Insider Secrets to a Making a Million Dollar Web Site!
A few days ago I released my first post on “How I Made $860,538.38 PROFIT in 4 Months!“, along with the picture of my $306,373.24 check. Due to the massive exposure and questions generated from the post, I thought I’d bring you the second installment to How I Made $860,538.38 PROFIT in 4 Months! This time we will go with a Q&A theme.
What is the web site you made all this money with?
The site I was able to have so much success with is MySpaceNow.com. There is no programming on the site at all, and it’s made up of over 10,000 pages of content, such as images, myspace layouts and social networking applications/flash. Yes… you can imagine how long that took to put together. However, when you are seeing results, you just want to keep making your project bigger and better!
What is the current status of your site?
My myspace resource site is still running and still turning a decent amount of profit each month. The traffic is lower than it used to be, but that’s expected. I was one of the first to get into the “myspace resources” niche, and now it is more saturated than ever.
What is/was your site traffic?
I first started the site from scratch and with no traffic. The first method of advertising, were a few text links on a couple of my other sites. Next was to get the word out on MySpace and other social networks. Once the users started to grab content and link back to my site, it was golden. The high point for site traffic was around 185,000 uniques per day. Currently the site receives around 15,000-20,000 uniques per day. Yes, this is quite a drop… but as mentioned above, I haven’t focused on this site in over a year now.
Having Multiple Dedicated Dell Servers to Manage Traffic was a Must.
When was the last time you updated the site?
I’ve been quite busy with many other projects, so realistically, I haven’t touched or updated the site in nearly a year. Meanwhile the site still receives several thousands of visits per day, while also earning several thousands a month. My only maintenance is monthly servers fees, which are much lower than they were back when I was working on the site full time.
How did you make so much profit over costs?
The myspace site I created was a huge viral success. Once a few sites picked it up, the traffic was tremendous, and search engines were sending me a ton of traffic as well. Since I did not have to worry about marketing costs, I could focus on providing content, managing ad space, and making sure the site was always accessible. The main costs in running a site like this (outside of the hundreds of hours of time spent), are server costs. Over $100,000 was spent on shared hosting, buying new Dell servers and hiring a server management team to make sure everything was always running.
What were your advertising and hosting costs?
As mentioned, the site was pretty much all viral. After running the site for several months with no advertising costs, I decided to give Google Adwords a shot. I was able to target towards some pretty cheap traffic, since my Quality Score was super high, and this was a niche market that wasn’t oversaturated (yet) and click prices weren’t insanely high. Marketing through Google Adwords brought in over an additional MILLION clicks. Even after $27,721.89 in adwords cost, the site still had no problems clearing seven-figures. Hosting costs ranged per month from $300 (when first starting out), to up to $10,000 a month, before buying my own Dell servers and hosting myself.
I was able to generate over 1 MILLION clicks using Google Adwords!
What other ad networks did you use on the site?
In my last post, I focused on some of the big earners from the site, which were Yahoo Publisher Network, NeverBlueAds, CasaleMedia and ValueClick Media. Other earners on the site were Interclick (which is another cpm banner network), Miva (which provides screensaver/wallpaper downloads), Google Adsense (generated nearly six-figures in revenue), AuctionAds (I posted multiple times on my earnings with them), WidgetBucks (another new program, which I also posted earnings on)… along with a few other networks. All of these advertisers combined generated over seven-figures in revenue for the site… which clearly covered the hosting costs, making this a seven figure profitable site.
You made a lot with Yahoo, but what about Google Adsense?
Originally I had no expectations for the success of this site. I was providing a service and it exploded quickly. Once the traffic was flowing through the site, it was time to test different ad placements and to see what worked. Luckily, the Yahoo Publisher Program had come out (and accepted my site), just a few weeks after my site went live. I was originally running Google Adsense, then started running Yahoo Publisher Network instead. After comparing numbers, Yahoo was providing much better numbers. I would continually rotate advertisers on the site and see which performed best. While Yahoo earned nearly seven figures alone on the site, Google Adsense accounted for nearly six-figures in revenue as well.
Google Adsense in itself generated almost $100,000 in Extra Revenue.
Would you have sold your site if you had the chance?
The opportunity to sell this cash cow of a web site did come into play around the 7th or 8th month of it’s existence. I wrote a post about this a while ago, which was called “To Sell or Not to Sell“. While I was offered nearly a seven figure package deal for the site (more/less depending on performance), I’m still glad I never accepted their offer. The parent company that was interested, was purchasing up a bunch of Social Networking Resource & Entertainment sites… which they then all turned into crap sites. I also heard that this company screwed many of their “partners” on payments owed from their buyouts.
Why did you wait until now to post your check?
I’ve never been one to look for attention, or brag. The intention of posting my check was not to impress anyone, but to stress to everyone the possibilities before you. Yes, the check was received back in 2006. However, keep in mind… this blog is still less than a year old. I have literally spent the last year debating on whether or not I wanted to be put in the spotlight, if I was to post this check. But I decided to take the risk… my intention is the same as always, I want you to succeed, make money online and live the dream that us affiliates and ppc marketers are living.
Why didn’t you post your resource site in your original post?
The main reason why I didn’t like my resource site in my original post is because this is a blog, and it’s purpose is to keep people coming back and giving them more. A lot of people were leaving comments, asking what my site was. You were not being ignored… you were part of the process. Not only have I released my site information, but also how I promoted the site, my advertisers and actual earnings numbers.
Is this your only big and successful web site?
I’ve been making money online for over 11 years now, since I was 15… and have never had any other job. A one-hit-wonder I am not. Over the years I have adjusted to every market change there has been. I’ve done freebie sites, permission based email marketing, ran my own ad network along with my own network of entertainment sites. Was this site one of my biggest and fastest money makers? Yes! I saw an opportunity here and made the most of it. I am now focusing on several other different niche areas and projects.
Aren’t you worried people will copy your site idea now?
They say being copied is one of the highest forms of flattery… well, when you own a web site, and you’ve been copied… IT SUCKS… but, I’ve been copied plenty of times before. There is still plenty of money to be made in this market, but it’s also plenty saturated! You want to make a resource type site? I say “Go for it!”.
As mentioned before, I’ve been making money online for over a decade now, (since I was 15!) and have some close friends that advise me on what I should post and what I should not post on my blog. There are risks associated with everything. Some have warned me about giving away too much information. However, if I didn’t meet up with these people in the past, that took their time to help me along the way, I wouldn’t be where I am today… I only wish to do the same for you and all of my blog readers. Yes, it may be risky providing the amount of information that I do, taking risks and trying different things is how I got to where I am today. I’m willing to take that risk to benefit my blog readers.
