Hi all, I am running a website 'BharatTutors . com' for last 3 years. Its an online platform to connect student and tutors in India. So far 15,000 students and tutors have joined the site and accomplishing their tutoring needs. So far, all services are 100% free at site and haven't used any ad on the site. It's a niche wesite and targets audience only in India. In last 3 years, I invested the money in Google Adwords/ Facebook ads, and now I want to make money from this site. Can anyone suggest me what may be the best way to monetize this site? FYI: Its getting 1,500 hits a week. Thanks.
I would really suggest charging the tutors a small fee. It is way more profitable and better than ads if you are really getting the students. Offer some feature to premium tutors and charge them a certain amount of money.
What about 1 free week/month and then upsell on other services or begin to charge a weekly/monthly fee for the service. Once someone gets something for free, they will appreciate your service and begin paying you.
Adsense is always a option but I agree with Felix offer something for free and try to upsell some type of premium service.
Bro You can display adds of some educational institutes and universities which pay per lead/query and later on conversion/admission also. Suppose your 1500 visitors go and 150 fill query form of sikkim manipal university on your site for distance learning and if you get 100 INR per form your earning becomes 15000 INR for that week and also when someone takes admission. Weekly income increases with increase in traffic You can also display ads of other sites like shopping etc. for any help,feel free to contact me.
You may want to consider marketplaces like BuySellAds. A website generally needs over 50,000 impressions but they will approve websites with less traffic that have unique content or serve a unique purpose. If you site is truly connecting people, you may have a chance of getting approved. BuySellAds also likes sites that are well-designed and have social proof. Once approved, you are able to connect with advertisers interested in buying ad spots. They handle all the serving of the ads for you with their ad code and you are able to control the price. They take a certain percentage (I think 25% of revenue). You can make a solid income.
Thanks all for prompt responses. Recently, I added a new membership category as 'Institute' at the site. I am planning to follow Freemium model, where some of the services for institutes and tutors will be paid. My plans also include to reach certain advertisers personally, and invite them to advertise at my site (I already have got one and 20 slots are still open). While finalizing my plans I'll keep in mind all of given suggestions here.