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.
Wow your amazing!
How many website did you build?
This is one of those "seeing is believing" moments. When I first saw that check, I thought it was photoshopped. Then as I read on with the story, it all started to make sense. There are so many amazing ways to make money online. Your idea makes people think "WOW.. how come I didn't think of that??"
First of all, this blog is simply amazing. Second, I would just like to say that my jaw dropped when I saw the picture of your checks. Thanks for the post, and I hope that someday I'll make as much as you.
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Wow! Very inspiring! I thought about creating a Myspace layout site awhile back but that was already when it was over saturated so I moved on to other things.
Wow I really enjoyed reading this. Thanks for sharing your experiences with us. I am new to this blog but it's already proving to be a really interesting read. 10,000 pages of content is pretty hard going. You obviously worked really hard and it's paid off big time. Good on you. Would be nice to see some of your other sites. I was feeling fed up today but your blog really inspired me and it's got me super motivated again. Thank you. : )
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i'd have to say that Google adsense isn't a great as people think, and although it's very popular, there's much more money to be made using other companies. I'd recommend using a CPM site that allows backup tags, this way the adsense ads can be shown frequently.
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Really impressing….
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Awesome and awe inspiring post. It's amazing to see what people can earn from a variety of different types of sites. I'm small scale with my operations but knowing that the sky is the limit is always a motivator.
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I really wish that was the case. I doubt there are many areas which are 'up and coming' that you can strike early.
This just goes to show that a successful idea and a simple design are the keys to success. I really like how you detailed every aspect of how you are making money on your site and how it became so successful.
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Hey Zac!
I'm totally impressed by your incredible results. I've checked out your site and I must say it looks great.
Well, as I check it with Alexa toolbar, it doesn't seem to be extremely high traffic website. However, you have made huge profit in a short period of time and that's what matters.
CPA Offers and PPC Ads are the most effective monetization models for such websites and as I'm looking at your site, I can see that fact.
Thanks Zac for sharing with us your case study and unique results giving us a better picture of creating resource websites.
To Your Success!
Hooshmand
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zac article nice and inspiration to motivation me to get more money from blog goodluck nice to comment U
@zappolo:
Great income and great explanation, thanks for the tips.
This is really nice … I think this is the Best thing to do.
But for Herbals my website is the Best Online herbal Store
First, nice check picture. As for the MySpaceNow, this is a great tip to share with us. Of course many of us may not use it or some didn't heard of it yet. But I must say I love when people share their knowledge with newbies.
That was a pretty impressive guide to us. Thanks Zac.
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Thats a ton of money for a 26 year old, good job man keep up the good work.
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You are great, and thanks already open to us about this success, so everyone can learn from your experience.
David
I'm impressed, thanks for sharing your experience.
I have never read about your blog on how to make $$$ online….
I would try to read it first… But that's an amazingly huge amount.
Wow, it's amazing
Zac,
It's truly inspirational. Thanks for a great post indeed. Your post provides a lot of insight. Especially I liked the comparison of Adsense with YPN revenue on your site.
Wishes,
awesome! I just can't imagine that amount is earned online. You rock Zac!
Great post. Thanks. One of my favourite site.
Thanks for the lesson, i learn alots here.
Nice post. I will open a new version of your site in my local country now.
Wow that's crazy that you generated 1 million clicks from ad words. Thanks for sharing these tips.
What an amazing story Zac. Hopefully I can have my own success story just like this one day. Fingers crossed.
That is just insane zac! good job
Hmmmmm…Read this even thousand of time make me so darn happy. Don't know why. You are so solid providing the way you get into it. You are much inspired me Zac…
Thats alot of money in such a short time…Trying to learn from zac and execute.
@imprincess:
What it his web sites names?
It's more then 3 years and popular yet. Congratulations, dude!
A job well done. Congratulations to you. My website is only running Google Adsense and it's only earning 3 digits a month. I hope the day will come, I will reach 6 or even 7 figures.
That check from yahoo was in 06 and this post was made in 08. That's an archievement you made 2 years ago.
thanks for sharing, a very motivating success story.
- ample web design
That’s effin insane!
Gives me a lot of great ideas
Cool post your earnings are extremely impressive with a lot of hard work I am confident I will get there one day. Great post, keep up the good work!
Woah!! Incredible!! Keep up the good work Zac!
You really one of the most successful earner from internet. I wish I can make such this type of amount ever.Really feeling to jealous on you.
Very good facts. Thanks because it’s the good way. And give me good idea.
You have this popping up with visitors that have Mcafee Site Advisor Installed:
http://www.myspacenow.com may cause a breach of browser security.
Why were you redirected to this page?
When we tested http://www.myspacenow.com, it attempted to make unauthorized changes to our test computer by exploiting a browser security vulnerability. This is a serious security threat which could lead to an infection of your computer.
This is probably because of the CPM banners advertised and the ad pixels / cookies on the site.
Zach, great article. lots of good info.
Thanks for sharing
Omar T
Lucky you!…I can imagine the power of 20k content pages….its' like 20,000 doors open for visitors and search engine spiders to come to your site. Yeah yahoo's ppc payouts have normally been higher than Googles'
Zac, you are really one of my inspirations.. You rock! John Chow, John Tyler, Shoemaker are the best… All of you have million dollar websites and it such a great thing that you share your experiences to us. Thanks a lot.
Regards,
Mark
this is an amazing post!
Wow, I can't believe my eyes even if I can see the check, is this absolutely true?? At that rate, you could be an instant millionaire within only 6 months time. Even the most expensive hosting site will be worth it if you earn that amount of money. Gosh
Congratulations on the check. Your site is great
Wow, this post makes me green with envy! I feel like this is something I could do if I could just get ahead of the curve in finding internet trends. That's the real secret of your success–how did you figure out how to get into that market before it became saturated? I'd love to read a post on that.
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I don't like the idea of posting a photo of your check but I guess it works for most people. However, I do like the fact that you shared how you were able to reach the status that you have now. Congrats!