Hello, I run a website that offers open source (free) website templates for download that I have created. The problem is I have no idea how to effectively monetize the website. It's currently getting around 8,000-10,000 uniques per month and the only income i've managed to make from it is by selling text links privately. I have had Adsense setup since the website was first created but the performance of it has been... crappy. The link is below; http://www.ginger-ninja.net/ Can you recommend any other ways I can monetize this website? Many thanks.
For adsense, you will have to target search engine traffic for best results. How much traffic are you getting from search engine monthly? You can also try to put up a horizontal link unit at the top for better performance.
Last month I got 1124 uniques from search engines. The majority of my traffic comes from backlinks and/or websites with articles listing some of the best free templates... Or were a developer has converted one of my templates into a Wordpress theme. I'll try out the horizontal link unit. Thanks.
Looking at your website, I'm getting a PR6. You should have no problem selling links through TLA (text-link-ads.com -- non affiliate link), they keep 50% but they do a great job of selling your link space. I just added a PR5 site and within a month I'm already selling close to $100/month in text link ads for that site alone... I think it's totally worth it, especially considering there is no obligation to keep it up if you aren't satisfied. PS: in case you're feeling generous here is my affiliate link: http://www.text-link-ads.com/?ref=15492 EDIT: I'm not advertising their services for any particular reason except that I've been using TLA almost exclusively on all my better sites for over a year and find them to be great.
I've tried TLA a couple of times and I never really got off the ground with it. Besides, i've sold the space for text links already and it wouldn't be fair to cram more links in. Thanks though.
We have some very successful publishers on our team and if you want to give us another shot, I'd love to help you if I can. Our ever-growing advertiser base is great for publishers. It's very possible that your links were priced properly or the description wasn't what the advertisers were looking for, but I do want to encourage you to give us another try.
I would definitively use TLA (in case you don't have time to manage by yourself to find clients and schedule their next payment due). Other ways, you could try sell links by yourself, offer banner advertising and so on. You could also start a corner with xHTML/CSS tutorials and build some more content to your site optimize and blend AdSense ads (if adsense already works good for you) with your content. Just my 2 cents.
I managed to sell my own text links which is as far as i'm prepared to go with that form of advertising. Banners wouldn't really be a problem I suppose, I just dont want it to look crammed. However, I must thank you Trapped for your idea to start a tutorials section and build more content. I think this is the problem to be honest... I have a big lack of actual content on there. Thanks alot guys, much appreciated.
I love it when a thread starts and someone from the company jumps in with a little help..that is so cool Way to go TLA! <side note> I can't wait for someone from Stumble jumps in on those, "You do me, and I'll do you " threads. It's going to be Monumental.