making a living

[slowhost]

Hello all,

Been preety quiet recently with my none website related business, i play about with mini sites as a bit of a hobby and have a few that dont really make much money but i still seam to spend alot of my time playing about with them and like the challenge of getting them to the top off the search engines...

anyway just wanted to know if anyone makes a full time living of mini sites on here? ie £300 + a week, if so how many sites do you have and what with affiliates, storeburst, adsense?

I`m thinking of going to college to do a course on web design or seo to try and make an income via personel websites and make a living..

thanks for any comments/advice

 

[RSK3000]

With a living wage probably nearer £500 per week after expenses, this is a tough thing to do just with mini sites. However, its not impossible. If thats your aim I would guess you need to be thinking about selling things such as information products/ downloadable software and things like that.

 

[slowhost]

Thanks for the response,

well i was thinking 20 sites all making around £20 a week would cover it without any expenses being needed bar domain and hosting, I`d be impressed if any novice web designer (like me) makes that but i`m betting someones out there does...I believe its all about the hits...

I personally dont think the product has to be that important (probably wrong) i mean :

if youve got a domain getting 500+ hits a day there is alot of money to be made off a combination of adsense, affiliates, selling banner space ect but getting that ammount of hits is the hard part in my mind...

I know if i had a domain that got that sort of traffic everyday no matter what the subject i`d be onto a winner but to this day i havent made or bought it, altho i keep looking and trying...

I know no one will want to let onto the sites they make money on but if anyone would like to divuldge an average ammount you make from a single "minisite" (under 20 pages) in a week i`d be gratefull as it would help me with my decision...

 

[woopwoop]

if youve got a domain getting 500+ hits a day there is alot of money to be made off a combination of adsense, affiliates, selling banner space ect but getting that ammount of hits is the hard part in my mind...

For me (for most of my websites) it's the opposite. Even my websites with 500+ uvs a day, it's not translating into clicks. Also PPC rates seem to have gone to the floor

 

[springer]

I think it is very possible to be making good money from adsense with one page (600-1000 word content) plus privacy policy and about page.

This method is discussed here: http://www.acorndomains.co.uk/mini-...inisite-development-blueprint.html#post221519

What do those one page adsense sites look like?
Kettler Rowing Machine page one in google.

I wouldn't rely on Adsense to earn a living from though.

 

[slowhost]

I`d love to have a site with 500 hits a day,

i spose it does matter what industry the name is in, but i had a few sites with adsense, and never made more than £5.00 a week on adsense,

i`ve heard of ppl making hundreds a week with adsense tho and i`m only guessing thats with alot of hits...but i`m not a fan of it anymore..

i think if your getting 500+ hits to your site everyday you could sell advertising space on it for that industry for a large sum..and sack the adsense off...

 

[woopwoop]

I think it is very possible to be making good money from adsense with one page (600-1000 word content) plus privacy policy and about page....

I wouldn't rely on Adsense to earn a living from though.

I agree with both of these points.

It really depends what you want to do with a website. Even if the goal is to make money there are 2 choices:

(1) make money in a way which may be sustainable - very useful content, very stick website, return visitors, links will come without trying too hard or

(2) build sites which have adsense strategically positioned, ad units all over, some content to draw traffic and focus on building the links.

And then there's a mixture of the two options or even having some sites in each category.

I can't retire yet though

 

[accelerator]

I would try and do more business analysis, think hard about how to identify what the profitable sectors on the internet are. It's not purely about raw click numbers, there are so many more factors than that. One thing that helped me was an interest in investment and reading the Investor's Chronicle for years before moving into the internet, as that gave me a good "feel" for profitability. Watch the adverts on TV and take note which adverts are on more often and think why etc etc.

Another thing, I would focus on affiliate networks rather than AdSense, because commission levels are much higher with affiliate commissions. Join the networks and go looking for the high payout areas by looking at the merchant commission levels being offered.

Rgds

 

[RSK3000]

There are many routes to the £300 a week you are after. People make money online in all sorts of ways and you have to find the way thats right for you because you will be spending a lot of time with these sites.

