Looking for serious help

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Omega-Red

Omega-Red

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Jul 2, 2006
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www.z06-corvette.com
Hello Everyone

I hope I am posting in the right section. I would like to ask for advice if possible. I have started a few automotive websites back in 2003 and so far they have been pretty decent on traffic. I am currently using Google AdSence for a reasons being that it's the only advertisement that has ever worked for me. I make an average of $200 USD per month from all of my sites. It's very pathetic and I am ashamed of myself for making that much.. It seems that if I try to work with any other ads from third party like CJ or value click or any other program none of the advertisements or niches bring any money. I'm starting to realize that going into automotive sites for profit was a very terrible idea. My goal is to be able to make $50 000 per month and I know it is possible because I have seen enough evidence out there for this to be a realistic goal. If there are people out there making anywhere from 50K to 200K per month then I don't see reasons why it's not possible. The only thing that stands between me and that goal is a lack of knowledge. Now I know a lot of people hearing this would say well I'm not telling you my success story and how I got there which is perfectly acceptable because I'm a complete stranger and not related to any of you. However I would like to ask for advice that would not interfere with your business and at the same time would help me realize the way of thinking how to archive that goal and being able to learn what I have done wrong and what direction I should steer in order to succeed.

Please help me anyway you can.

Thank you in advance
 


Your going to need to post more details about what you doing, in terms of traffic and site content.
 
Andrew said:
Your going to need to post more details about what you doing, in terms of traffic and site content.
Click to expand...

Sure thing. I can tell you what I do with my automotive sites but I still think it will not bring me any closer to my goal.

My sites are basically content oriented websites and contain statistical information as well as articles and photos. I don't pay for traffic since specific webpage's of my sites receiving #1 positions on Google. I get about 98% of the traffic from specific racecar page or team or driver. My main traffic comes from Google. I receive about 140 000 unique visitors per month with an average of 3 200 000 hits. What else would you like to know? Just ask me I will tell you.
 
Well, it seems like you have good points in your favor

-Good traffic >4500 uniques/day
-Content sites

I would guess that with adsense your CTR must be really low. How many adsense page impressions are you serving up everyday? You will probably need to spend some time optimizing your ad placement and integrating it well into your site. If you post your site links or maybe a screenshot I'm sure people will offer suggestions on how to do that.

You say you have photos and statistical information on your sites. Photos and numbers do not lend themselves well to contextual advertising. Without seeing your site I'll just guess that you have pages with columns of statistics and pages with photo galleries. For the photos my first suggestion is that you write a short one line description for every one. For the statistics, perhaps you can provide some commentary or analysis?

With that amount of traffic I'm not so sure you can hit $50,000/mo with adsense alone, are there related affiliate lead programs out there for your sites? I'm pretty sure you should be making more than $200/mo tho :)
 
Payton said:
Well, it seems like you have good points in your favor

-Good traffic >4500 uniques/day
-Content sites

I would guess that with adsense your CTR must be really low. How many adsense page impressions are you serving up everyday? You will probably need to spend some time optimizing your ad placement and integrating it well into your site. If you post your site links or maybe a screenshot I'm sure people will offer suggestions on how to do that.

You say you have photos and statistical information on your sites. Photos and numbers do not lend themselves well to contextual advertising. Without seeing your site I'll just guess that you have pages with columns of statistics and pages with photo galleries. For the photos my first suggestion is that you write a short one line description for every one. For the statistics, perhaps you can provide some commentary or analysis?

With that amount of traffic I'm not so sure you can hit $50,000/mo with adsense alone, are there related affiliate lead programs out there for your sites? I'm pretty sure you should be making more than $200/mo tho :)
Click to expand...


Hello Python

Here is an example of one of the pages from my website
http://www.7extrememotorsports.com/lemans/cars/lmp900-audi-r8.htm

as you can see by Google search it gets first position. Same basic idea goes for a lot of other of my targeted car pages.
http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&rls=GGLG,GGLG:2006-11,GGLG:en&q=audi+r8

I get an average of .080% CTR per day.

Here is ad placement from another of my car sites just to give you an idea how I place them.
http://www.digital-autos.com/europe/Lamborghini/lamborghini-murcielago.htm

and this one
http://www.z06-corvette.com/super/sledgehammer.htm

as for related affiliates towards automotive business it is very hard to find anything half decent and even then I tried some of those programs which failed to work for me.

That is another reason that I think automotive sites like mine don't bring that much money. Also automotive niche is not as popular as lets say credit cards or poker and so on.
 
Omega-Red said:
Also automotive niche is not as popular as lets say credit cards or poker and so on.
Click to expand...

That can be a good thing. Its a good niche because its not as saturated and you have more room to grow.
 
I agree - your ads need to be blended a bit better with your content. As it stands now they are very easy to spot (and avoid).

EDIT:
I would also take advantage of the allowed three google blocks and one link block per page. It looks like you've only got one google ad per page. Try maybe placing a link block under the nav? Also try adding an ad block in the middle of your copy.
 
I'm amazed with all that traffic and pageviews no one has told you that you need to get some CPM ads on there.

Apply to valueclick, tribalfusion, and buds. With those pageviews you'll quickly go from $5 to $10 a day to $100 or more if you chain your networks properly.
 
Blend and integrate the ads. Put some next to the photos with a thin line separating them. Best practice is placing a block under a few photo thumbs.
 
Elvie is that acceptable by Google to blend in ads with text?


Sitemaker I guess but it's still limited in terms of what can be advertised on automotive sites.


Murdock are you saying that if ads are easy to see then people will avoid them naturally? Does that goes same for visual ads?
As for the ads I thought that only 1 was allowed per page? Also what do you mean by link block? How is it done?


GeorgeB Thank you for advice I will try your strategy.


RedMatrix I will try that as well.
 
Absolutely you are allowed to blend the ads. Yes, people are ad-blind and will not even read your ads when they are segregated in a different coloured box.
You are allowed 3 Adsense ads, and 1 set of adsense links per page.
 
You've already gotten some good suggestions I think... the main point is that by separating your ads from your content like how you're doing, you make it too easy for readers to naturally skip over your ads. You want the opposite, not trick people into clicking (well maybe) but kind of provide an ad as a natural segue to the next topic or link. I think having another ad near the bottom of the page would work well for you in this regard.
 
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