How would you go about investing 1000 dollars to increase income on a site. Currently, I've been making roughly 200/month and I want to increase that to about 400-500. Is it possible with a 1000 dollar investment? To give you more info, I'm currently with Yahoo Publisher Network, Adbrite, and Realtech for my CPM ads. The site is getting roughly 4000 uniques/day with another 1000 -1500 on its forums.
Without knowing what you are doing, it's pretty tough to say what 1000 dollar can do for you. What's your website about? Selling links could be option (and bring that additional 200-300) without need to spend any dollars. Have you considered that?
If you bring in 4000 uniques per day you should seriously take a look at your ad positioning, that is more then enough traffic to make $1000 / mo. My friend gets about 300 day and makes a few hundred each week but we spent a lot of time on ad positioning. That is unless you are going after a technology niche, most tech people don't click ads.
Maybe you could buy an ad spot on one of your competitor's websites. You could increase your website's reader base by that.
I will suggest buying ad spot to increase reader base only if your website is such that you want loyal visitors.
The site is in a celebrity/movie based niche. I think one of the main reasons I am not making a bunch of cash is the fact that I can't use Google Adsense due to banning. I am currently using Adbrite and Yahoo Publisher Network and both of these revenue sources do not deliver targeted ads.
With that much traffic you should be making alot more I think! You might consider getting some quality directory links such as BOTW as an investment -
Regarding the investment here is what I do. First of all I am not in a hurry. I am subscribed to site sales feeds such as DP and SP and when a site in my niche is for sale I buy it. Then I connect the sites in seo terms (relevant links). The benefits are : 1) you earn the extra money from the new site 2) both sites are getting better search engine results 3) you learn how the previous owner made the new site (the one you bought) get traffic. In most cases you gain some things that you can do in your other site. I know this is a slow way to make more money but it is for sure a good one if you look in future too.
You should definitely sign up for the audio ads coming out Feb. 1. Its one more way to monetize your site. Also, don't be afraid to put some affiliate programs (lead stuff) on your site. The consensus seems to be that affiliate programs make more than PPC and CPM on a eCPM basis. Theres some guy selling 1 million submissions to directories and the like for $10 here on dp. Also, you can buy traffic that complies with the TOS of your advertisers. I suggest that you spend a little money with different things to see what works. After you figure out what works, put in the big bucks. Just my 2 cents.