Archive for Monetization:

Why AdBlocking Software only Hurts the Viewer

I was recently asked what I thought about AdBlocking software and how it may impact a website’s revenue. Here’s what I said:

A large proportion of the content available on the web today has been funded by the revenue site owners receive from displaying advertising. According to WorldWideWebSize.com the number of web pages indexed by Google in the past two years has grown by 30 billion, and as a result the value placed on a web page has diminished.

Webmasters are now generating less revenue online through traditional advertising and software designed to blog advertising doesn’t help. What users don’t realise is they’re only hurting themselves.

For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction and in the case of this kind of software, webmasters are now actively combatting it by implementing some of the following;

- Reducing the number of times they update their website with fresh content as it simply isn’t as profitable anymore.

- Turning to alternative revenue streams such as subscriptions and “members only” areas.

- Installing recognition software that will ensure no content is displayed at all for web viewers with ad blocking software installed.

Advertising is all around us, and whilst sometimes pop-up pages and flashing banners can be annoying, remember that the website you are surfing costs money to maintain so it is only fair that it is recouped somehow. The World Wide Web isn’t just a playground, it is a business marketplace too.

Taking Risks and Borrowing Money

“The deal isn’t a deal until the money is in the bank” – a saying my good friend Rob goes by. And it’s true…the money isn’t yours to spend until it belongs to you, even if all the T’s have been crossed and the I’s have been dotted.

But, what if the money in the bank isn’t enough? Do you save then spend, or do you take the risk and borrow money? For many startups the latter is often the case, but that’s not without its difficulties. I recently asked Santander for a £1,000 overdraft to help with cash flow in the event more money came out that went in, and I was refused. Yet, Barclays were more than happy to give a £6,500 credit card with all the bells, whistles and offers without even asking what the money was being used for. You can do some serious damage with £6,500 – you just need to remember the money isn’t yours and needs to be paid back!

Right now I’m promoting Edinburgh Taxi mainly, and things are going well, but every penny that comes in goes back out into marketing…and whatever else I have in my accounts! The money isn’t wasted, call volumes are rising month on month, but there’s only so much “cheap marketing” you can do. By that I mean low volume offline work and now I’ve come to a crossroads…

Do I…

a) patiently wait and save and stop marketing for a few months then do something big like a radio campaign?

or

b) pay for the big radio campaign on credit and pay it back over a few months?

Different people will have different views, and ultimately the decision is mine, but like any business decision there’s risk involved and it’s a choice. There’s alternatives sure, but with the increasing competition and rising costs of variables such as printing, man power, fuel etc, it needs to be done properly or not done at all and the costs come out the same.

The radio is simply an example of a big campaign I could do, there are others, but you need to alter your marketing to capture different markets and that’s where the difficulty lies.

So my question to you is; would you charge your credit card or would you play it safe and save?

Do you own any geo’s?

I was looking over my collection of domain names the other day as I have a few sitting doing nothing. Well, quite a few to be honest. So, I’m being pro-active and trying to monetise them, at least until they catch on and I’m offered something substantial for them.

At least 80% of the names have ranking websites, however I’ve never approached anyone to advertise on them. So, I got off my arse and made a few contacts with people I know, and as they believe in what I do, I’ve got some deals setup. There’s nothing life changing in these partnerships, however money is money!

I know the likes of Yell and uFindus have bought up a large proportion of keyword and geo names, and the money they charge to rent the minisites on them is extortionate! They have the infrastructure to do this on a massive scale and the sales staff to ensure it is profitable. If you run a business chances are they’ll have phoned you offering it for just £xx per week…I would charge that for a month!

So my little geo-jaunt has me working on partnerships for Edinburgh Taxi, Edinburgh Nightclubs and Edinburgh Hairdresser mainly, as well as continuing my day job in the double glazing market.

Happy days, we’ll see how it goes. Good luck with your persuits,

Khalid.

Domain Swapping

I recently completed my first domain swap deal, trading two solar domain names for compare flights, a ranking flight comparison website with a history of traffic and earnings.

I purchased the solar names for mid £xxx, thinking I could perhaps flip them for low four figures (which I had as an offer after the deal was done). Solar is an emerging market and the domains, SolarHeater.co.uk and the plural SolarHeaters.co.uk, were a nice pair.

I am happy with my new flight comparison site, and have already given it a makeover and adding more content as we speak!

