Who here actually runs long term content websites?

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thanks CLK. I'm not there yet with my sites but its nice to know about this and well worth spending some time in here today. When I think I'm there I'l PM you and you can check it out and maybe give a good word.

Its little tidbits like this that make this forum so fucken valuable.

Peace!

CLKeenan said:
You can find out more about them here: Gorilla Nation

They are extremely selective in who they accept to represent. They do require that they control all of your banner advertising but you can default to your chain through them. So I have my chain setup GN->TF->Burst->ValueClick->CPA Offers (hardly any impressions make it this far).

You need to have a lot of targeted traffic and high quality content in order for you to be considered. It also helps to know someone who is already a publisher of theirs (I know the owner of Student.com and he put in a good word for me which got me in touch with the VP of BizDev @ GN).
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Blastyourass said:
The prob is your right behind the manufacturer and you'll probally never break #1. It's like selling dell computers with a #3 site and dell is #1 and 2. Your fucked.

What I do is study the competition and rankings and see if I can crack #1 eventually. I look for high volume seraches where #1 in google has a low PR and is not a wiki page, amazon, etc. where you will never crack it.
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Rather than trying to rank for the manufacturer, go for what they aren't.

Rank for reviews about the manufacturer and its individual products.

Create info videos or tutorials about the product. Actually buy the product and create a photo gallery of images that you can't find anywhere else.

Do case studies about the product and how its used.

Rank for words relating to that product. So instead of trying to rank for a skateboard brand name (for example), rank for the names of tricks.

If I were researching to buy a product (and you want the people who are really considering buying), I would do things like look for reviews, case studies, pictures, etc. Provide the material that possible buyers are looking for, make it unique so that 'enthusiasts' in the niche will want to link to you (in a natural way), then simply give those possible buyers a way to actually make the purchase once they are on your site.

If I want to buy a Dell, and I type in "dell," chance are that I want to find Dell.com. BUT, if I think I want a Dell, I am going to add some more to that search to find more information. For that reason, I think that it's far more important to rank for more long tail phrasing than it is to rank for the manufacturer's name.

Laura :)
 
Sure thing, just let me know :) I'll keep you updated on my experience with them. I've only been with them for a few months now and the first month was very disappointing but that was just because they didnt have any campaigns sold to my site. The 2nd month was amazing :) I got some kick ass campaigns that really targeted my users well.

I haven't gotten any crazy cool branded campaigns for my site but thats my fault. I didn't get on board with GN early enough in the year to arrange for one (these things take lots of time to plan, pitch, and put out) and now with the school year over, my traffic is dropping down to like 1/10 of what it usually is.

So in the off season I've been working with Don (my account manager) to come out with a bang once the school year is starting back up :)

I have some powerpoint presentations that show some of the integration opportunities they have done in the past. If you are a well known/respected member, I will PM them to you.

-Chris

Blastyourass said:
thanks CLK. I'm not there yet with my sites but its nice to know about this and well worth spending some time in here today. When I think I'm there I'l PM you and you can check it out and maybe give a good word.

Its little tidbits like this that make this forum so fucken valuable.

Peace!
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I agree Laura. Longtail words are great but don't forget the the short tail. Great advice for sure.

I just would never build a content site about manufactured products and tangible goods. I build them around what needs are not being met by internet searchers in Google and lets face it 70% of them still type in one word searches when they start that search. If I see a 1-2 word search with really no competition and I can see where they want to go by reviewing the long tail versions then I have a great adsense site to target the top 3.

So my goal is when they type in a 2 word search is to be at #1 and my site will have the content and ads to take them to the 3-5 longtail and I get paid for fullfilling that need for them and google. Thats what Google wants so they get revenue on ads before the searcher finds what they want in the naturalserps. We get paid, google gets paid, the searcher finds what he wants and everyone is happy.

Did I go off topic? Too much coffee sorry:D



Laura said:
Rather than trying to rank for the manufacturer, go for what they aren't.

