Ideas for development and monetisation

[vccground]

What's the best way to monetise a domain that's something like <product>Store.com? It's a new domain that I hand-registered recently and the <product> niche is consumer electronics. I'd like to try something other than parking this time.

I heard about affiliate marketing, white label affiliates, etc but never tried developing and monetising a site before. I've also read a few articles where people suggested WordPress autoblogging using plugins as an one-stop solution for content, monetisation and all. Is this a good idea?

I'm planning to buy a unlimited bandwidth/domains hosting plan from HostGator, so I'd like to hear and learn from the experts and experienced folk here about where to start and how to proceed. Thanks.

 

[Jack Gordon]

I think those WP autoblogging sites are pretty much past their prime. Generally speaking, Google doesn't like them and consumers don't really trust them. There are exceptions to every rule, of course, and it matters how well you do it.

You can still do well with affiliate marketing, but I would focus on higher-end products and high-quality content promoting them. You'll want to develop a subscriber list for your niche and push regular marketing out to them.

I don't do affiliate marketing myself (I sell my own products) but I pay attention to that world, and it is definitely harder than it used to be to make money in it. It will take hard work and persistence.

 

[Shane]

I completely agree with Jack.

Although, another alternative would be drop shipping.

 

[vccground]

Thanks for the inputs. Looks like autoblogging is a risky adventure. Does Google punish such sites? Would be great to hear failure/success stories from someone who has actually tried this.

I tried to search a bit about drop shipping and it seems one needs to have a (business) presence in the US/Canada to start a drop shipping site.

 

[icedude]

Going to tell you a little secret. Yeah, auto blogging is dead, no chance to receive any traffic from Google, maybe Bing, but a long shot.

But here goes the secret. Use WooCommerce, add affiliate products and redirect the "buy now" button to the affiliate site. WooCommerce has a built in function that allows you to add "external products" So you will be able to create a custom user friendly design, optimize the products for SEO, etc.

It will be a pain in the ass adding all the products manually, but nothing comes easy.

By the way, dropshipping is dead! The prices are so high that they are damn near retail. You will have to price the products above retail to even see any profits, but if you do that no one will buy, so a complete waste of time.

 

[vccground]

@icedude - thanks for the info and your lovely little secret. It's true, no pain no gain. WooCommerce looks pretty impressive and is free, will definitely give it a try.

 

[ImageAuthors]

My own rule of thumb is this: Don't develop something unless you know you'll do it better than anybody else. If you know you can make money by slapping together content and affiliate programs, then by all means do it. But you'd make MORE money figuring out what you can do best and doing that.

Eventually, the sites that succeed are the best sites.

 

[Charles Sweeney]

I've never heard of "autoblogging" but it strikes me as yet another get-rich-quick-scheme that only a sucker would buy and the only person to make money is the person who devised it.

DON'T DON'T DON'T do the same &*$@ing thing that a million others have done before you!!!

Do something original. Make it your own work. Make a site about something that interests you.

 

[Charles Harmon]

Autoblogging is dead. It's a waste of time.

But what I really wanted to say is Hostgator is not as good as it used to be. I have had an account with them for many years. About two years ago I had to upgrade to a VPS hosting plan because one of my sites was bogging down their system!! Since then I've had nothing but trouble - sites down a ridiculous number of times. I'm changing hosting for the last 30 of my sites to another hosting company that I've been using for about the last year and have had no problems with my sites going down. I advise to think twice about Hostgator. I had the same problem with my reseller hosting account before I switched to their VPS account. I thought the VPS account would solve the problem. It didn't. I believe they have too many people on a server.

 

[Messileonel]

As with monetization and development, try with your skills and implement ideas. As long as there's been traffic meta viral | viral stuff | viral image | viral content sites at your website or blog you can earn easily. Search for the best monetization platforms and you'll pretty much figure out how to implement them .