I was pleasantly surprised and hope to either shelve the site as a revenue stream or flip it for mid four figures in the near future.

Good luck with your persuits,

Khalid.

p.s. a quick shout out for a critical illness comparison site owned by a friend of mine!

December 2009 Earnings

Understandably, as I am not an affiliate marketeer, December was an extremely quiet month for me.

Whilst I received £160 in payments from an affiliate network, these were back dated so I’ve already taken them into account previously. Adsense was a dismal £7.75 but I’m not really bothered as I sold a few projects in January that ensured things picked back up nicely.

I was off for two weeks in December so I think I’ll count this month out and be happy I’m progressing nicely.

Good luck with your persuits,

Khalid.

Starting 2010

Happy New Year to you all! Starting 2010 with a fresh head after two weeks holiday has allowed me to re-evaluate my position and where I go from here. To be honest, I’m in quite a difficult position and so have decided to try a few different moves in a bid to build my future.

Firstly, I’ve started an geo network of Edinburgh sites including Edinburgh Hairdresser and Edinburgh Taxis. In total I have 15 domains, 10 of which have active websites on them. A few are already on page one and the long term plan is to sell private advertising to local business owners.

Secondly, I’ve sold a few small affiliate sites and started re-doing things properly, with the launch of Bass Amp. I picked this name up recently in a clear out portfolio sale and had a private offer for it within 24 hours of owning it. I think it is a good name with plenty of potential and possible a sale to an end user in the near future. I spent a day manually adding products to ensure there is little copied content from the merchants so I am hoping my sore fingers will be rewarded with some cash on affiliate sales!

Thirdly, I am still running Trout as my main investment with a view of it either providing a decent revenue stream or selling to an end user such as a magazine publication. The site is on target to receive 3,000 unique visitors this month.

Finally, I am negotiating for a few domain names with potential to sell individual digital products (don’t worry not eBooks!). My idea is to then setup an affiliate program  and have people promote it for me. Targetting a niche and offering, say 50% commission, should be quite appealing to affiliates as ppc campaigns should not cost a lot and each sale offers a high return.

Being an Internet Entrepreneur is not an easy task and I’m constantly followed on Twitter daily by “Guru’s” pretending to offer get-rich-quick schemes that anyone can do from home. The fact of the matter is, if it was that easy everyone would be doing it and driving around in Ferrari’s. Hard work, determination, and the ability to learn from your mistakes is what it takes.

Good luck with your persuits,

Khalid.

November 2009 Earnings

November was a quiet month for me with just one £500 website sale and £5 from Google Adsense bringing my daily average to £16.29 or $29.49 at today’s exchange rates. As Christmas creeps in people are less reluctant to buy despite my best efforts to sell a single generic name that does not fit with my strategy.

Whilst December is quiet I’ve had time to plan the future of my trout fishing website and build a number of affiliate and geo directories in a bid to generate revenue whilst Trout.co.uk builds itself up more. I think it’ll take a good 12 months to really make my place in the angling sector and I’m lucky to have a loyal and dedicated team of writers working with me…even if they do cost a lot! It is a real shame most companies just don’t get it otherwise we could work together and do wonders for the industry.

Examples of my affiliate sites include hot dog maker, beer chillers and skydiving experiences. I’ve never been any good at affiliate marketing so I decided to build some geo sites too, including Edinburgh spa, Edinburgh beauty salons and Falkirk electricians.

We’ll see how they turn out. Stay tuned and good luck with your persuits,

Khalid.

Most Companies Just Don’t Get It

Having worked for multiple companies over the past few years and advised private clients occassionally, I am still shocked to see how many just don’t get the internet.

A bit of a bold and brash statement I know, but let me explain…

One of the companies I used to work for tied themselves into a £2,000 a month contract (for 6 months) with a local radio station (before I started) without doing any research, taking advice or shopping around. The result – nothing. Not one sale came from £12,000 expenditure. Long story short I marketed them online, had them on page 1 for multiple geo terms then left because they wouldn’t give me a single penny for a budget despite their site getting 1 new lead per day and over 500 unique visitors a month.

The same company had multiple private listings in national directories and paying a small fortune for it too. I actually had an arguement on the phone with one of them when I cancelled it because the advisor thought the ad was amazing. My question “where is your my ad when I type in keyword in City because that’s what I’m listed under in your directory”? He couldn’t answer it because his ad was no where to be seen, and in fact didn’t rank for much. Yet, because the directory was a national company the owner thought it was worth paying for.