Rank for reviews about the manufacturer and its individual products.

Create info videos or tutorials about the product. Actually buy the product and create a photo gallery of images that you can't find anywhere else.

Do case studies about the product and how its used.

Rank for words relating to that product. So instead of trying to rank for a skateboard brand name (for example), rank for the names of tricks.

If I were researching to buy a product (and you want the people who are really considering buying), I would do things like look for reviews, case studies, pictures, etc. Provide the material that possible buyers are looking for, make it unique so that 'enthusiasts' in the niche will want to link to you (in a natural way), then simply give those possible buyers a way to actually make the purchase once they are on your site.

If I want to buy a Dell, and I type in "dell," chance are that I want to find Dell.com. BUT, if I think I want a Dell, I am going to add some more to that search to find more information. For that reason, I think that it's far more important to rank for more long tail phrasing than it is to rank for the manufacturer's name.

Laura :)
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Cool Chris! Yes get some branded shit in there. Thats what peeps want. You'll figure something good, just keep at it!

Keep us posted and thanks again!

CLKeenan said:
Sure thing, just let me know :) I'll keep you updated on my experience with them. I've only been with them for a few months now and the first month was very disappointing but that was just because they didnt have any campaigns sold to my site. The 2nd month was amazing :) I got some kick ass campaigns that really targeted my users well.

I haven't gotten any crazy cool branded campaigns for my site but thats my fault. I didn't get on board with GN early enough in the year to arrange for one (these things take lots of time to plan, pitch, and put out) and now with the school year over, my traffic is dropping down to like 1/10 of what it usually is.

So in the off season I've been working with Don (my account manager) to come out with a bang once the school year is starting back up :)

I have some powerpoint presentations that show some of the integration opportunities they have done in the past. If you are a well known/respected member, I will PM them to you.

-Chris
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I did a print screen of the powerpoint slide that I think has the coolest integration:

branded.PNG
 
OK, I see. They are doing what you would see on TV. Slick Website commercials.

Really appealing to consumers because thats what they see on TV. Now I see why they can be very effective! Cool, I'm very ineterested.

I would really keep peeps up to date Chris. Good info. Let me know how it develops later.

Peace!
 
CLK, thats some damn cool ad placement.
Makes me kinda wanna go back to content sites.
 
CLKeenan said:
In the past I had only run a CPM chain (Tribal Fusion, Burst, Valueclick, Casale, etc) as well as Adsense. Now I am still doing a chain but I have Gorilla Nation representing my website and bringing in some premium advertisers who are paying mid $x CPM for most campaigns.
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Damn- this thread is one of the reasons why I can't stay away from this site for more than a few hours at a time...great info!

What is a CPM chain? Could you explain to this noob a little more about how that works (I know what CPM is, does the chain just refer to a number of ads from those networks displayed on your site?). How are these ads inserted into your site- is it just like the typical affiliate offer ads?

Also- do any of you run affiliate programs on your sites as banner ads? I'm launching a new content site soon which I have a banner admin section - so I can input banners linking to affiliate offers that would be relevant to the users on my site. I would be very interested in adding in CPM ads though!

Thanks!
 
Reefer420 said:
Damn- this thread is one of the reasons why I can't stay away from this site for more than a few hours at a time...great info!

What is a CPM chain? Could you explain to this noob a little more about how that works (I know what CPM is, does the chain just refer to a number of ads from those networks displayed on your site?). How are these ads inserted into your site- is it just like the typical affiliate offer ads?

Also- do any of you run affiliate programs on your sites as banner ads? I'm launching a new content site soon which I have a banner admin section - so I can input banners linking to affiliate offers that would be relevant to the users on my site. I would be very interested in adding in CPM ads though!

Thanks!
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A chain is simply defaulting the impressions one network can't fill to another network. You usually do this from your highest paying network to your lowest paying network.
 
Reefer420 said:
Damn- this thread is one of the reasons why I can't stay away from this site for more than a few hours at a time...great info!

