Ask HN: How to monetize 1.3 million page views?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=496314

by charuhas • 17 years ago

11 19 17 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

Hey folks,

I run inpics.net, a computer tutorial site that's getting 1.3 million page views per month according to our Analytics stats. How should I monetize that?

I posted that question here a while back, and got quite a few suggestions along the lines of, "advertise for a sponsor on SitePoint." Tried that, didn't work.

I, like a lot of other people, think that display ads don't work well online, and never will. So, no banner or suchlike ads.

Right now, I'm using it to pimp consulting services, but I don't expect that will generate much revenue: most of the site's visitors are individuals learning on their own, not people using it at work.

Given that the site is used mostly by individuals to learn the basics of various computer subjects, what product or service would you sell at inpics.net?

Chris C.

apgwoz• 17 years ago

I think your site's layout is not really great for ad placement, which is why that failed. It's very much a brochure like layout that you'd see for businesses. Contrast this with http://net.tutsplus.com/ where it's "blog" like, but still a great format for presenting tutorials. If you're getting 1.3 million page views, you're almost certainly ranking high in search results, which is great, because those are the people who are exploring and clicking on ads. Check out what some of the other sites in your genre are doing, I bet they optimize their design for making money with ads.

charuhas6• 17 years ago

Actually, the site was designed around banner ads--that's why it's so narrow. It's 728px wide--leaderboard width. They were built-in between the header and content. I had AdSense serving 'em up, but it didn't generate much revenue.

yequalsx2• 17 years ago

I have thought about doing something similar but with mathematics. My suggestion would be to package up various tutorials into a course. Instead of static pages I would add videos using Camtasia or Captivate. There are lots of colleges and universities that sell courses on this stuff and you could sell such courses for a lot cheaper.

charuhas6• 17 years ago

We did a research study sponsored by the U.S. Dept. of Ed that showed that for learning basic skills, black-and-white screenshots are best. Walking people through tasks step-by-step with static pictures is most effective. Video is really good for some things (showing the correct hand movements to operate an iPhone, for instance), but for basic "click here" stuff, simpler is better.

yequalsx2• 17 years ago

That is very interesting.

At the college I teach at we have courses for administrative assistants and I thought perhaps you could sell courses that are cheaper and better.

Good luck on figuring out how to monetize your site.

earl• 17 years ago

I'd bet that if you changed your site a bit you could get decent ecpms -- maybe even in the $6-$8 range. Also, links to amazon / whoever sells the software. If you want to talk more, hit me up over email.

aristus• 17 years ago

Your tutorials are one screenshot per page.... so I'd guess that your pv per visit is high but it's fluff traffic. No one is going to abandon the "slideshow" to click on ads. Your best points to put ads are at the end or near the begining of the process of viewing a tutorial. Consider taking the pv hit and putting the whole tutorial on one page.

You say your audience is mostly people at home, learning. Maybe you can advertise for rentacoder (eg "make money working with Access!") or similar services.

Think about what other computer-related problems someone in that situation might have, like anti-virus, certification, jobs.

Hmm. reading back these options sound kind of sleazy. You could experiment with a tip jar as well. Don't write off display ads either -- give them an honest try for a couple of months.

charuhas6• 17 years ago

Yeah, I figure that whatever gets sold there has to benefit the folks taking the tutorials. "You've learned the basics, now here are some materials to take you further." Maybe that's it...

tstegart• 17 years ago

What about something that combines making money with instruction? For example, you could add anothger page after each big section where you put a list of links to other helpful tutorials/blogs/official websites, helpful books, etc.

I really think your opportunity lies in putting something at the end of your tutorials. It means you don't have to do a site redesign. Just stick another page at the end, which users get to when they click next. and then you sell something.

I think Amazon can be key. People are looking to learn. That means some of them will be open to buying a book about it. You appear to be an expert in many of these programs, and people will gladly take a recommendation from you about what books are good on which particular subjects.

I'm not saying randomly list books, I'm saying go get them from the library, read them, and actually list what you think are the top three tutorials for each subject you have on your site. If you're upfront somewhere on the site that you earn money from Amazon commissions, I know people don't mind it.

charuhas6• 17 years ago

Hmmm...you interest me strangely, sir. Supplemental materials may be the way to go. Thanks!

josefresco• 17 years ago

I would sell other e-learning products. Like the 'video professor'. Also, you could run ads in between slides, which might get you a higher CTR than alongside.

