BuyMeToTheStars.com - Could you help me with possible monetisation strategies?

Hi,

I've recently redesigned my "space tourism news and articles" website, called http://www.BuyMeToTheStars.com/.

Originally, the site was designed to promote a challenge I was undertaking: To become the world's first student space tourist. It was created at the height of the MillionDollarHomepage fever, and I decided to sell "virtual stars" on my home page. I have retained this feature, albeit in a slightly more content-based fashion. People can still purchase their stars, but the site is mainly geared towards space tourism news and articles.

My questions include:

a) How can I increase traffic to the site? This is my primary goal at the moment. Currently I'm having articles written about space tourism organisations etc, which I plan to submit to article directories. I'm also going to post on space-based forums and have my link in the signature. Finally, I'm having a press release written professionally which will be submitted to good PR sites, so hopefully that will help too. I might also use Digg, Stumbleupon etc. Any thoughts on this?

b) Once I have this traffic at the site, what do you think are good strategies for monetisation? I would really like some help with my Google AdSense placement. However, I sometimes feel that Google Ads can look "tacky" and detract from the professional feel of the site. Does anybody have any good tips about including these ads with regard to both good CTR and design integration?

c) Should I consider selling text-links on my website, and if so, for what price? It is PR5, but has very little traffic at the moment. This is why my main goal is to increase traffic.

d) Can anyone provide suggestions on the overall content/style/layout etc that may be hampering usability/SEO or another factor I haven't considered? I've recently updated my site-wide meta-tags as I saw that the Joomla CMS default meta-data was coming up (stupid!). Hopefully this will change in the next Google Update. I'm 10th on google for "Space Tourism News" and am approximately 160th for "Space Tourism".

Thanks for taking the time to review the site, all comments are very much appreciated.

Mike.

 

1. You can increase traffic by investing in advertising from people through thier website or other ways of advertising. You can also go out and spread the word yourself through word of mouth or word of Email or w.e
2... thats all the help i can think off because i have to go ill write mroe later

 

nice site but take off the exit pop up that will get me to stop visiting your site

 

Hi tigrrra,

What exactly do you mean by "exit popup"? Is there a popup occuring on the site that I'm not aware of? Maybe it's been compromised...!?

Thanks for pointing it out though! I'll investigate...

Mike.

 

I cant see this either, strange?

 

You may try to start the bookmaker agency on the topic of the space flights.

 

I'm sorry Artisan, what exactly do you mean by "start the bookmaker agency"?

 

This might be best off posted elsewhere than the website review section. You might get more feedback this way on how to improve your site.

Not that sure if I'm keen on the header image used, its a bit simple and uses up a fair bit of space too. I like the rest of the site though.

 

You could provide the people with a way to bet on the space related events,
just like the people bet on the football (soccer) or horse races events.

 

I agree with the other comments - the header is waaay too big.

How about more community tools? Forum links to a story perhaps?