Monetizing a toplist? 200k uniques a day

How would you go for monetizing a toplist?

If you do not know what a toplist is,
people add their websites in the list and my toplist's banner in their site. Their visitors click on the banner and cast a vote for that site, more votes, the higher on the list the sites go.

Now, if I own a toplist, the one I have been spying is getting 200-250k uniques a day, 1,5mil a week. The organic traffic is good, the "votings" traffic is somewhat junk,

Anyone can tell me how much 250k visitors could make, in adsense?

I also plan of using affiliate networks on my niche, maybe CPA offers and offering premium listings.

I want some feedback on this from the BHW community and maybe a few suggestions for getting the most out of the traffic

put yours on there, make it look really good, hope to hell that people are gonna be interested...

once you get to the top5, you'll be raking in good cash

250k uniques per day is impossible, from 1 toplist....well, not impossible..

maybe 250k visitors, but no way 250k uniques.... I've been trying to get to the top of 40 of them for about 3 months now, and i'm pretty much settled at where i'm at!!!.....

that kind of traffic would bring you (saying 2% clicked on ads) roughly 5k clicks per day,
.01 per click = $50 per day
.02 per click = $100 per day
.50 per click = $2500 per day

You would be my idol.....
If you figure out how to get 250k uniques per day, i'll pay you $100,000 for the method.... Dead serious!!!

250k unique per days means over 500k impression per day.
Put both CPM and CPC,you are a millionare

250k unique is a bit far fetched really.... however the anime niche is very good for toplists and brings in good traffic.... if you own the toplist then make your own site and make it allways in the top 3 positions.... then you win from both sites.... or even make a few sites and occupy the top 10 positions at all times.

However getting 250k visitors a day (unique or not) will of course be big money... but getting that many requires a good niche (there must be more than anime which has good big traffic)... Go get searching and occupy a big niche into little sections is even better.

hey lewi, I already picked a niche, I know a lot of stuff about it, it is a pretty popular one and surpisingly the competition seems really noobish , the sites are old & known but their SEO is crap and they are not updated frequently.

The site I am talking about which is getting 200-250k uniques a day (I've seen his stats, he is using extremetracking.com, which allows everyone to see stats) is my number 1 competitor right now, I will outrank him, wether it will take plenty of months.

I would give you the site & the URL to see his stats but I don't want more competition

boosey12 said:

If you figure out how to get 250k uniques per day, i'll pay you $100,000 for the method.... Dead serious!!!

Click to expand...

Once you get a good niche for a toplist and examine the competition, do a shitload of SEO to get organic traffic, advertise your toplist in related forums and sites, offer cool stuff and have patience It may take time but the income you will get will be steady. Plan everything carefull & work a lot.

boosey12 said:

put yours on there, make it look really good, hope to hell that people are gonna be interested...

once you get to the top5, you'll be raking in good cash

Click to expand...

Put my toplist on their toplist?

I've done this, added my toplist link only in one category and I got some average traffic & some submissions, I will add in more categories & toplists now ;]

P.S: I think I am getting too excited with the idea & I can't help it

250K uniques a day is not at all impossible for an adult site.

Well, toplist.....I'll have ot do a bit of research on this one. Sounds interesting. Is there a good script available to power a toplist site? Sounds like a lot of work but could be fun.

Cheers

I just have one question, what hosting are you using?

I used to do a toplist site and got about 150K unique a day but every host I was with booted me. So I just sold it, domain and script for a measly $100... What was I thinking!!??

@ knowledgeblast: search at hotscripts.com, you'll find plenty free ones.

@ darklegion, a dedicated server is a must-have to handle this traffic. BTW, what was your toplist's URL?

Thanks, I will take a look. Sounds like some great traffic #'s.

I have a (stupid ) question: I understand what a toplist is and how it's supposed to work, but how do you actually start one?

What would make somebody waste space for a banner that links to a site that brings them ten hits a day, if any at all? Chicken-egg-problem, right?

@ omfg: Good questions, get to understand the whole toplist concept and then ideas on how to advertise/make a good start will come flowing.

The idea is that you send them traffic (most of your traffic will be organic & viral, so you will need some good SEO and the less competition, the better) and they send you traffic back.

How do you make a start? you will have to get some webmasters to submit their sites (try to contact them directly and tell them something like "you know, I started this toplist and this is a good chance to get a high ranking so please submit your site", etc, give them "premium listings" *wink*. So you now have some sites listed, they vote but you send them no traffic, they won't like this, go out find forums/sites related to your niche and do some advertising (example post title: "Hey guys, I know this site where you can find a list with cool anime sites, check it out and don't forget to bookmark it!"), just do this until your search engine rankings build up.

Answering your 2nd question, the banners are small, toplists send a lot of traffic, now if it is a new toplist there is a chance that they will submit their sites & add their banners because they probably won't mind/won't notice and they think they will get traffic anyway.

P.S: pick a niche where toplists exist, e.g anime sites toplist, don't do something like car sites toplist, unless you plan to setup plenty of different toplists, but I recommend to concecrate on one.

i heard people like free snacks give people what they want

silver said:

give them "premium listings" *wink*.

Click to expand...

I see...

Sounds quite interesting, thank you.

Yes guys, regarding me selling a toplist site with 150k uniques... I sold it before I even heard the term Black Hat and before I even knew about Google adsense... Which is why back then I thought my $20 investment was a good one.. Making an $80 profit on a site that I never spent time on.

Now I am much wiser thanks to this great community here.

I won't tell you the URL because I am actually going to try and get it back but it dealt with a virtual community. Used to be extremely popular, not sure about it anymore.