A few months ago I launched CarbGenie.com and in the past 30 days it has had over 16,000 unique visitors.

The only problem is: I can't figure out how to monetize it.

I've tried the following:

- Adsense: earnt about £0.50 per day
- Affiliate: Tesco and ASDA only pay for the first time a new signed up customer opens an account and spends some money. I've sent them thousands of visitors and haven't earned a penny
- Affiliate: Amazon via product placements in blog articles. This worked to some degree and I get regular sales from each blog article I write but it barely covers hosting costs

I'm thinking of white labelling some diet software and reselling that, but after doing some market research my visitors aren't interested in paying for diet software.

Basically, the site is without a product or an effective means of making money, so I'm turning to the brilliant people of BHW to ask if you could share some advice on how I could monetise the site.

I just want to mention that all the promotion and marketing I've done has been white hat and mostly social media driven. The site has been picked up by dieting communities and the site traffic is increasing daily.

Thanks in advance.

Try cparead or any content locker.

I know somebody who just lock their music artist site with cparead and it was earning $100/day, seriously, LOL. The visitors go with the extra effort just to read the articles on his site. His articles aren't even that popular.

Put in some opt in form ,collect emails

Sell banner space on that site or put up your own banners

I'm worried about pissing of my visitors - most of them come from Reddit

Originally Posted by jass11

Put in some opt in form ,collect emails

Sell banner space on that site or put up your own banners

What do I do with those e-mails? I've been collecting e-mails for quite a while but haven't done anything with them

Originally Posted by bobface

What do I do with those e-mails? I've been collecting e-mails for quite a while but haven't done anything with them

Send them intresting emails with your affilate links / your own products or sell the lists.

Search here on BHW,there is some good info shared

give them something for free and build a list as someone else had mentioned.

if you have a list you can figure out how to monetize it, everyday that passes there are missed leads.

Went to the site and did see an opt-in box but it wasn't on the homepage and it wasn't clear what I was getting for filling the form out.

my advice: get a webform up on the frontpage, above the fold and give away something cool. Video, free report, whatever but start to build the list!

After you've let the opt-in offer run for a while, crunch some numbers and see how well it converted. Try different things but be sure to collect data first so you can make good decisions.

Then, figure out how you want to make money. I now of someone in the weight loss niche that has a respectable affiliate program paying recurring commissions. I'll PM it over.

hope it helps!

Add a subtle opt-in form, (replace carb......top tips)with some sort of pdf / ebook incentive, and build a list. (instead of taking them straight to the SB diet)
You could also offer a membership, with ready made diets, fitness tips etc....
Anyway, good luck, your site has potential.

Thanks for the points so far - One thing though, you guys are mentioning that I should first get the punters in and then figure out a way to make money from them - that's the part I'm stuck on The traffic is rolling in and is increasing daily but even if I gather e-mails, I'm still stuck on the part of having nothing to sell them.

Looks like others got there first whilst I was typing

Thanks for the PM JakkOne - unfortunately I can't reply as I don't have 15 posts on the forums yet

If you're getting 16,000+ uniques then I think it should be pretty easy to reach out to some people and sell banner space. Set monthly prices for ads in a few different places then email some related companies. Should be able to make more than enough to pay for your hosting.

How much do you think would be a reasonable price to sell banner space (e.g. where I've got banners for my blog articles at the moment)

Tried promoting diet/weight loss pillls/supplements? if someone is looking for low card diets they're obviously dieting.
Look in to moreniche.com (pm me if you want a referral link :-p )

On a side note, I'm thinking of selling the site if I can't figure out how to monetize it soon. What do you think the best approach would be to get the highest price?

Originally Posted by bobface

On a side note, I'm thinking of selling the site if I can't figure out how to monetize it soon. What do you think the best approach would be to get the highest price?

flippa

Originally Posted by bobface

Thanks for the points so far - One thing though, you guys are mentioning that I should first get the punters in and then figure out a way to make money from them - that's the part I'm stuck on The traffic is rolling in and is increasing daily but even if I gather e-mails, I'm still stuck on the part of having nothing to sell them.

I do understand you're collecting emails.. I just had some quick points to help you get more.. when mentioning "building a list" it was intended towards having good communication and following up with the emails you have while acquiring new ones. They will go stale if you aren't reaching out.. opt out rates will be higher and spam complaint risk doubles every 6 months you don't send them an email.

you should re-engage with your list.. have you emailed them recently? any idea on what the open rates / opt out rates are? Do you have it segmented? How large is the list?

Originally Posted by bobface

Thanks for the PM JakkOne - unfortunately I can't reply as I don't have 15 posts on the forums yet

ahh, no worries mate.. that program has recurring revenue, worth looking into

Originally Posted by bobface

How much do you think would be a reasonable price to sell banner space (e.g. where I've got banners for my blog articles at the moment)

I think the real money is in the 16,000 visitors and conversion to an offer of some sort. A membership site with GOOD content or affiliate offer could generate revenue.

If you get to the point of selling the site, plz shoot me a PM

Originally Posted by Rougemont

If you're getting 16,000+ uniques then I think it should be pretty easy to reach out to some people and sell banner space. Set monthly prices for ads in a few different places then email some related companies. Should be able to make more than enough to pay for your hosting.

Exactly.

People don't realise how ridiculously easy it is to sell ad space. Just do a bit of research and then contact a bunch of relevant companies with your offer. More often than not you'll also end up with recurring clients who will pay you for months without you having to put any further work into it.

Originally Posted by bobface

How much do you think would be a reasonable price to sell banner space (e.g. where I've got banners for my blog articles at the moment)

Test. Start high, see if anybody bites. If not then go lower. Also have some "fake" banners up for social proof. Nothing works better than a company seeing that their main competitor is already buying ad space on the site

Originally Posted by bobface

On a side note, I'm thinking of selling the site if I can't figure out how to monetize it soon. What do you think the best approach would be to get the highest price?

Best approach? Get the damn thing generating some revenue. Without revenue you will get pennies for it. People don't pay for traffic, potential, etc. Most of them anyway.

Some great advice there - thanks. Time to pull my finger out my bottom

Maybe you can turn the products into a printable pdf - make a list of all of the low carb products on your site sorted from a-z or something (because the people looking for low carb food, generally won't buy online, they'll buy at the local grocery store), and then put the content locker in front of the list or link to the pdf..... They'll bite that way for sure.

I think that you'd get better results from your current affiliates as well if you were to put a buy now button on the CATEGORY pages (where is shows a whole bunch of products) as well as the product pages.

I would try creating an ebook and giving it away for email addresses. That way you can build a nice list.

Nice site man, you can go with something diabetic. I have diabetes and would use that site a lot for low carb options.

I know about a small private advertisment network, whose ads will work well on a website like this.

I'm sure their advertisement will make you some serious cash every month, if your website has around 2-4 thousand pageviews every day. If so, let me know here, and I'll send you more details via PM.

If your website doesn't have that much traffic, then it's not worth bothering them.

If you can show me some proof of your traffic, I would be very interested in speaking with you. PM me when you get the chance.