This post is the top search result for "migrate itunes library," and is very high up for "transfer itunes library." I get 16,000 views a month on it. In the month after Christmas, I'll probably get 30,000 views (everyone getting new computers). I feel like I could sign up direct advertisers for this. I'm using AdSense right now, but you can imagine that isn't much revenue. Any suggestions?
If you know of a product that does a good job and is easier than doing all of these steps manually; you could do an affiliate link for that product. There are tons of people who are intimidated by anything that takes more than 2 steps to do.
Agreed with @icey. You could probably locate a decent paying CPA from affiliate sites like http://www.wickedfire.com/ that would provide several bucks for each purchase/view of the advertised software solution. (A DIY tutorial making money from automated services. Ha!)
Well, you've got an engaged audience, and you're telling them how to do something for free. I'd probably focus on related products or services. If they're on your page, you know a few things about them: they don't know how to transfer an iTunes library, and there's a good chance they just got a new computer. You might try affiliate programs for tutorials, must-have Mac software, utilities, online backup services, etc. Generally speaking, CPA makes more than PPC, and PPC, generally makes more than impression-based advertising. Do some A/B testing to see what works and what doesn't. With the traffic numbers like yours, you should know pretty quickly if something is working or not.
If you want to try more short-term, sleazeball tactics, you could always do paid linking, affiliate payout-based "ratings/reviews," popunders, zero-click redirects, etc. They work well on sites with short life spans, but really drag down sites over the long term.
Great thinking on Mac software, utilities and backup services!
It's funny, I've noticed, year-over-year, the traffic spike on this post on Christmas day tends to grow at the rate of Apple's market share. So, anything that is good for a new Mac user would be good for these people. Would love to hear more ideas on this from everyone!
I'm as entrepreneurial as the next guy, but jeez. Is it really worth trying to make a bit of money off this? Why not just enjoy the fact that you're helping people out and leave it at that?
I want to address this further, because a couple of people have said something like this, and don't understand this thinking. Here's my position:
I'm sure other entrepreneurs can agree with me that you need to be resourceful - to work with your own strengths & experiences.
I did write this post initially to help others; but it has been a successful posts. I now consider it an asset that I can build upon and learn from. For now, it may be a matter of just increasing ad revenues; but who knows how it could be expanded in the future? "You can't connect the dots moving forward."
If I have a place that there is a big enough audience visiting that I can run tests and easily learn a few things about that audience, I can not only make that resource more valuable for this audience, I can also learn how to market things to that audience. I can then use that learning on future endeavors that will, hopefully have a larger audience.
Not everyone starts Digg overnight, including Kevin Rose. You have to work with what you have. You have to build your snowball before you can start rolling it.
(1) figure out what who the users are specifically.
(2) sell sponsorship to advertiser
- - - - -
(1)Who are the users?
I would encourage you to create a POLL in the top right hand corner of the white area where the story text is.
Use polldaddy.com or similar.
Survey the users with selling the advertising space in mind.
I am going on the assumption that you are correct in the after-Christmas boom, that most people are coming because they are switching computers.
So poll is "Why are you here?"
a) I just got a new Macinosh computer!
b) I just got a new PC.
c) Transferring the files to a new computer I already own.
Once you have that data, you're ready for part (2)
(2) Sell sponsorship.
Right now you have a "follow me on twitter" link, you have a email opt-in box at the top.
These users are not nearly as valuable to you as they are to companies with businesses focused on new computer users.
If your poll conclusively proves that you have 10 - 30k people showing up with new computers each month I would sugget that you:
a) Create an advertising box in the same spot that your poll goes - top right of the article.
b) Sell this box to an article Sponsor and tell the sponsor that you'll let them plaec a special offr, a follow us on twitter / facebook, and an email opt-in box at the top.
Finding companies that would be interested in sponsoring a post with thousands of people that just bought a computer shouldn't be too difficult. Best way to start is to think about all the bloat-ware that comes with a new computer:
- anti-virus
- live customer support help
- ISPs
- accessory manufacturers
- publications like macworld / pcworld / etc
If you average out 16,000 views a month and have strong advertising messaging in that box, it's not out of the question that you could achieve a $20 - 30 ECPM (earnings per thousand impressions) taking you up to $300 - 500 a month in revenue vs. current $40.00
LOL - happy to help - I've worked similar systems before. Another good idea from the top of the comments list was to let somebody totally co-brand the post, backgrounds, banners, etc once you know who your target should be - good luck and do a follow-up post after you experiment!
If you want to max out the value for a lower-traffic site or page think "sponsorship". It's a little more effort to sell. Find a single advertiser who will find this article to be more valuable than some random CPC or network CPM advertier, and sell them the page exclusively for a period of time. Someone who sells a paid iTunes utility, maybe. Allow them to brand the whole page -- like the background. For the right advertiser it could be a no-brainer to pay over $10 CPM.
Yeah, I was considering this. One of the selling points I was thinking for this was "sponsoring this page will keep your competitor's ads off of it." Any other ideas?
Associated Content pays a certain amount of money per 1000 page views. If you post original content with them (ie not posted elsewhere) you can also get a few bucks up front (like $10 or $15 -- I really do mean a "few" bucks). Or you can forgo the up front money, republish it with them, and get a little money for the page views through them, plus link back to this page from the approved article if you want.
You could experiment with donations. It seems you already have a decent amount of data on AdSense. It'd be interesting to see how, say, PayPal donations perform.
I did used to have a more prominent donation request. I got a few dollars here and there, then one day a guy sent me $15! Maybe I should give it another shot.
How about adding a Mac Mall (or similar) affiliate link for iPod cases, sleeves, FM transmitters, even those big ugly clocks that you can "dock" your iPod to.
$4 would be a pretty reasonable RPM for this page. Anything less, and you're probably losing money to poor ad relevance or poor ad provider revenue sharing.
It's just a back-of-the-napkin estimate, but yeah. Try as many options as you've got time for, analyze your performance data, and get a higher performing option in place before your holiday surge.
How about selling a video version for those who don't know what to do. Download and install Captasia, Create a video that explains how to do it visually, and then put a link in your page to buy it for a small price. Also consider a PDF version with more screen shots and very percise instructions (supported with comments from your post) etc... But keep this post free as it's the launching pad. Also don't over sell it. Just be honest and say "EDIT: I noticed that this page is very popular so I made some suplimentary material that you might be interested in buying if you found this post hard to understand". Hell I'd even go so far as ask for donations.
But the trick is not to make it sound like your wanting to make a business on it. Then people won't be put off because honestly, you probably won't make a mint on this post. You'll probably see less than 1% of visitors monitizing.