Or start running AdSense, and get some sort of baseline for private ad deals.

charuhas6• 17 years ago

Ran AdSense for a year. 1.3 million page views delivers about $400 through Teh Google.

JeremyChase• 17 years ago

Chris,

A lot of people have suggested an Amazon affiliate situation, and unless my assumptions are wrong it just won't pay. The following is a copy/paste from a quick spreadsheet assuming some basic information. Amazon gives affiliates 4% of a standard sale, I assumed a CTR of 1% (which I think is very generous), I guessed a 2% conversion rate, and an average sale of $45.

You can see that your monthly take will still be quite low.

Traffic 1300000 CTR 1% Delivered 13000 Conversion rate 2% Converted 260 Avg Sale $45 Your cut/sale $1.8 Your take $468

It is entirely possible that your CTR would be higher, but I tend to think not.

You said that with Adsense you only earned $400 in a month, which means you were getting a $0.30 CPM. This is pretty low, and even in this ad market I think you should be able to pull off $1.50 or more. An Ad network would help you do that, and your traffic is high enough that they would be willing to talk to you. Of course this means ads on the site.

This is what I would do: * Add a forum; with your traffic I think you could have a community discussing issues pretty quickly. I would probably do this as a sister site given your niche name. Of course this 'only' increases your pageviews. * Optimize the site for ads, forget Adsense, and work with the ad networks. Better still, try to beat down doors of people who might want to advertise directly. * Despite the small payoff I do like the idea of selling books related to the topic and would try it. I tend to like the idea of dealing directly with a specific publisher however; your cut will likely be better. * I like the idea of premium content as well. I despise sites that show you only part of a solution, but your site shows that you have enough taste to do this in a way that users would embrace.

Good luck, Jer

charuhas6• 17 years ago

Good thoughts, Jer. Funny you should mention ad networks. I approached Federated Media a while back.

They loved the traffic, but couldn't deal with the fact that it was a tutorial site. They seemed to think of themselves as Builders of A Great Online Editorial Empire, instead of what they are: ad brokers.

"We work with blogs. This isn't a blog."

"It's better than a blog. The content is more targeted."

"Uh, you're not a blog."

Maybe I'll hit up No Starch Press or somebody like that. Thanks!

cschneid• 17 years ago

Amazon ups their percentage as you sell more items, you go to 6% after less than 10, and keep going up another step or two past that. Makes the numbers a bit more appealing, but still not as good as they could be via a more targeted method.

grokcode• 17 years ago

I think Amazon could work pretty well. Using Jeremey's numbers, but taking into account Amazon's tiered affiliate percentages, you would actually get 7% assuming you make 260 sales / month. This gives $819 / month.

I run a tutorials site for programmers (its much more loosely focused than your site though, with code tutorials, career advice, a few open source projects I've built, etc.), and my Adwords CPC is similar but Amazon earnings are historically 5-6 times better than Adwords.

The key is to link to relevant books within the text of an article. In your case what might work is add references section to each category page that contains links to reviews on books on the subject. Review the book well, describing what type of user the book is geared toward, and only recommend books that you personally stand behind. This problogger article contains some nice tips for getting free review copies of books: http://www.problogger.net/archives/2009/02/14/how-to-get-fre...

Good luck to you.

pbhj• 17 years ago

What about additional phone based tutoring, eg "struggling? phone XXXX-XXX-XXX to speak to a tutor now".

Either a premium rate phone line or possible a prepaid call in 10 minute units.

medianama• 17 years ago

highly un-scalable

patio11• 17 years ago

Right now, I'm using it to pimp consulting services, but I don't expect that will generate much revenue: most of the site's visitors are individuals learning on their own, not people using it at work.

Package up similar content in a way that is easy to deliver to employers for them to give to employees for training. Enroll your employees in our MS Word training, $45 per employee, just as effective as having a consultant or courses but at one-tenth the cost. You don't even have to develop the course yourself -- there are almost certainly a million available, and since they're infinitely scalable information products they should have generous affiliate payouts.

It doesn't matter if most people are using your site for work. They're the fuel in the rocket, the upsell to the course is the payload.

Ask HN: How to monetize 1.3 million page views?

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