Archive for the 'Revenues' category

Essentially, here is a very interesting target for anybody willing to create a successful web site using very little text content. The answer is really in TWIPPHOTO:

The most important:

Here are some things to avoid if you want to attract buyers and editors:

1. Flash
2. Video
3. Music
4. Ads
5. Too Many Slideshows
6. Slideshows as intros

Here are some things to do if you want to attract buyers and editors:

1. Concentrate on speed.
2. Spend your energy on providing content not style.
3. Enable keyword search.
4. Have all your contact info readily available from anywhere on the site.
5. E-commerce.
6. Consistent design and interface with easy navigation.

It’s plain and simple. It couldn’t be more exact.

It is quite important to track the exact status of your server. It has been proven again to me last Saturday. During a few hours, OVH which is hosting my web sites had a bad connection with the rest of the world (some users could go through, most couldn’t reach the web site).

The first visible consequence is small dip in the visits as shown by Google Analytics. But it is not very visible (about 10%). Most importantly, the visitors who could get through were not able to visit conveniently and the Google Adsense earnings dropped by 30% on this same day.

Two lessons:

1. Be sure to have a reliable web service (not only the machine, but also its connection) to deliver a pleasant visiting experience to your web site.
2. Web site performance has a direct impact on your earnings. In this case 1/2 of visitors seeing a slow web site reduced ads revenue by 30%. A little web page optimization could be welcome, too.

With the new year, let’s see a few things to start the year well:

• A little change of looks and colours
• Removal of the constraint to log before writing a comment
• Creation of a favicon and a simple logo for the pages
• Also, I checked my Google Adsense revenues of 2008. No month has been under $370 and I always stayed under $600 (even in December, it seems that recession is with us). Naturally, Roumazeilles.net was the most powerful with more than 800k visits during the year 2008. We’ll see if 2009 allows the new web sites to grow at the same level or better.

And, of course, I wish you a happy new year.

If you were wondering, it’s the right time to read a paper from Slate titled “How do bloggers make money?“.

It describes those bloggers who make money with their own blog. How much do they earn et what are the different revenue sources (not everything comes from ads).

One thing is clear: The recession is upon us, the crisis is here. Nobody will be spared. But as an entrepreneur (web site creator), what will be the impact on our site(s)? I think that there will be a small number of significant impacts. These issues may even be very noticeable.

The impacts

First, Recession means reduced activity. Let’s be prepared to see ad spending and the overall activity go down. After September 11, 2001, I had observed a drastic fall-off in non-essential spending (I was working in the business of art on the Internet). This end of 2008 and year of 2009 will probably follow in the footsteps of 2001-02. I would not be surprised to see visits/trafic seriously reduced in the coming months as Internet users concentrate on issues more “important” for them.

If your sales (of ads or anything else) are linked to “consumer-oriented markets”, everybody will tell you that they will slow down. Companies can easily reduce spending by cutting the ad budget (and this will be fast on the Internet). And the Internet users will not be compelled to buy T-shirts, caps, photo prints, etc.

Another issue (but what direction will it take, really?) is the exchange rate of Euro against US Dollar: It wil keep changing. For European site owners like us, this is critical since most of our sales are made in US dollars and paid in Euros. During the recent period of depressed US dollar, my ads revenue (biggest part of my web sites income) was under serious pressure (I kept less and less Euros for the same amount of ads). It starts being corrected; If the US of A are the first to get ou of Recession, the exchange rate wil soon favor the US dollar (and so, my own income).

What can I do?

This is the question asked by Lenine! What can I do? Most of these factors cannot be influenced. But, against all odds, it is possible to counter-act the ineluctable. My proposals:

• It may be time for you to start your own campaign ad, to get more visitors, to increase your market share. The ads price should go down and this is a good investment if you succeed at it.
• Beware! Reduce all accessory spending. Anything not clearly aimed at increased traffic or revenue is nto really important. It may not be time to replace your PC now.
• Create new services (or new web sites) susceptible of kicking new life to your activity(ies) without waiting for an external improvement.

With this advice, we may be able to go through the Recession in the best possible conditions. As you noticed, I am already implementing several of these ideas by myself.