PAL Help Needed - Site Review

[Ridge]

So, my sister in-law, my wife, and I have been working on a site outside of gaming. The site is all about the book and movie "Twilight" which is a huge hit around the world with several more movies coming out.

The site is a little over 2 months old and we have over 1000 new visits a day. My sis in-law is an absolute nut and has wrote almost all of the content along with my wife. We recently added a forum (Thanks to Tommy) in hoped for creating a community.

Anyway, we are monetizing the site with adsense which is bringing in about $1.50 a day and product sales through Cafe Press, Amazon, Hot Topic, etc. So far we have only sold a few items.

So far the site is in the black, but with these traffic numbers I would think that we should be making more money and I'm not sure who to do that. Adsense is ok, but not going to make real money I don't think.

This is where I need PAL's professional help!

Please review the website here: Twilight and let me know what you think, what you would change, and most importantly how to get it making real money.

I'm confident over the next few months this will be the authority site for all things twilight, but not without your help. I'd be happy to give anyone that offers good suggestions a homepage link to your non-gaming website, or I'd happy to give some link love to your gaming site form one of mine..

Thanks in advance for everyone's help!

[Spry]

Randy, here is one thing that I would do. This worked on one of my non gambling sites that receives 1k uniques per day but wasn't making over $60 / month, lol.

1. Sign up for the ebay affiliate program, ebaypartnetwork.com. (since you have a site already, it is fine to apply now, if you do not have a built out site yet DO NOT apply or you will get declined and have to re-apply later and then it's good luck. Have a site first)

2. Pony up $79 bucks and purchase phpbay pro. This is a wordpress plugin that allows you to integrate ebay listings into your website simply and easily. If you're feeling generous and want to help me buy my son a new pair of shoes, you can pick it up through my phpbay pro affiliate link here. If not just go to phpbay.com.

3. Integrate the listings in to your pages. Especially if you are already ranking for products and information... I did a basic ebay search for twilight series and there are tons of stuff for sale... and the truth of the matter is that if they are being listed on ebay they are being sold on ebay... so get a piece.

4. Google and read phpbay integration tips, epntips.com is good tips site for ebay affiliates.

Hell I tell you what, if you purchase the plugin through my link and do the suggested to your site, and you don't earn the $79 back within 30 days after getting your site updated, I'll ship the full $79 back to back to you on full tilt or stars. You buy it, make a concerted effort to integrate into your site and you don't see the results and I'll quit pimping the ease of the ebay affiliate program here plus ship over the $$.

Good luck, and nice site

[Unknown Webmaster]

No review of Twilight?
Have you tried advertising for the the book right on the front page?
Since you are getting a lot of traffic some of those people may not be fans but people like me, who don't really know what the whole Twilight thing is about besides it being a book about vampires or something like that. Personally I would like a big fat button offering me a review or an introduction to "Twilight".

Recommend the fans some other books
I would also imagine that a list of say 10 books that are similar to Twilight or that "Twilight fans like" with reviews of them, would earn you a bunch of money.

Whenever I find a good book or movie, I would be very happy to find a list of book recommendations for people who like that particular book.

Maybe you could make list of books with a big picture of the cover, a big friendly title with stars indication how good it is for Twilight fans and a short description of it. Then a link to a more in depth review and a link to where I can buy it.

Just a random thougth

I think this page looks like a bunch of ads (not that there is anything wrong with that, but I'm clicking "back" the second I see it).
Twilight DVD, CDs and Books

I like this page better, since it seems easier to skim and has nice friendly pictures on it.
Edward Shirts

[PokerNations]

I think you need an above-the-fold spot for sales links. You've got the Amazon link on the bottom right, but perhaps having something in a more noticeable location would work better?

[Ridge]

Thanks for the response, I think it was your post on Jeremy's old blog that inspired us to try a non gaming site and my buddy/partner with a new site we are in the process of developing had already bought the phpbay script I think. If not, I'll sign up under your link for sure.

I'm going to chat with him now about using it on there.. thanks again for your advice!

[Ridge]

Just saw the other posts. Thank you so much guys, this is good stuff please keep it coming.. I know nothing of Twilight either btw, so a review and spot to buy the book makes perfect sense. I may nee to look for a new theme at some point too, dunno.

Keep it coming guys!

[PokerNations]

You could create a newsletter link signup and offer up some sort of Twilight related prize to the winner.

This way you can build a list of people to hopefully grow your community out of...

[Spry]

Ebays program has a pretty cool hybrid offer. You get CPA's (they call them acru's) from as little as $1 to $50 based on the quality of your traffic. They don't tell you exactly what criteria determine how your traffic quality is rated other than to say it is based on your traffics engagement with ebay. Anyway, you can get CPA's for new people just signing up and bidding... they don't even have to win the auction! They just have to be new and place a bid.

If you send lots of shitty traffic they will only give you $1 or eventually revoke your account alltogether but if your traffic is rated fairly quality you can get some pretty solid cpa's. Our traffic quality is currently at the $40 cpa level which we just jumped up from the $25 level a couple months back. In addition to the cpa you get a percentage of the listing fee's. I believe this scales up as well but honestly not sure exactly how it works.

anyway, long story short, after integrating phpbay the aforementioned site now makes an additional $200-$300 / mo with similar traffic levels. It's not poker money, but it's easy additional way to monetize a high traffic site. Plus it will also drive some targeted longtail traffic fairly free as well.

*edit, why is this in the seo forum?

[Unknown Webmaster]

Speaking of SEO, are you targetting "buy twilight %thing%" anywhere?

I noticed that there seem to be a bunch of people searching for "buy twilight", and they should be pretty easy to convert...

[Ridge]

No, good point UW - I'll be getting that phpbay script tonight, may just buy it through spry's link instead of using it with my other project with a partner. Am I allowed to use it on more than one site?

Also worth noting, like everyday we hit new records in traffic, yesterday was a record with 1083 visits, as of 2pm today we are at over 1100, so I'm excited to say the least..