Making Money on Your Site

I don't know if this is right forum for this or if it has been discussed elsewhere but I'll have at it. I'm guessing a lot of people on this forum have similar situations.

My site is content based (retirement savings advice for government employees). It has been growing and my readers have relayed to me that they find the info invaluable which has led to the site getting a lot of word of mouth traffic. It's for a concentrated group of people (gov't employees) so it doesn't do me much good to get traffic from just anywhere. Google's AdWords has allowed me to target the group I'm looking for, and I have been happy with the CTR (13.9%) and that is at .05 a click. So my costs aren't too bad but it is a cost I know I could cut with good SEO.

The question is, what's the best way to make money on a content site? My goal is to help as many people as possible understand their retirement accounts so if I charge for the site, which I believe will make me decent money, I won't be helping as many people because many people are still leary about paying for anything online. I use Adsense which brings in about what others here are saying, some days better than others. I tried affiliate links but that just seems to be a waste of time and space. I have sent a couple of emails to company's marketing departments that would benefit from placing an inexpensive banner on a site that targets this group but they pretty much ignore me. I have even considered one of those PayPal "Donate" buttons but that sounds cheesy to me. I guess whatever works. Does anybody here use that and if so, how has it done for you? I sent a buck to someone the other day after a I used a cool tool they offered but I have no problems with buying things online.

Many of the sites you folks own are great traffic generators offering super content and services. How are you making it worth your time?

Thanks.

 

Thanks for your reply. I guess I better not use my www.TSPguru.com domain anymore.

 

Personally, if you wanted to charge for content, I think you'd be better off giving away some of the more common, useful resources and charging for your more advanced products...

(I.E. if Shawn was going to charge for his tools, he'd offer the AdSense Sandbox, Keyword Suggestion Tool, Search, and Tracker for free while charging for the Keyword position and a few other tools.)

 

That is a possibilty, just paying for advanced content. Thanks.

I'm still interested in feedback on the PayPal "Donate" button option. Cheesy?

Exactly!

 

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Content and donations

my site ever since was fully content oriented - nothing at all to sell. even now.
now the only difference - in addition to all online content i offer exactly the same in offline version as packed file or on mini-cd.

ALL ( ten thousands $ for SW and HW, ...) of the full time expenses of this life time job are paid by honest donations only

and it works !

i never made any paid advertisement.
Good content meeting the NEEDS of a certain group of people such as your group of government employees - such people are searching

my people search me

hence my focus is and always was SEO to make all information - each individual page as easily and relevantly available to each individual query or problem a person may enter.
giving him certitude that he found what he was looking for.


IF your site has many pages ..
then you may offer as well all as a download eBook or compressed zip file or on cd ...
as a additional convenience for the readers to have all handy at home whenever needed for future reference.
anything that brings direct benefits of any kind to mankind always is worth a donation to many - to enough to assure you being out of
having to think about how to finance your help and all recurring expenses for helping.

and add a PayPal button.

if you have nothing at all for sale
offer only help and advice for the financial benefit of others - THEN YOU should have no expenses at all
and if it is your full time job helping hundred thousands of gov employees to get more legal money for their purpose
then you should be able to live from the honest donations made by the many gov employees financially benefitting from
your help, advice and work.

helping OTHERS should NEVER be a financial burden for the helpers.
helping others is important - as millions in many different areas need help
and their benefit from receiving help also
is reflected by their financial benefits - hence they may easily be willing to share your overall expenses ( overall expenses being ALL
HW, SW and living expenses for any fulltime service ).

a very long time a go i did similar than now - but without web site - and for a long time i strictly refused to accept donations from anyone
no matter how many hours at once they visited me ..

i had a hard time - working OFF duty hours - being tired when they needed help ( my services were offered 24/7 )
being stressed finding a job suiting my off hours to make money paying for the help
and even more important

i realized that some felt bad receiving valuable help and advice and NOT being allowed to give anything valuable in return.
i realized that sometimes they would come more often to benefit more frequently from my services
but they refrained from doing so because of missing exchange in BOTH directions.

then i changed to honest donation system more than a decade ago
( and run a clinic from the very beginning entirely on that system successfully for a while )
and now all can benefit as much as they love to
and share when they love and how much they love to share
or benefit for free ..

 

Thanks hans! I appreciate the info.

 

Hans, Interesting info, it was a good read

 

I don't think a paypal donate button is cheesy. But just don't expect to make a lot from it either. What about adsense? I'm not familiar with your topic, but if there are ads available for the subject matter, then adsense might be the best way to go. It has made a lot of content providers very happy.

 

Thanks. I use AdSense and it has done OK for me. It basically covers my AdWords bill

So far the donate button has been a flop.

 

Tom- I am not totally familiar with your situation (I learned a small amount about it after visiting my brother who is in the military and does some tsp related financing) but I wonder if you'd be able to offer a 'premium services' portion where your visitors could get even more valuable tips, things you've seen working better than your average joe user tips. Not sure if this could be done or not, but if your users see the simple things working they will spring with their new found profits to find out these more profitable tips.

 

i think sclottke is corect. good luck with your business : ]

 

What is wrong with you?
the tread is 3 years old damnit!

 

Just Luck ,the other may not like!