How hard is it for a web site to make $500 a month?

[stock_post]

From my experience you need to dedicate yourself and keep working on the site and you will defiantly make money.
As long as you know what you are doing!

 

[copper]

I used to have several sites with strong keywords. They were at the top of Google for a few years for those words. But, suddenly, they disappeared from Google.
It took several years to rehabilitate them. But revenue ain't the same anymore.

This may have something to do with "Google Caffeine" shit.

I also have one site that was on not top, but, #11 - #14 for few years for highly competitive keywords.

This keywords get 301,000/month exact search volume and I used to compete with huge sites such as newegg.com,
geeks.com, tomshardware.com, pricewatch.com, tigerdirect.com, anandtech.com...

So, this isn't small niche keywords. It's huge. Thus, I was rather proud of being on #11 for few years

Few days ago, mine got on #9, but, stayed there just for few days.
Now? Mine is on page 7

I know it's "Google Caffeine" shit since I did NOT make major changes which may have caused major drop.

If someone's really doing that, I find it hard to believe he's going to share the information!

This is so true.
Who would?

 

[dn-101]

i have no problem discussing any of it. Well, maybe psycho-sexo-patho...
Early on Goog was as simple and plain like a baby. It didn't take much to reverse-engineer it's ranking algo... piece of cake.
Now it acts like an adolescent with pms

 

[Deleted member 111831]

1 site making $500 a month? Not that hard. 100 sites making $500 a month? Very hard. The latter is my goal, not there yet.

 

[ezguy]

if you build 100 sites two sites might make $500 per month

 

[markts]

Good content, good SEO and some time and it's easy. We've had .info domains that made upper $xxxx in three months (event) and have had monthly adsense revenue of over $500 for a couple years.

Just start with the intent of building the best site you can and they will come. Of course, topics and keywords need to be popular and you may have to work at it for a few years.

I have a rule of thumb with adsense - 1000 impressions = $1. This may seem like a low figure and can easily be doubled for sites less than 1000 pageviews a day or tenfold for niche keywords.

The thing is that the huge keywords have smaller ppc. I have found that once you start getting 100,000 daily pageviews your basically looking at $100 a day on average.

Do the calculations. You want to earn $500. That's about $17. a day or 17,000 impressions daily. Now the question is, how many impression do you get per visitor. To simplify the math let's say an average visitor gets 4.25 impressions. You then need 4000 daily visitors or 120,000 monthly. If you could get 1% of the traffic from a keyword searched 12,000,000 times a month then your in business.

Work hard to develop and promote those domains and in five years you can quit your job and do it full time. Hint - build sites that don't have to be updated on a daily or weekly basis such as math/science, history, geography, biography. Example: I'm now working on a site for guys of any age to meet a girl for a long lasting relationship. This will change with time but basically can remain for relevant for decades.

 

[jsavage]

If someone's really doing that, I find it hard to believe he's going to share the information!

Hey, I don't mind sharing... Check out antiqueclockspriceguide.com or Google "antique clocks" and you'll find us #1 in natural search results. A pretty small niche. But our site has an archive of more than 20,000 photos, descriptions and prices of antique clocks sold at auction over the past 10 years. We provide a lot of free info and visitors can see all 20,000 clocks if they want. But there is a membership fee if they want to see the actual prices that the clocks sold for at auction. $6.95 for 5 day access, $14.95 for one month, $49.95 for one year. We are up to around 1,600 visits per day, 750,000 page views per month. Last month the revenue from subscriptions and Adsense combined topped $7,000.

And that is with a dated design and only Google ads. We are in the process of redesigning the site and adding advertising opportunities for merchants to advertise directly with us on a CPM basis of $2.50 to $5.50 CPM. With more trhat 700,000 page impressions per month, do the math... if we can even fill 1/4 of our direct ad slots we'll take a pretty big income jump.

A partner and I started the site in 1999. He programmed, I developed the content. We had no idea what we were doing, really. Very naive. No idea how long it would take to break even or what would bring people to the site. Were spending approx. $1,500 in PPC advertising on Google and Yahoo ad networks. I studied up on SEO, worked that a bit, and cut out all PPC ad costs once we reached #1 on Google in our niche. Took five years to find the best strategy and reach break even. By that time I had put about $85,000 in debt on my credit cards to finance the project... I was really starting to sweat in that it wouldn't make it. But SEO, strong link exchanges and real, useful content were the key. That, and not giving up.

