of your traffic comes from image searches, which is going to make it hard to monetize (image traffic is generally less valuable than web search traffic). That said, I think you should give Adsense another try and experiment with ad placement, colors, image ads, etc. I'd also consider starting an opt-in mailing list so you can market products directly to people who are interested. In-text advertising, links Infolinks, is another one to consider - the payouts are low compared to Adsense but it might be worthwhile considering you have fairly high traffic.

 

And where did you put the adsense.. in the sidebar, above/below the content?

 

You guess wrong - less than 1% of my traffic comes from image searches. Most come from Facebook, Stumbleupon, Reddit, Digg and other websites.
I might give the mailing list a try. Sounds like a good idea.

 

Exactly below each picture - as this is the best placement as far as I know... didn't work too good though.

 

And what sizes? Regular banner size or odd sizes? Just asking because if I'm right then in odd sized banners videos can play also from the google side.

 

You should try the email list with some products in the bottom of the joke once a week. Or simply take an offer from affiliate networks.

 

Any more ideas? I am especially looking for something that will go with the site's main theme - fun.

 

Ah, right - unfortunately, the same still applies as to image search. Social bookmarking traffic in particular seems to be quite fickle and hard to monetize. A list allows you to market to people and develop repeated contacts, rather than just having lots of people popping into your site for a few seconds and then "stumbling" off somewhere else. As for what you can actually sell, you need to analyze your market and figure out what they're buying.

 

with the amount of traffic you are getting, you can use affiliate advertising and probably you are communicating with your audience via survey, a lot of advertisers will pay for leads, look for Affiliate Networks who are willing to pay for leads (e.g. dating sites)

 

I wonder why the op has not done anyhing for revenue even after getting so many visitors. I don't reccomend adsense as you get less than 1$ in very click which comes in 100 impressions and since your site is funny no one will bother clicking on your ads. I reccomend you go to clickbank and promote some products related to your topic although it sdifficult to find but still any thing related to fun will do. Also CPAlead will be a better option for that

 

I will suggest add a 160*600 wide skyscrapper on the right of blog and a simple banner below each pic and don't forget to use a large rectangle.
Thats great you have so many unique visitors so try using banner ads over link ads

 

try some CPM companies maybe? but not with popups but with usual banners

 

your going abotu this all wrong! I looked at your site (which btw is hilarious) and have you tried putting ads on the pictures since thats what people are looking at? Try looking into Pixazza, ImageSpaceMedia, or gumgum..let me know if one of these help!

 

I think you should use layers and popups. Also video ads could be an option.

 

Maybe you can try to put banner at your website and promote your affiliate link....

 

I would definitely look at building a mailing list and getting some video on there. Mailing list will be quick and easy to build cos people like what you have and it also offers a recurring revenue stream.

Video can also offer pretty high rates per view which on your site could do well, as it is a good fit, keeps the site fun and will fit in nicely within the main content area. I've used a couple of agencies on my own sites that have provided a constant stream of viral videos to place on sites with good rates so let me know if you want their details.

 

With such traffic Adsense would be the most obvious choice