Yesterday, I set up an image hosting website called Imagelicio.us. I have never really looked into ways to generate traffic or revenue. I use AdBrite to monetize the site, but I think I should use AdSense as a starter monetizing method. What do you think? As for traffic goes, what are some good, free ways to generate lots of traffic? And on the other hand, what are some good ways that you need to invest some money into before getting traffic? One more question, do image hosting websites generate much revenue, or would it make a little money here and there for a 17 year old kid to do whatever he wants with it? Please let me know your views on this, as I really want the site to take off. With all the other image hosting competition out there, it is probably going to be difficult getting regular users to use my image hosting service.
It is hard, but possible to make money with image hosting sites with this competiton out there (tinypic, imageshack, photobucket, flickr). You can generate some traffic and revenue with uploading adult (if you allow them) or celebrity pictures and post them as thumbnails on popular related posts. Make sure they are thumbnails and the users need to click to go to your site to see the full version. Then load the image viewing pages with ads from AdBrite. However, I do not recommend AdSense on image hosting site, because imagine if someone uploads adult images and people click on ads besides the images - you don't follow the ToS and get banned... Not worth it at all... Hope I was helpful!
I am only 17 years old (well, 17 in 18 days ), so adult content is pretty much out of the question, haha. I mean, I could get away with it, but to be honest I wouldn't really want that content on my site anyways. From what I know, and what information I have gathered, AdBrite would probably be the best advertising method as long as I can get some traffic flowing in. AdBrite pays per page impressions, AdSense pays per click. People that visit image hosting websites go there to host their images, not to check out other sites or click on advertisements, so getting paid per page impression would most likely be my best bet, right? Your post did get me interested in hosting celebrity pictures and posting them as thumbnails, but what kind of websites would I post them on? Could you give me some links to sites I could sign up at that would work best for that type of advertising method? Also, I see a lot of traffic being sold in the Buy/Sell/Trade area of these forums. My guess is, if somebody happens to stumble (no, not StumbleUpon) over an image hosting website, they're not gonna just up and host every picture they have on their computer. So, would paying somebody to get traffic be effective at all?
I understand that you do not and will not post adult pictures in your site, but you can not control what others upload. You will get banned in no time, before you can remove the questioned picture, so don't risk IMO. Use AdBrite. And yes CPM ads work better for image hosting sites. You can Google for popular celebrity forums. You could also use those thumbnails whenever possible (in your blog etc). Another way to drive traffic is social bookmarking like SU (yes, StumbleUpon - it's free, consistent (for a while) and mostly US based, so it's useful), Digg (never had success from Digg though ). I highly DO NOT RECOMMEND you to buy traffic. Rely on real visitors instead of bots. Also, why should you pay when you can get it for free using the above methods? Thanks and you can give me some rep if I was helpful.
And possibly review the file before it gets public... before it's too late. It's too much efford and I don't think it's worth it anyway, but you could try if you want.
Thanks for clearing that up (about purchasing traffic). I was thinking about doing it earlier, but now I'm glad that I didn't. Now that I think about it, it would be really dumb to buy traffic, hah. Bots can't upload pictures. True, but now that I think about it, I'd rather not risk it. I have had my AdSense account for a long time now, and I don't want to lose it because I wasn't careful.
You could post some images on my site - you'd get a free permanent backlink which would bring in traffic. Good luck! Cheers, p.
My site at http://www.topimagehost.org gets visitors everyday and I have no idea how! I recommend submitting gallery pages from your image hosting site to digg. And then traffic follows somehow. I have no idea really..
Is it just me or you don't have any ads? Diggers love sites without ads, but I can not afford that...