Still, we really need at least 3X the revenue (like, 2 more sites like that one) for each of us to make a decent living. Our overhead for office and business cable (we serve our own site) is approx. $1,200.
Wouldn't need the office space, though, except we are working on developing other sites as well. At least Adsense paid the overhead last month.

 

[David G]

Extremely valuable post. Could be the most beneficial one I have ever seen on this forum Unfortunate you have only posted 5 times.

I think one of your secrets for success was having a free programmer and also who you could communicate with on a personal level (sure beats trying to communicate with paid programmers on ScriptLance from India with English word issues).

Hey, I don't mind sharing... Check out antiqueclockspriceguide.com or Google "antique clocks" and you'll find us #1 in natural search results. A pretty small niche. But our site has an archive of more than 20,000 photos, descriptions and prices of antique clocks sold at auction over the past 10 years. We provide a lot of free info and visitors can see all 20,000 clocks if they want. But there is a membership fee if they want to see the actual prices that the clocks sold for at auction. $6.95 for 5 day access, $14.95 for one month, $49.95 for one year. We are up to around 1,600 visits per day, 750,000 page views per month. Last month the revenue from subscriptions and Adsense combined topped $7,000.

And that is with a dated design and only Google ads. We are in the process of redesigning the site and adding advertising opportunities for merchants to advertise directly with us on a CPM basis of $2.50 to $5.50 CPM. With more trhat 700,000 page impressions per month, do the math... if we can even fill 1/4 of our direct ad slots we'll take a pretty big income jump.

A partner and I started the site in 1999. He programmed, I developed the content. We had no idea what we were doing, really. Very naive. No idea how long it would take to break even or what would bring people to the site. Were spending approx. $1,500 in PPC advertising on Google and Yahoo ad networks. I studied up on SEO, worked that a bit, and cut out all PPC ad costs once we reached #1 on Google in our niche. Took five years to find the best strategy and reach break even. By that time I had put about $85,000 in debt on my credit cards to finance the project... I was really starting to sweat in that it wouldn't make it. But SEO, strong link exchanges and real, useful content were the key. That, and not giving up.

Still, we really need at least 3X the revenue (like, 2 more sites like that one) for each of us to make a decent living. Our overhead for office and business cable (we serve our own site) is approx. $1,200.
Wouldn't need the office space, though, except we are working on developing other sites as well. At least Adsense paid the overhead last month.

 

[fab]

Very good of you to share that with us, and posting some real work provides credibility. Seeing you #1 on Google really means a lot. Your first post made it seem like you were saying it's a piece of cake. This post really puts things in the proper perspective.

BTW, overhead of $1200 is not a heck of a lot.

 

[jsavage]

Very good of you to share that with us, and posting some real work provides credibility. Seeing you #1 on Google really means a lot. Your first post made it seem like you were saying it's a piece of cake. This post really puts things in the proper perspective.

BTW, overhead of $1200 is not a heck of a lot.

Thanks fab, definitely not a piece of cake But if we had to do it from scratch now, could reach same results in less than a year, I think, knowing what we now know. It is kind of a piece of cake now that everything is in place. Could cut the $1,100 rent out if we wanted to give up the office. But we're both maried and the office provides a much needed separation from wives and home plus it makes a great 'clubhouse' only 7 minutes from home. We live in a semi-rural area an hour north of San Francisco and we couldn't get broadband where we were when we started the biz, so we had to get an office "in town" (Sebastopol, CA pop. 7,500). It's the bottom floor of a 100 year old house and has all the important ammenities: large room as work space, full kitchen, and the all important nap room

---------- Post added at 04:02 PM ---------- Previous post was at 03:12 PM ----------

Extremely valuable post. Could be the most beneficial one I have ever seen on this forum Unfortunate you have only posted 5 times.

I think one of your secrets for success was having a free programmer and also who you could communicate with on a personal level (sure beats trying to communicate with paid programmers on ScriptLance from India with English word issues).

Thanks David, have only posted five times 'til now because I've been overwhelmed with work projects and only just decided to put out feelers about selling the site.

