Hey guys, I'm thinking of starting a site about a niche area within cannabis cultivation. I'm aware of all the forums out there that contain this info, but my site will have it in one place. All the content will be (re)written by myself so Google should like it! I know it'll be slightly tricky to monetize it as, due to the legality of it all, I will be unable to provide affiliate links for a lot of the products (e.g. soil, hydro gear etc) I discuss (I do plan on a product review page). I was thinking though, given the advent of medical marijuana, some places may allow affiliate links from cannabis sites, provided it's for the equipment as oppose to actual weed - if anyone does have some information on that it'd be much appreciated! Other than that though, some seed companies allow affiliate links, as do many head shops - so there is money in there I feel. I was thinking about limiting the content on the site and then write a small but high quality ebook containing the rest of the information and then promote it through the site. This will be where I expect I'll make the most money, but should I charge for the ebook, or release it for free and make people fill out a CPA offer. So basically, my question really is should I: a) Have all content on the site, become an authority site for my niche and make money purely off ads. b) Have reduced content on the site and promote a free ebook users have to fill out a CPA offer to download. c) Have reduced content on the site and promote an ebook users have to pay for. Thanks in advance for any input!
I would not worry too much about the legality of the site as you could gear it towards the medical benefits of the wonder "drug" Too much aspirin can kill you, too much alcohol can kill you, FDA approved drugs can kill you... too much marijuana and well - you will just fall asleep laughing and wake up hungry
I think ads won't make you a lot of money, because of the legality, so no relevant ads. You might go for b) and c), like selling it and offer it for free for a cpa offer. When you use some good converting offers, you could earn some nice money, but I'm not quite sure if someone would buy an ebook about cannabis. Just my $.02
You're on the right track, if you provide an extremely high quality ebook that goes through the entire process and doesn't skip on the details you could probably easily sell it from between 9.95 -> 19.95. If you make the book detailed enough, perhaps providing tips for growing different kinds of weed, providing pictures of the process and equipment necessary, then you could possibly get a good amount of sales. The only difficult part here is the demographic that you'll be targeting. I know the kind of people who smoke weed (most of my friends do) and they're not going to buy any ebook on how to grow it. Period. They'll ask around, or just "figure it out". So there's a problem there. But if you put in enough work you might be able to get something going. In addition to that, you can collect the emails of everyone purchasing your ebook and you'll have a niche list of people who smoke weed, that's when you'll want to market to them seeds, heads, etc (using your affiliate link), that should keep it so you have steady revenue coming in from both your ebook and affiliate sales. The reason I wouldn't go with CPA is because it doesn't leave any room for growth besides a growth in traffic. You need to somehow capture your targets email in order to market to them later. Maybe you can make it so you have to sign up for a free account before you can access the link to view the ebook. Then before you can download the ebook they have to complete a CPA offer. Anyways, there's a couple ideas for you.
You could always blank out a cpa offer and give them a chance to win a free "bong"... so they submit to win and no prize lol.
You're forgetting about the flood of new cannabis using patients that aren't your friends that don't have anyone around to ask nor the time / patience to "figure it out".
as someone who's into the old green stuff - a definate niche out there is tropical growing. There's just no info out there for us poor souls who live in tropical paradise. All the info is for indoors - which just don't work in the tropics, or for outdoors in more temperate or cooler areas.
Hey OP, I think you should have somewhat limited content onsite and use adsense and a cpa for the ebook. I've heard cpa is good for the weeders, I have a pot niche site and am writing content for a cpa'd ebook myself presently. Hey when you mind sharing the seed/hydro affiliates that you know of?
Maybe you're right. I'm sure there's thousands of people waiting for an ebook on how to grow weed. And I hope you inferred that "figure it out" meant google it. And if they don't have the time/patience to google it and pool the information together themselves, I doubt they'll have the time/patience to gather all the necessary tools, and wait the amount of time in order to grow the actual plants.
Thousands of people looking for a single dose of "how to" on the topic? Probably. I can point you in the direction SEVERAL classes on the topic that are paid enrollment in my local area if you'd like. I'm sure every one of those people would have rather spent 20 bucks on a 75 page ebook than a few evenings at some shitty grow shop after dinner. The average user still can barely use email let alone figure out what it takes to create a hydro/soil grow and successful harvest from the internet. They'd rather buy an ebook or take a class imho. I don't care if the market is viable or not though. I'm just saying don't knock anything until you've done the research. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/03/24/california-medical-marijuana-numbers_n_1377171.html Just a few sales out there... maybe... perhaps... i dunno... nah...
Thanks for all the replies guys. To clarify, the ebook I'm planning to write does not cover the entirety on the growing process, but rather a small niche of it. It's still tricky to do though and my google research reveals there's not a site specifically devoted to it, rather a lot of sites have a page or two devoted to one method of doing it. I plan to bring all the different techniques together in one authority site. After some further thought and considering the views here, I think I will just make the ebook free but force people to complete a CPA, which includes submitting their email, and then keep the email for later marketing, as krazietalent suggested. My thinking is that there is so much free info on growing weed out there, from word of mouth to online forums, people will be unlikely to want to pay for an ebook. If anyone has any further suggestions (or decent affiliates!) please continue to post! Thanks
