A few weeks ago I showed you how to buy a website in 5 steps and in that example I mentioned my acquisition of CopyCatCrafts.com to teach the basics of buying websites. People buy websites for a wide variety of reasons, but what I like to do is buy and hold onto websites to help increase my total monthly income.

How To Increase The Income For Any Website

Increasing income for any website always comes down to two simple methods:

Method 1. Earn More From Your Existing Traffic
Method 2. Get More Traffic

It really is that simple when you break it down. In the future I’ll give you an update on how I plan to increase traffic to CopyCatCrafts.com, but the one thing you can start with immediately is to find more ways to make money from your existing traffic. Some people make the mistake of trying to optimize their website(s) with a ton of advertising to maximize the value from the very first day the site is launched which is not at all what I’m advising here (unless you don’t care about building regular readers). There is always a fine line between user experience and increased ad revenue and although it’s difficult to measure that line I’ll explain how I do it in some capacity through the video below, but first let me share the two core ways you can make more money with your existing traffic.

How To Earn More Money From Your Existing Traffic

Again, I can explain how to earn more money from your existing traffic in two simple methods:

Method 1. Try new income generation methods and programs
Method 2. Test, track and optimize existing and future income generation methods

I used the catch all term of “income generation methods” because depending on your website market and focus – “income generation methods” – could mean testing Adsense colors to creating and selling some type of information product. So let me explain how income generation methods fit into the context of my case study on CopyCatCrafts.com:

Method 1. Try new income generation methods and programs:

With CopyCatCrafts.com the website is currently making money from only one major banner ad network: Rivit Media. In this video I’ll show you my plan on how to increase the income for CopyCatCrafts.com:

Summary Of What I’ll Be Doing Next:

1. Split test Google Adsense vs Rivit Media using OIOpublisher
2. Test Vibrant Media in text advertising
3. Use CPC advertising in more locations
4. Contact craft supply companies for private advertising deals / joint promotion deals
5. Add Amazon affiliate links on the old blog posts that are related to physical products
6. Optimize high traffic pages with better targeted advertising
7. Start monetizing the email list

Bottom Line:

There is always room to improve a website’s income especially when you’re buying a website. Whenever I buy a website I come up with an extensive list of improvements to make to the website (Use the same line of reasoning that you would with real estate but applied to websites). The list that you come up with can generally be built off the initial feedback from the seller because they have already tried different ways to make money or simply planned to do things but never got around to it for whatever reason (i.e. monetize the email list, introduce and test more / different types of advertising etc.). So when I’m buying websites I use the 5 step process I outlined before and I focus on increasing income from my existing traffic before I bother with trying to grow the traffic.

Don’t be shy, I’ll see you in the comments below ask me anything about buying websites and I’ll try and help you out. Also, I’d like to remind you that if you’re looking to sell your website(s) feel free to contact me here as I’m always looking to buy websites.

New Copy Cat Crafts Case Study Updates:

Update: Since publishing this blog post in 2011 I’ve gone on to share multiple new case study updates. Be sure to read them all below to see how I was able to take this website and make more money with it:

Introduction – How To Buy A Website
Part 1 – Two strategies to employ after you acquire a website (You are reading this now)
Part 2 – How I drastically increased the income
Part 3 – Long term income case study results
Part 4 – $4,000 Investment Paid Off
Part 5 – How to buy websites and profit in less than 12 months