I've got a couple of sites containing funny pictures taken from sites such as Reddit and 4Chan. Now I'm trying to monetize them in some way. They are getting a fair amount of traffic and I'm currently using adsense. However, they aren't generating enough clicks to make them profitable. I'm also concerned of getting banned by adsense because of the content which is sometimes adult oriented. Is it really possible to make money from sites like this without resorting to popups and malware? It seems that the people browsing my sites are seldom looking to buy stuff... Any ideas would be great!
You will fail, no matter what. There are tons of huge 4chan/funny pictures sites which you can never compete with. Like mybfolder.org and stonercomics.net but there are more, A LOT MORE!
That was my guess as well. I've got a couple of good domains, so my initial goal for these sites was to start recieving lots of traffic and then making a couple of dollars per site each, just to sell the sites off to someone else. Perhaps I can find a buyer who hasn't read this thread.
You wont necessarily fail with this site, experiment with your adsense placement, you'd be surprised how many more clicks you'll get from moving your ad/changing the ad size. Look at some popular sites in the niche and see where their ads are placed, cause chances are they've tweaked their ads themselves if they've been around long enough. If you're getting decent traffic at the moment there's no reason why you cant get more, just keep on working and you'll see it continue growing, and traffic = money. I once ran a general flash arcade (which I slacked off with CONSIDERABLY), which probably has way more competition than your site does, and I had a couple 30-40 dollar months with adsense before traffic vanished during the summer.. it never really came back and I wasn't interested in developing it so I ended up closing it. I'm sure if I had continued working on it I could have easily been making 5 times that right now. Competition doesn't equal failure, it should just give you more motivation to be a fierce competitor. EDIT: OH and also, try switching your ads from text and image to just image. I did that with my current site (which is also a funny picture blog, but with a more specific niche) and my CTR definitely increased. If that doesn't work you can always switch back, but I found that people going to your site for images are much more likely to click on an image ad than a text ad, at least that was the case for me.
Of course people who search funny pictures will not buy anything. If your site is adult oriented, why don't you make it full adult site? Remove the adsense and you join adult affiliate program.
It's unlikely you'll make a huge amount of money but if you want to do this as a learning experience or a side business then by all means.
Sorry Dude but I think you will fail on this. The bandwagon is full, with competition like stonercomics.net and soo much more, this will fail. But that´s only my opinion.
Exactly, and that's your problem. People are visiting your site to view funny pictures, not to buy things. If you are likely to be banned from Adsense and there is adult content, what about adult advertising?
I also have a site like that and I can tell you that AdSense sucks...my eCPM is less than $0,50 and the position of these ads is great! So, I got approved by ValueClickMedia (a CPM network). Their rates are very low but at least, I don't have to worry about clicks...I will do my best to increase pageviews on my website - this way I will earn more! The great thing is, this type of sites is very easy to maintain, update and promote....Just submit your posts to Facebook and StumbleUpon and you could get at least 500 pageviews per day. Of course this amount of pageviews won't make you rich but it's a nice and quick start! PM me me if you need some help...or if you would like to join ValueClickMedia
Remove adult contents and images or that appears adult. It will help you to get quality ads by adsense and it will give you good ranking as well as traffic.
you must make sure first that your website is competitive enough to win over other sites that contain similar pictures.
(HERE IS MY IDEA) I am a web designer... ok. Im a geek on the internet all damn day, looking for dudes like you. I run a site called numbheads.com. (THIS SITE IS THE ONLY ONE) On my site you can get paid for uploading those stupid/funny pics. This is not spam. I could pretend to be a fan of the site, but no im one of the guys who runs it. IM being real here. We are the only site that does this! U dont get much but it can be passive money, so the more views you get the more money you make!
I think the ad placement is very important. Place your ads on the right area. Try heatmap, it will tell you which area of your website the cursor is been taken more, which area is getting clicked more etc. With this insights you can then revise your ad placements. All The Best!
What you want to do is put a link to a lead capture page at the end of the description for the picture and have people share the picture, Also Make sure your pictures are funny but also valuable at the same time. I actually use this strategy with videos on my facebook profile and I mix it up with pictures and quotes that are valuable to get people to share my content. Make sure you are updating pictures on a consistent daily basis that way it is incentive to have people come back if they like your pictures. In order for people to buy they must first know,like and trust you. Set up an autoresponder so you can build a relationship with your following. If you are just directing to your sales page, it is hit or miss. Make sure you are building a list.
A while back I experimented with a similar site (also with wallpaper and screensaver sites) and I hate to disappoint you, but it was really hard to get quality traffic to those sites that would convert well. The only feasible solution to this in your case would be you need to grow really big. Just keep getting noticed here and there for the next few months, see if you can double (or triple) your traffic. As far as AdSense, just make sure their ads are not displayed in the sexually explicit content areas of your site. Place, maybe, bidvertise.com ads in those areas instead. I don't think they are as restrictive.