My partner the programmer wasn't really free - that's what the main debt on the credit card was in addition to rent, computers, cables, etc. Ryan and I are total Mac heads and when I started out I needed someone to program the backend using Filemaker. He was in LA and was recommended to me; we started working at a distance for 6 months and finally I said 'why don't you come up here and we'll knock this out in a week." He came up and ended living with my wife and I for 5 years. So he got free rent and bet. $600-$1000 for the first few years, while I deferred any compensation for myself. He's 20 years younger than me and was single with few material desires; that helped a lot

As for programmers in India - Ryan and I had recently a different project in mind that required some custom flash work. We used elance.com (really EXCELLENT) to outsource it. I thought India would be the cheapest and got two bids for the project first from some Indian companies. One bid came in a around $2,500 (which was borderline too much for us); the second was $4,500 (way too much.) Third bid was from a guy in Michigan who had just graduated from some tech school, at $500. Hired him, nice to keep it in US! He did an OK job but before it was finished I decided to hedge my bets and have a plan B if it didn't work out. Hired a two person Argentine team, their bid was $600. They were really excellent. We skyped often, they had excellent English skills, very communicative, friendly, conscientious. Ended up adding features and paying them a total of $800. Well worth it. I would say this - don't think of India as cheapest. Check out eastern Europe, south America, etc. And check out Elance.com - very impressive, well run, helpul.

 

[tekz999]

Not hard but it takes time. About 1 year.

 

[Soofi]

I think one of your secrets for success was having a free programmer and also who you could communicate with on a personal level (sure beats trying to communicate with paid programmers on ScriptLance from India with English word issues).

Or maybe it's the other way around that you didnt really know how to communicate with developers from India..

 

[yru]

I like to create a small network of sites rather than focus on just one. With a network of 4 sites in the same niche you can be on your way to making $500+ within a week. If you know how to work sites like Reddit, Digg, Stumble and other similar sites you can drive large amounts of traffic to your sites. This will only work for certain topics.

Total cost to get started:

Reseller hosting account (you can add as many sites/domain as you want) = $15 per month
4 .Com's - $7.69 * 4 = $31
Optional: Paying other people for random tasks such as posting links etc. (to get started) = $40

Daily traffic goals

Average 6,000 unique visitors a day per site (some days you may get 20k+ that compensates for down days)

Daily Revenue goals

Average $5 per site per day

Total monthly income: 5 * 4 = $20 * 30 = $600 a month

Tip

Remember, if you submit one of your posts on your site with one funny picture, that is considered blogspam. Use top 10 type lists, those are looked at as unique content and worth linking to the actually page.

 

[dn-101]

sure beats trying to communicate with paid programmers on ScriptLance from India with English word issues).

Yep,
dealing w/programmers is tricky. (I used to be one).
After working w/many Indian guys for a few years I switched to working with American guys.
Some Indian kids know their php, but they don't bother to apply themselves.
money is not an issue. wasted time is.
also - truth is a somewhat flexible concept with them.

 

[ecomindia]

Interesting thread.

With context to the theme of the thread - Adsense getting $500+?
I manage more then 300+ of my websites with all of them having adsense implemented (i hate parking - they eat my money)

So you can say, 90% of the websites are mini-sites with content coming from different sources using different technologies.
The 10% are websites and portals with good ageing and search engine presence.

What interested me was that most people have answered all the things which I could match of with mine, but in different posts.

Point 1
Acheiving $500 with a single site , not easy but not difficult, even if you do not have a plan, just execute it and make your plan later.
Domain and website ageing counts a lot in long term revenue generation.

Point 2
Acheiving $500 each from different / many sites, very difficult but not impossible. For this, planning, costing, analysis (pre & post implementation) and execution is mandatory.
You cannot be sitting with lady luck all the time, so do your homework to reach to the realistic numbers pre or post implementation.

Point 3
With point 1 (get yourr site online ASAP), it will definitely help your site visibility on search engine ranking. Do basics of Search Engine optimization.
Optimize the content, fill it , put keywords, use titles , avoid flash
Search engine, Directories, Social Bookmarks, Link exchange increases with time... Just get it started somewhere, it does not cost much!

Point 4
Avoid Spams in marketing, Illegal ways of bringing visitors . Do not play with Copyrights and TM and IPR.
Do not steal content, steal i used the word cause all the sites I see from domain owners are either parked, or have content whcih comes from existing vintage websites!!

But will all these assure you of good revenue?
I will say No. Adsense blue-prints no one knows and can only guess.
Their revenue model as long as I have studied, considers from the parameteric level of the website to the Adsense AC holder Location, Website Quality & Quantity.

User living in Asia gets much much lower money then in US. I cannot prove it but then that is the reason in this thread only, i can see things were outsourced ...reason : COST!
People hate in US getting the things outsourced, Obama trying his best to revive economy, create 1 lac jobs every month (initiated in Feb10)..why?
So geographic location of the account holder plays a key role in deciding the revenue generation part, which many of you might not agree to.
Spending $80000+ in marketing in India means 40 lakh INR that means about 10 years of salary of an Indian Web Developer on an average!

