How would YOU monetize it?

animalstyle

animalstyle

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I am putting all my energy into one main project. I've been working hard and the site is growing. Where I am struggling is monetizing the site. I have made some efforts and they have worked, but I know there is much more potential.

For the last month or so I have been pushing on, but I think my vision has grown narrower. That's where the idea for this thread came from. I want to present the site, give all the details I can, but leave out any of my monetization ideas/attempts/implementations and play a game: How would YOU monetize it?

Hopefully this gives me a chance to gain some perspective and take the blinders off.

The Site:
The site is about an activity that people have to physically go and take part in. I see the site like this: I 'sell' the activity, and these businesses provide the service. The value per person is fairly high - $50-100. This activity is world wide. There are many locations to do this, about half are under construction. A good majority of these business locations operate without competition.

The website has two main parts:
  • A database of locations to do the activity.
    • This includes locations that are open and coming soon.
  • Articles - my content section
Visitors to the site learn about this activity and have the chance to find a place to go do it.
My traffic is good - mostly organic though I have growing social outlets and an email list which I have been utilizing to begin to diversify my channels. Traffic is over 10k unique visitors per month.

In this industry online marketing is under developed. Almost nobody has affiliate programs set up, and nobody has the technology set up to take referrals.

How would YOU monetize it?
 
Do the people who enjoy this activity require some kind of tool or equipment to do it? And is it high priced?

Blog Portion - Display Ads and Reviews of Equipment or some attempt at selling it if they need it to do the activity.

Directory Portion - Lead Generation
 
I'd put the hammer down on building the email list and marketing to it directly, as well as direct lead generation.
 
Thanks for the responses guys.

@Ryuzaki The bulk of the participants do not require anything in order to take part in the activity. For that I use the content section to collect and send users to my location database. There is a small subset of users however that do use equipment, and content that is segmented for them. Ill investigate this.

@c4yrslf12 Hearing both of you say lead generation - this is what I have been focusing my energy on.

I have a very simple setup. Leads come through a form and are emailed to the business, me, and saved in the database. I have been testing and offering a couple different compensation methods:
  • Commission rate - the business provides me with the $ earned at the end of a cycle and I bill.
  • Per-Lead Cost (based on averages, aiming at the same commission rate above) - I bill immediately at the end of a cycle based on the agreed rate.
The cost per lead keeps things simple and keeps me from getting screwed around on, but businesses would rather do a commission rate based agreement because its a direct $ for $ agreement.

Are there any other ways to handle these lead sales? When putting the trust in the business not to lie to me, how would I protect myself?
 
animalstyle said:
businesses would rather do a commission rate based agreement because its a direct $ for $ agreement.
Click to expand...

This is a dangerous game. Unless you have a really, really good relationship with this business, no go. Others can chime in, but you see, you don't know if they are going to make a sale on every lead, every other, every 10th, and so on. You're income is now subject to THEIR effort in closing, not your own effort in delivering a lead.
 
You're totally right, I do have a good relationship with a few of these. Its in an industry where I have lots of personal contacts, but things could slip out of control easily.

Are there any other good ways to handle the leads that keeps both parties happy but doesn't relieve control to just one side?

I know there are systems out there where a site takes payment from the customer and then the booking is made? Maybe selling some sort of gift card or something?

Or shit, an idea. Probably most have online booking, what about just throwing traffic and tracking with a good ol analytics tracking code?
 
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One thing I never understand about these "help" threads is why don't you just tell everyone your site?

I mean you are looking for "actionable" information, but you don't give a complete picture for people to help actually help you.

If you are worried about copycats or people stealing your idea/niche or whatever, then you probably don't have anything that makes you safe from any competitor that stumbles along your website anyhow. So, I don't really see the point.

It seems to me your goal is to MAKE money as FAST as possible. Not to hide a website that isn't making much money!

Just some food for thought...
 
This site has my real name and face on it. Its in an industry that I have been and still work in. I just don't throw it around openly.
 
So, you are afraid of people knowing who you are in real life? If you are attaching it to your name and face, then I doubt it's something shady, so why are you scared?

To each his own I guess... I just don't understand the "Please tell me what to do! But I'm not going to give you all the information you need for your advice to actually be good" mindset.
 
You make a good point, and I will send the site via PM if anyone would like it.
 
If anyone chooses to share their site, I'd recommend doing it privately through the PM/Conversation system.

The reason is, this is the internet. The upper limit to it's reach is the number of people populating the planet. That means there's a lot of crazies online, and even more they tend to gravitate to this industry.

It's not a bad idea to maintain your privacy.

I know many high profile bloggers, normal guys who made amazing case studies but said too much, and just rando's who decided to share their sites, who suddenly find they have an extra 1,000,000 backlinks in the morning or have been hacked. This has happened to me as well. For no reason, other than it's crabs in a bucket in the I.M. world. There's a lot of sick people who can't stand to see someone else rise to success.

Better safe than sorry, especially if a valuable portion of your traffic is coming in organically.
 
If you have a successful site and are making good money, then by all means keep it to yourself. However, I don't see the harm in sharing a new site or a site that isn't making a ton of money when u are looking for advice.

PM is definitely the more prudent play, but that also limits the advice you will receive.
 
You're underestimating how much seo's can be assholes.

People steal ideas, ddos, steal keywords, steal link targets, and on and on.
 
Thanks for the input guys, and confirms my original gut feeling not to share openly - which I need to trust.
 
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