Hello, I am involved with a successful hobbyist website. We have been around for ten years, have about 20,000 members, about 1.5-million page views per month and grow at something more that 30% per year. The group that owns and runs the website is far more interested in our community and its activities than in maximizing the short term revenues of the site. Collectively we are older and have a fair amount of business acumen, but our strategy has been and remains to grow our traffic and serve our community rather than generate revenues. That said, we're beginning to think that we are leaving money on the table by not organizing ourselves to be more hospitable to advertising. Also, I think our community would probably like 'special offers' and that kind of thing (everybody loves a deal). My task is to collect information on this topic, and I've found this website, which is very interesting, but the threads are, as always, pointed and discursive rather than focused. I've spent some time exploring the resources Digital Point Forums offer (it's a great place), but would appreciate any direction that anyone has to offer. Let me clarify--I'm not particularly interested in seo or strategies for growing traffic (that seems to take care of itself nicely). I'm interested in how this advertising business works, and I'm a complete neophyte. Thanks.
yo dude, the easiest possible way to get advertising is to just sign up for google adsense: https://www.google.com/adsense They'll match advertisers to your content and pay you on a per click basis.
Adsense is good for quick 'fairly targetted' advertising. Affiliates are best - there are brokers eg Comission Junction. You can choose who to advertise, and which of their ads to run, or leave it on autopilot - or do a bit of both. The rules of play are a little different with each advertiser....you don't get paid per click with affiliates. As a general rule you are paid when an action is completed, usually a sale, a lead or sometimes both. A good example is a site of mine on which I run a banner for a credit card company. The page is about getting quick finance, so its well targeted. It receives about 100 clicks a day - I get $0 per click. About 20 of these clicks turn into leads - and I am paid $1.50 per lead. 3 - 5 of these leads convert into sales, and I am awarded a commission based on how much credit the customer took. Generally its in the region $100 - $300 commission, sometimes more. The beauty of affiliates is that they usually have a 30 day cookie. The user may not fill in the form after clicking the ad - but if they return to the credit card site - either through my site or on their own and become a lead, or even a sale - I am still paid. Hope this helps. Jordan
That great that you have site with 20000 member. For that size of site,it should be a problem to get revenue either from ads network or link sales. If your site have high PR it more good coz people will pay as high as $50/month to put their link at the website with PR.Beside that,you're also should try out other type of ads network such as pop up ads/full page ads etc to diversity your earning.
With 1.5M page views, i think Adbrite works well with your site! Find some entertainment products from Clickbank and promote them!