What is a CPM chain? Could you explain to this noob a little more about how that works (I know what CPM is, does the chain just refer to a number of ads from those networks displayed on your site?). How are these ads inserted into your site- is it just like the typical affiliate offer ads?

Also- do any of you run affiliate programs on your sites as banner ads? I'm launching a new content site soon which I have a banner admin section - so I can input banners linking to affiliate offers that would be relevant to the users on my site. I would be very interested in adding in CPM ads though!

Thanks!
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1. Most people use something like Openads - Home to manage their ad serving. It's free and pretty easy to use. You create zones on your site (which are just spots for ads) and then load up either your banners, or work out invocation for outside networks. This is where you decide what has priority and when to serve what.

2. It's very, very rare that affiliate banner ads do anything as far as conversions. You will likely just be taking up space that could be earning money through CPM advertising. By all means, try it, but I don't know anyone who prefers banner ads (which people rarely interact with - they are more for branding/presence) over text-based ads - either contextually or otherwise.

I answered your PM, too. :)

Laura
 
I don't have a problem getting people to click. I run CJ, Auctions Ads and another ad. Each is rock solid in 2-5% click throughs, meaning on any given day 6-15% of my traffic is clicking out (I understand I could narrow the high number down further by some analysis but I like it better). The problem is that the only ones that seam to pay are CPM, not CPA. Damn cheap people!!! And I'm number 1 for quite a few long tail searches.
 
I have a content site. I've owned it for about 6 years (with a one year break that two other people took over a few years ago) and took on a partner a year and a half ago, but have only developed the content part of it over the last two years. It was previously just a forum.

We have CPM as our main source of revenue (Gorilla Nation, Tribal Fusion, Burst and Casale as lowest on the chain). Gorilla Nation does well, but Burst has outperformed them as far as getting me great paying specialized campaigns. We have a Wal-Mart roadblock with them through the end of next month, which has been our biggest campaign with any network. Burst works just as hard as GNM in my opinion.

We also monetize with adsense (incremental income, nothing big) and affiliate marketing. We're ramping up affiliate marketing, smaxor was a HUGE help with that (who says black hat guys are badasses?). He really gave me some incredible ideas about how to monetize our users. My partner and I have also both learned an incredible amount here. Hopefully we'll be balancing out our revenue more.

Over the past two years, I've worked almost every single day at least 6 hours a day. It has been extremely frustrating at times, and I've been thisclose to burnout more than once. I can't imagine not doing it though, a content site has it's share of headaches but has an amazing amount of opportuinity also.
 
I have been wanting to do a forum for my one of my content sites and was wondering if this is your only source of income or a side job? Second how is it running a forum and is it monetizable (meaning worth the work)?

I noticed you do have activity there and your site is very polished and professional. My fiancee actually liked it (new parents) so that was cool.



BlondeTM said:
I have a content site. I've owned it for about 6 years (with a one year break that two other people took over a few years ago) and took on a partner a year and a half ago, but have only developed the content part of it over the last two years. It was previously just a forum.

We have CPM as our main source of revenue (Gorilla Nation, Tribal Fusion, Burst and Casale as lowest on the chain). Gorilla Nation does well, but Burst has outperformed them as far as getting me great paying specialized campaigns. We have a Wal-Mart roadblock with them through the end of next month, which has been our biggest campaign with any network. Burst works just as hard as GNM in my opinion.

We also monetize with adsense (incremental income, nothing big) and affiliate marketing. We're ramping up affiliate marketing, smaxor was a HUGE help with that (who says black hat guys are badasses?). He really gave me some incredible ideas about how to monetize our users. My partner and I have also both learned an incredible amount here. Hopefully we'll be balancing out our revenue more.

Over the past two years, I've worked almost every single day at least 6 hours a day. It has been extremely frustrating at times, and I've been thisclose to burnout more than once. I can't imagine not doing it though, a content site has it's share of headaches but has an amazing amount of opportuinity also.
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