Free Targeted Website Traffic

Delaney from Home (Contact Member) -

My husband and I have a videogame website and we're trying to come up with a strategy to make it pay for itself. We currently have text links and banner ads available for sale at a monthly charge but don't seem to be selling anything. The site gets a lot of hits (I'm not sure how many, my husband knows how to check that but I don't), so I wonder if we're priced too high? What does a text link normally go for? Same question on a banner ad?

Comment #1 webferret from Irvine (Contact Member) -

Why don't you make the site abut the video game? There is nowhere written in stone that ads will mean revenue. It doesn't have anything to do with price. You could put affiliate ads in there.

I would suggest you ask for a token donation from users who will get selective IP addess servicing during heavy volume time, or turn you site into a membership access only site.

Even a .50 donaton from a hundred users is fifty bucks a month.

How realistic are your expectations?

Comment #2 Brenda from The Beach Baby! (Contact Member) -

Do you advertise the price directly on the site or do they have to email you to get further information on how much it costs for a certain amount of time, etc. I have seen many different forums that have "your ad could be here" but there is not any further detail. Maybe should give them more info. Just a suggestion.

Comment #3 jnights from Las Vegas (Contact Member) -

The fact that you have traffic doesn't necessarily mean that you have a good userbase. You can use Google Analytics and possibly your forum software to give you an indication of how many regulars vs uniques you actually have. My first suggestion is to look into Google ads or something equivalent to that, but you could also advertise your ad space on various forums. You also need to look at your page rank because that is important to some advertisers as it indicates how peopular your site is from a Google perspective.

Comment #4 Delaney from Home (Contact Member) -

Brenda.... yes we advertise the price on the site. There is a whole page of information including paypal links to 3 different price levels (one month, six months, one year).

jnights.... I don't know the page rank. I don't even know how to find that information.

Comment #5 Holly from Middle of Nowhere USA (Contact Member) -

You may try offering some free ad space to people at first. Or just lower your prices? Just a couple suggestions, they may work, may not work, but isn't it worth a shot, considering!

Comment #6 RiverQueen from Anywhere You Want (Contact Member) -

Well if your site is a videogame site what about charging membership which would allow them to download the video game to their PC in the same manner that BigFish or Reflexive or other game sites do.

I know my sister just joined BigFish and she is now paying $4.99 a month for the use of their games and she got a couple of games free and apparently she receives a free game a month. But each month for a minimum of 6 months she has to pay $4.99 for this service.

Wouldn't that be a better way of going in order to earn money. Just think if you get 100 people joining for $5.00 a month that's $500.00 a month in your pocket for developing newer games so you continually have something to offer?

Comment #7 angie1000 from Georgia (Contact Member) -

What exactly does your website cover? Do you do game reviews, sell games, etc? I would definitely try out a few affliate links. See if gaming sites like gamestop or ebgames offers anything.

Comment #8 delta from sweetwater (Contact Member) -

It sounds like a good idea but you need rethink exactly what you want to do. Gaming is in especially since the release of ps3 and wii.

Comment #9 nygirl from see username (Contact Member) -

If you are already offering space and not selling maybe you should look at your prices. Maybe its a little high for the traffic your site is getting.

Comment #10 jess from The mighty earth (Contact Member) -

Install the Google Toolbar and you can view the pagerank. It's not really that important in all honesty, but if you can get links from sites with a high pagerank then your site's pagerank should go up and it's a good selling point.

E-Mail:         

Name:            (required)

Title:           (required)

Message (do not enter emails or links or urls in the message!):