
Ask HN: How would you “monetize” this site? - coldshower
The site is a simple tax lookup. Enter an item and it will tell you if it&#x27;s taxable, anywhere in Canada. It&#x27;s a free service that&#x27;s geared towards lower income families, but it&#x27;s for any Canadian who wants to understand the tax system better.<p>The site has been rejected by Amazon Affiliates and Google Adsense for not having original content (it&#x27;s tax information gleaned from government sources).<p>So getting back to the question: for a site that might not get a lot of traffic, what novel ways might I monetize the site?<p>The site is here, for anyone who is interested: http:&#x2F;&#x2F;txttax.ca
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imaginenore
Try other ad networks. Or contact sellers of tax software and make a direct
deal with them (e.g. they pay you per click).

I'm surprised your sites got rejected, I have a few that run on publicly
available data.

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coldshower
Not sure I'll have enough traffic to appeal to advertisers. I'll check out
some alternatives to Adsense. Thanks.

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csallen
I like the suggestion to build an API and charge for requests, as well as
showing products for your searches and generating affiliate links. You could
probably just add a blog to the site to get approved by Amazon.

On a related note, I think you could improve the copy of your site a lot.
Explain to visitors why your site is useful and how using it will make their
lives better. Also, not sure why, but the initial load was super slow for me.
May have been my internet connection though, because I'm having trouble
reproducing.

My site ([https://indiehackers.com](https://indiehackers.com)) has lots of
examples of people monetizing their websites and side projects, so maybe read
through there and get some ideas. I can help put you in touch with any of the
founders if there's someone whose brain you'd like to pick.

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cauterized
Build an API. Allow free use up to N requests per day. Sell higher usage tiers
to businesses.

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pynerds
Can you recommend step by step process to earn $1000 per month through amazon
affiliate site?

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svisser
You've already identified that it may not get much traffic and it isn't
monetizable with two big ad networks.

It's worth experimenting with a few things but you may just need to move on to
another project that has better chances.

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sharemywin
might check out some of the affiliate networks. you could build ads for some
of your top searches.

