suggestions to monetize my site?

[dockane]

Hi all,

I have a site named www.musicbusinesspage.com and would like to earn some money from it, but can't get anything to really stick. I'm a PR 3, running adsense and pulling in pennies. The site has been up for roughly 10 years, and until now I have never really had much time to think about how to earn from it. I also have written a book that I would like to sell some copies of as well. I just installed hitslink and average about 400 page views a day. . .about 80-100 or so are unique users. When I have had the newsletter sign-up form on there I get about 10 signups a day. Previous incarnations of the newsletter had me with over 10,000 names, although many of them are prob. outdated by now.

I get absolutely zero love from the bookstore link to Amazon.

Any ideas?

Thanks,
Doc

[dockane]

Wow. . I'm surprised 60 people have read this post but no one commented at all. Am I missing something? Would more info from me be helpful?

Thanks, Doc

[cameron]

Add another adsense ad closer to the top of the page, or move your existing ads up higher.

[Emancipator]

sorry i am really guilty of reading and not posting alot. I would love the image logo at the top, and stick in a 728x90 banner, then move up your whole heading, and make the font for the heading slightly bigger. thats what I would do.

[Chris]

10 years but a PR 3 and that low of traffic?

Did you switch domains multiple times? Was there a period of downtime? That is a really low figure.

[Cutter]

Create a list of 200-300 keyphrases, build a page for each. The pages should be targeted specific search terms, not like what is done here: http://www.musicbusinesspage.com/guidebk2000.html

There are some good adsense optimization articles on this site, you should be able to find them through the front page. Read those and re-design your site accordingly.

I am seeing very few backlinks to your site, and the whois says your domain was registered in 98, still very good. You should try to get at least 10 related incoming links, 5 from music blogs. Between that, added content, and adsense optimized pages, your site should be able to pull in a reasonable amount of money.

[dockane]

thanks guys. The site was originally hosted on the server of an ISP I worked for back in 1994 and was carried through there until I got the musicbusinesspage.com domain in 1998.

Yes, there was a time where it was down because I couldn't afford to keep hosting it, but that hasn't been an issue in a while. It was up and then down periodically for about a year two years back or so. At one time I was collecting registrants for a newsletter, and acquired over 10,000 names. I am getting ready to have that going strong again in the next two weeks or so.

I have only been using adsense since the end of July, and would also like to use it on another site that will have up soon: thebaker.com I would imagine it can pull in some good numbers too.

At this stage of the game, I'm curious if the general consensus is to mainly stick with one ad program? Raise your hand if you've got comments, or if my comments bring up any additional suggestions.

I appreciate the feedback a ton!

[Cutter]

Start with adsense so you can have a perfomance baseline, then you can test YPN, banners, and affiliate offers from there.

[Skeewe]

10 years but a PR 3 and that low of traffic?

Did you switch domains multiple times? Was there a period of downtime? That is a really low figure.

What is problem with switching domains? Search engine placement?
I have changed domain for same site. Now 3rd , and last one is up for 11 months