Sure, you can’t measure success by a search engine ranking but I dived a little deeper into previous sales feedback forms and not one person had written that they had found us from said directory.

The internet is so powerful yet so underrated by companies and I begin to wonder when they will listen. Five years ago I said to myself; “give it five years and everyone will realise the potential”. Five years has passed and I’m still twiddling my thumbs. Different generations mean old habits die hard and quite frankly I think it’ll take a lot longer than another five stretch before everyone gets online.

It amazes me how many business owners don’t even have an active website or e-mail address. In this day and age they are addicted to their fax machines and passing trade it makes entrepreneurs like me scratch my head and wonder  if they’ll last much longer.

Take my hairdresser for example. Recently I setup their website and it is already getting 150 uniques a month. That’s 150 potential customers and 150 people they are saying “hello” too every 31 days that they didn’t have before. How crazy is that?

So let’s say we forget the little fish in the pond and focus on retailers or manufacturers. Well, I’ve found there isn’t much difference. After setting up Trout.co.uk I contacted many retailers, suppliers, distributors, manufacutrers, holiday providers, tutors and more to see if they’d come on board and push angling in a new light to the influential youth of today.

Guess how many were willing to help? Zero. None. Nada

Why? Well you could say it was because the site was a startup but to not even discuss it was a sad sight in my eyes, especially as I hadn’t even mentioned costs. I didn’t want their money for myself, I wanted to put equal amounts in to push the sport through competitions and guerilla marketing.

And I’m not alone. I have a friend who owns two wine websites and he’s had the same response. I’ve also got another friend who owns a music website and I would have thought companies would be jumping down his throat to get on there.

Fact of the matter is web advertising/branding is 24/7/365 to anyone, anywhere in the world, so why go for traditional media that is outdated and will be thrown away the next day? We’re cheaper, more flexible, effective and appeal nationwide rather than locally.

The high volume of visitors and the influence players in the web/domain industry has is quite frankly scary. I’m just stunned companies don’t stop for a second and try to work more with them rather than against.

Google is tweeking search results constantly and making things harder for us, affiliate merchants are tightening their commission belts and companies are dragging their heels in getting online/advertising on sites rather than Adsense.

Never mind the little fish, where will that leave us in five years?

Good luck with your persuits,

Khalid.

Reviewing Risks

I’ve mentioned on numbers occassions (1,2,3) that “putting all your eggs in one basket” was not a wise move. But what if the opportunity held great potential and lucrative returns…?

My recent acquisition of Trout.co.uk has led me to recruit five writers, two of which are respected community figures. Together, Trout.co.uk gets 20 or more posts per month (five per week) and visitor numbers shot up 80% from month 1 to month 2.

I’ve pursuing advertisers, manufacturers, distributors and such to back the site in a bid to create the largest trout fishing websites in the UK. The challenge is a great one, but the potential and rewards far outweigh the risk.

The site is costly to run and currently draining my funds so I’ve decided to offload one or two mini-sites to ensure I’ve got liquidity available at all times. But this means letting go of some profitable sites and placing my eggs in one basket.

Having had a considerable amount of time to think about it, my move is risky but the potential for Trout.co.uk to become a huge angling website is there. I’ve got 101 ideas in my head to offer a fantastic user experience whilst also ensuring revenue is generated without diluting the quality of the content.

Do you think I’ve made the right move?

Good luck with your pursuits,

Khalid.

First Proper Affiliate Site

Recently I managed to get my hands on PressureWasher.co.uk, a nice generic name with traffic. Since then I’ve been working hard to create a comparison website with plenty of unique content, complete with Amazon affiliate links and even a unique video!

The results so far have been fantastic, with my site hitting page one for the term “pressure washer” in Google.co.uk and already 7 sales!

The seven sales only accounts for one pressure washer and that’s what I love about Amazon – the number of goods they sell. Visitors to my site have clicked through the links, either bought a pressure washer or not, and continued to shop!

I hope to achieve a conversion rate of 2% on pressure washers alone, and doing the maths that could result in a nice little income generating site which I will look to retain for a long term passive income.

Let me know your opinions as I am keen to ensure my affiliate site is kept in good working order :)