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.
Table Of Contents
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
I think this is a great series; I’ve gotten a lot out of these two posts so far. Like you said, just sharing the URL of the site and having a real-world example helps a ton.
And as long as you’re opening up, I’d love to see some real numbers in terms of the amount of money a site like this makes. It’d be great to know what it made when you bought it and what it makes after you make some improvements, and how much you’re making from each source (Amazon, AdSense, etc.).
Thanks!
Hey Tristan,
Sure I’ll do that in a follow up post. I want to get more data before I just toss out numbers without any context.
Chris
Chris very interesting. One question I have is, how are you going to continue to create quality content for this site? It’s not like you can hire someone $1/100 words to write on crafts (or can you?) – you need like, projects and stuff with nice pictures. Are you going to be delving into the content creation aspects of running a site like this?
Hey Dan,
I have someone that I’m paying $25 an hour to write content for the site, but she’s very good and quick too. I may cover content creation in a future post, but for this site there isn’t as much to talk about. The content creation strategies always vary for each website I purchase and frankly I’m always looking for sites that I can buy without having to add as much consistent content (so I sometimes try and steer clear of blogs)
Chris
Thanks for clearing that up for me Chris. I guess it depends on what she can accomplish in an hour, but $25/hour doesn’t sound too bad.
Yah, I work for myself but I can assure you that some days I get more done in a single two hour crunch session at midnight than I do during a regular 8 hour work day! lol… distractions
Hey Chris,
Thanks for doing this series. I’ve enjoyed these posts and am looking forward to the next ones.
Do you recommend that people who are new to IM get involved with buying websites? I’ve built a few sites with little success so do you think it is best for me to wait till I’ve had success with that? Let me know what you think as I’ve always been interested in being a website investor, but am wondering if I should jump in right now.
Thanks!
Hey Tanvir,
I think it really just comes down to what you want to do. What attracts me to buying websites as that building websites from scratch to go after organic search engine traffic etc. can take a lot of time and because I’m making a pretty solid income online already (and my wife is working now that she has her master’s degree) it’s easy for me to reinvest my profits into buying more websites.
I really think you can find success even on the low end of buying websites. I bought one site last summer for $500 that’s made me around $5,000 so far. If you have a steady job and understand the fundamentals of what it takes to make a website that generates income then I think one way to get into it is to buy websites while you’re still working.
Chris
Chris this is a strategy I want to get into once I’m out of school (1 more year to go…) and have some decent cashflow. You’re running a solid blog here – thanks for putting up some useful and interesting content.
Hey Dan,
Yah one strategy is to just work a job while you’re still building an online business on the side. That’s what worked well for me and I was eventually able to do this full time for a living.
It seems like a pretty personal type of blog. I don’t expect that you will be creating the content yourself. Will you outsource or maybe get your wife to contribute?
It is nice to see an example that has nothing to do with the make money online niche.
Good luck with it.
Tiptopcat
Hey Tiptopcat 🙂
No, I’m not creating the content. I have a terrific writer who I’m paying $25 an hour which sounds like a lot, but she’s very fast and very good. Over the past several years in building my business I’ve found good help really is hard to come by so I’m comfortable paying that amount even if it is more than what I typically would pay.
As for not having to do with the make money online niche – Yes, these niches are what got me started even making money in the first place. I just started a blog in the make money online niche because there are too many people that don’t actually do the stuff they talk about. Most of my money has always come outside the MMO niche.
Chris
I’m looking forward to the updates on this one.
I’ve always wanted to buy a website but always hold off if its not in my own interest field. Simply because I have no idea what I need to do with it once I’ve bought it…
Thanks Chris!
Hey Ralph,
Well that’s always something to think about when you buy a site. What interested me in this site is that there was already a writer that could help create content and she’s very good so that’s always something to look for as well.
Chris
Nice post Chris. These case study style posts are really interesting to fellow marketers like me. I’ll be really interest in the future video you mentioned about analyzing your Google Analytics stats for ways to improve the site.
Good luck with the site – i’ll keep watching with interest!
Yah I will probably be doing another video like that or something close to that. Hope you continue to enjoy these posts!
Thanks for the case study. I’m with you, examples help me. I’m fairly exited about Virtual Moguls. So far, I’m still working on my first web site and getting traffic to it, but I hope to buy/sell/flip/and create websites soon. Thanks for the information.
Chris
This is great stuff! Haven’t really found anything else like it online. Thanks for being open and upfront about your strategies!
So you said that you have somebody you pay to write the articles, since you already have a section to submit craft �ideas�; do you think it would be feasible to also offer a section/form where people can submit articles/posts and then have the person you’re paying $25 an hour peer review them for quality. I had thought about doing this with a site but wasn’t quite sure what the implications are. Have you ever tried the strategy?
Thanks again!
That’s something we might do, but as it is now the information submitted is generally enough for the editor to just improve it.
Whenever I start testing and moving things around on my websites, to find which configuration will bring me more earning, I always tend to screw things up so bad I eventually get all back the way it was.
This really helped me because I’m doing a project and your blog is so informative. Thanks and keep up the good work.You made a few fine points there i did a search on the issue and found nearly all persons will go
along with your blog good post always a pleasure reading something you wrote.
Internet – blogging..you can earn money if you know how to manage it…thanks for sharing this step by step..I lIKE..
I appreciate you taking the time to make this series. I’m looking into buying my first websites that I haven’t built up from the ground, so this is exactly what I was looking for to get a little guidance. Signing up your newsletter.
Chris-
just finished the third post, and wanted to say thanks. I started a blog for the website I left. It was started awhile ago just because it was a subject I knew a lot about, and was new to making money on the internet. I’m getting a bunch of traffic (5,000/month) but it has not been very successful monetarily wise. I can’t wait to try these new methods, and see what works.
I’d be interested in hearing how it all pans out 😀
Hi Chris,
How about the technology used to build the sites that you are looking to buy. Do you focus strictly on standards such as wordpress, etc. Would you buy a custom built site in PHP, ColdFusion or .Net for example? Being a web developer myself, as I read these posts, makes me wonder what it was written in. I am sure you also want to be able to quickly make changes and not be bogged down in new style code.
Thanks,
Dan
Hey Dan,
I buy sites with any structure – I prefer WordPress because I know it best, but a few months ago I bought one site written in coldfusion of all things. I had to go get a Windows hosting account and pay extra for coldfusion support.
But that site earns me $20+ a day from Adsense and it just sits there making me money with no effort on my part so it’s a small price to pay for that and now I have a windows hosting account in case I buy more windows hosting accounts. I will say that I NEVER change a website’s CMS after buying it. Google generally penalizes sites that rapidly change after ownership transition.
Chris
Thanks Chris,
I know this was an older post but I just discovered you this week and I was reading this series with great interest. As a web developer, I am always interested in hearing about the technology used behind a site. I have developed in CF for 15 years now and do some small hosting, but looks like I need to jump to PHP quick.
Just bought the amaSuite package so my goal right now is to get my first one up within a week. So my journey begins. Thanks for everything that you share.
Dan
You have a bunch of broken links on the Copycat Crafts site, look at line 285 (Firefox view source). You see this:
Assuming you’re sites theme can show code between code tags, if not WordPress will probably strip the code.
If nothing is above it’s a text link with an image link as the anchor text, so link within a link. The codes below the Things to Make…. heading.
I’ll try pre as well, that should work.
David
Thanks I’ll check this out. Doh