Does it really matters coming in top ten in google?
100% - I will say YES. All my 10% of real portals and websites, their main source is either direct (brand) or google (keywords)

I have a classifieds website network (30+ domains) , which runs like : INDIANSTATENAME/CITYNAMEclassfieds.com

Keeping websites where the end-users post the content keeps the website happening all the time.
The website registration of users are about 50-75 /day (registered. users are mid xx,xxx) and unique visitors are about 1000-1100 / day.
The posts done by users (only registered) are about 150 on an average in a day.
Few of the network domains are LIVE since 2003 and many are since 2005 and most are from 2007.

So, I can see the aged domains perform better in terms of search engine visitors (changes as per change in google rankings, but few keywords, it is been there for last 3 years)
Revenue - Struggling for money still but as per online presence, it takes the classifieds traffic to the network. So aeged domains even if do not give money, will give visitors.

Another network - Cricket Game and World Cup related (50+ domains)

The latest news on Cricket is fetched from sources, including match pictures and scores.
Few of the network domains are LIVE since 2006 and most are from 2007.

In this case, when ever there is a cricket match been played, world cup, t20, county, IPL, anything, there is sudden increase in the website hits.
The adsense sometimes gives abnormal CPC ! and if i take an average of that, it might go to $xxxx / month, but unfortunately , these happens about 25-30 days in year.

So these domains bring lot of traffic from search engines . Revenue - They give money as and when it gets an opprtunity but do not have a consistent performance.

So do your basics, do not wait to get your site online, plans and strategy can be done accordingly, SEO basics to be done .

In longer run, keep improving the site , adsense will / may give what you hoped for (may be $5 or $50000?) who knows?!

 

[Soofi]

Spending $80000+ in marketing in India means 40 lakh INR that means about 10 years of salary of an Indian Web Developer on an average!

lol you got to be kidding me with this figure, or you havent really met top of the line and professional developers.

 

[ecomindia]

you answered yourself mate. top of the line and professional developers.
average income of the salary of webdevelopers i mentioned.
no offfence. just a fact.

you can refer to this article,
For IT and telecom: http://www.zdnetasia.com/techjobs/it_employment_trends_08/0,3800013453,62042071,00.htm

For web developer : http://www.payscale.com/research/IN/Job=Web_Developer/Salary

But lets not move from the focus point - google adsense of acheiving $500/website

 

[Soofi]

exactly, there are different type of developers in the field so you cant really say avg salary drawn by a web developer in India is this.. (oh btw, I aint no web developer, but I have a team who gets paid fairly well)

There are people I know drawing salary in INR 100,000+, and some struggling to even find a job for INR 10,000.

back on topic, the max my site ever made from last few years was $250+ every month continuously. And it was a minisite wit minimal effort.

you answered yourself mate. top of the line and professional developers.
average income of the salary of webdevelopers i mentioned.
no offfence. just a fact.

you can refer to this article,
For IT and telecom: http://www.zdnetasia.com/techjobs/it_employment_trends_08/0,3800013453,62042071,00.htm

For web developer : http://www.payscale.com/research/IN/Job=Web_Developer/Salary

But lets not move from the focus point - google adsense of acheiving $500/website

 

[Rockefeller]

Its been my experience that developing a profitable website will require time and money. I don't think most people on this forum have anything that produces $500 a month in revenue. I have put a lot of time into Snowmobilers.com and I'm doing around $2,500 a month right now in under 4 months. By simply buying a domain name and parking it, its not going to produce $50 a month on most occasions, you'll need to put a lot of time and money into making the site successful, but normally it pays off in the long run.

 

[Soofi]

Its been my experience that developing a profitable website will require time and money. I don't think most people on this forum have anything that produces $500 a month in revenue. I have put a lot of time into Snowmobilers.com and I'm doing around $2,500 a month right now in under 4 months. By simply buying a domain name and parking it, its not going to produce $50 a month on most occasions, you'll need to put a lot of time and money into making the site successful, but normally it pays off in the long run.

Rock, $2500 a month, just under 4 months is an awesome work. I need some tips on what exactly was done with snowmobilers cuz I am trying some work on OrderComputer,com and atm I'm at pr4 and p3 for most internal pages just under few months of work and quality content