Minisites seem a good idea. They are generally 'build and forget' which means they generate revenue without you doing much to them. Be aware that, depending on the niche you might end up having to build 100+ sites. Also, it takes time to organise the content, do the SEO stuff and get backlinks. From what I have read, £20 per month seems to be more realistic and you might have to build 150 sites to get 100 that generate £20 consistently. Niche selection and high paying keywords are fairly important as well.

Thats why some people advocate the creation of a smaller number of 'authority sites'. You can dominate a niche, especially if the sites appeal to a similar group/ niche. Your site becomes the site people go to when they want to get the latest news/ gossip whatever.

Either way if you are going for a simple ad revenue business model you may end up having to produce 1000 + pages, and probably much more, before you see decent money coming in.

Here is an interesting thread from another forum, (from 2006 but still valid) that readers of this thread might find of interest.
My Bank Statement - Monthly Earnings from AM - SitePoint Forums

The point is people are making money both ways.................

 

[snooze]

I try to mix the type of sites that I have - even though most of them use adsense. I find technology sites difficult to maintain because of the constant change and fight to keep your ranking.

So think carefully about your business model, subject area and the time need to get the return you want.

 

[getmein]

I think the best strategy is to take a portfolio of mini sites, see which ones show promise and then invest your time in promoting them. By doing this, you get a feeling for which niches pay well.

If you've got your adsense linked to analytics - you can look at the pages/keywords that are generating your traffic and clicks, put them into a ranking tool and then target these for future promotion. For example, you see that you are generating revenue from the term 'wireless routers compared' and then you check where you rank for that (say you rank 6)- and then build more content around that and do keyword specific link building. If you can improve the site to 3, then it follows ceteris paribus you'll get more traffic, more clicks and more revenue.

So while the large network is a great way to test different niches, to generate sizeable revenue I think you need to use the feedback you get from your network to point you in the right direction as far as stage 2 (promotion) is concerned.

 

[slowhost]

thanks for the reply`s and interesting comments, i`ve decided to test the water with two sites both around the same exacts on gkwt and both similar ammount of sites in the google search for keywords both totally different subjects, one with adsense one with affiliate links only just got them on the web over the weekend...new names so i`ll wait and see what happens...

just a couple of questions...

1, how do you get your content? I know you`ll all recommend building a site i`m interested in so i can add my own content but what if i want upto date content, and competetors have that content? i cant just get it off them and post on my site... any ideas?

2, how do you get your sites into google? i know about digg,reddit and a couple of stat checking sites that give quick links but as i dont have a site hub network as such is there any other ways?

thanks for anymore advice

 

[RSK3000]

1.) Content - write your own or pay someone to do it for you.There are a few people on this forum providing a content writing service.

2.) Google - if you link to you new sites from some of your old sites you could be ranked quickly. New sites take a while to settle down in Google - so be prepared for your ranking to go up and down for a few months.

.......and some links in your sig here would do no harm, too.

 

[slowhost]

cheers for that, basically what i had in mind, when using content writers in the past i havent been to specific and have ended up with a 1000 words of original content but i`d prefer to have fairly small snipets/bullet points of content that ppl will look at and be interested to know about...

I was thinking more of breaking news i have thought about buying magazines/ renting books about certain subjects..ect

i`ll try and be more specific next time i order content...

 

[springer]

Getting into Google: Bookmark using something like Socialmarker. If your site is/has a blog then ping it and submit to RSSMillion, BaddRSS, FeedAgg and FeedAge.

You need backlinks- write articles on sites such as GoArticles and ezinearticles.

Read this: 7 Ways to Find SEO Gold on Google

 

[khalid]

keep in mind longevity....will your mini sites still be profitable in 12-24 months?

will someone build a site with 10 pages and a better domain against your 5 page site with newly regged name?

...have an exit strategy also.

 

[slowhost]

Getting into Google: Bookmark using something like Socialmarker. If your site is/has a blog then ping it and submit to RSSMillion, BaddRSS, FeedAgg and FeedAge.

You need backlinks- write articles on sites such as GoArticles and ezinearticles.

Read this: 7 Ways to Find SEO Gold on Google

I have a little blog on one of my site`s, cant say its the best as i dont have a clue how to set it up but how do i ping it? once i have sorted one out i`ll start more...

thanks for the help