Monetizing my minisites

[unclewalter]

I recently created a couple minisites with the hope of making some money of adsense.
wedding cake online.com
viral throat infection.com

I haven't really had too much trouble with SEO or getting pages in google, but my problem has been getting people to click ads. All I have is some small adsense ads on both and an amazon ad on wedding cake online. I recently signed up for a commission junction account, but have yet to incorporate it into my sites.

After 177 unique visitors in the past 12 days I have only had 1 adsense click and 3 clicks on the amazon ad with 0% conversion.

Any tips on what I can do to get more clicks?

 

[Fka200]

remove 428 and wrap text around a 336 square the same way you have the picture floating to the right, except with an adsense ad.

 

[johny27]

I think you should continue your SEO and after some time it will earn more

 

[johname]

Is someone going to buy a wedding cake on amazon? Might drop the amazon ad

 

[iowadawg]

I think you should continue your SEO and after some time it will earn more

Now there is nonsense!
Geesh....

 

[pwr1019]

Let's see where to begin - on the positive side - you have some backlinks and a pagerank of 2 so you should be getting some traffic.
I would add an additional ad right at the top between "How to pick the right cake" and the text. Are you using a free hosting site? Alexa averages your load time at 3.22 seconds which will lose you visitors see http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/weddingcakeonline.com#

Thinking this through - bigger picture not sure how lucrative the wedding cake market is - I would suspect its a pretty localized market most people shopping in their neighbourhood so to speak. I would think a better way to monetize it would be to rebrand based on where you live - say Seattle - rebrand as Seattleweddingcakes. Then strike a deal with a couple of local cake places for commission on every lead/sale driven to them. just my 10cents - Good Luck

 

[mikewatson]

Your adsense placement is not good enough . Try to change the ads placements .

 

[enlytend]

With both sites I think the problem is ad targeting.

I would expect a site called wedding cakes online to be a place where I could browse and order a wedding cake online. Instead, you have Amazon ads for cake toppers, google adsense for cake stands, wedding cake pictures and cake decorating schools. I like pwr1019's idea - team up with some bakers.

The other one ... I doubt many people are bidding on that medical condition since viruses need to go away on their own so the Google ads I'm seeing are pretty far off-base.. I guess you could sell throat sprays and lozenges through Amazon...

 

[RazorNF]

I recently signed up for a commission junction account, but have yet to incorporate it into my sites.

After 177 unique visitors in the past 12 days I have only had 1 adsense click and 3 clicks on the amazon ad with 0% conversion.

Any tips on what I can do to get more clicks?

Better start making use of that CJ account. There's another thread here highlighting the fact they will start deducting funds/close your account if you haven't made a sale in 6 months.

One suggestion would be to find an Adwords code and use the free credit to advertise your site.

 

[unclewalter]

I would expect a site called wedding cakes online to be a place where I could browse and order a wedding cake online. Instead, you have Amazon ads for cake toppers, google adsense for cake stands, wedding cake pictures and cake decorating schools. I like pwr1019's idea - team up with some bakers.

I guess it might help to mention that the wedding cake website used to be owned by a bakery in New York City that made wedding cakes but closed down. That is where most of the backlinks and traffic is coming from. The only problem I have been having is I can't find bakeries that have affiliate programs. Should I send them emails asking to work out a deal?

 

[alien51]

The only problem I have been having is I can't find bakeries that have affiliate programs.

Possibly because it's not possible to order a cake online and have it delivered via UPS or Fedex. And most bakeries probably can only deliver within a 10-mile radius from the bakery.

If it was a "Wedding Catering" service, then your business model could be more feasible. Perhaps the bride and groom will simply browse pictures of different wedding cake designs, but they have to hire the wedding caterer itself and avail their full catering services for the reception.

You don't have to stick with wedding cakes. You can instead use that wedding cake domain as a doorway to a wedding catering service business or a full-blown wedding planner site.

 

[fm1234]

In re the cake vs. cake accessories market, advertising cake toppers &c. is actually exactly what need to go on a wedding cake site. Few people order a wedding cake online, but smart/aggressive/nightmare-inducing brides-to-be know that they can get a better selection of toppers, trays, cutters etc. online than they can through local boutiques.

You might also look at some of the few sites that do sell cakes online, particularly ones which overlap your own, and see what kind of marketing they're doing, for what keywords they're ranking and bidding, etc. using a tool like SpyFu. SF lists these sites as the main organic rank competitors to your wedding cake site:

cakediva.com
cakesbymona.com
cakeline.com
cakesbychrisgadaire.com
cakesonline.com
cakesnshapes.com
revitalscakes.com
ladymconfections.com

To a one, these are all selling cakes directly, not affiliate sites. Perhaps through analysing what they are doing, you can fine-tune your own site, find more direct partners than AdSense/Amazon etc.


Frank

 

[LJWeb]

You may try using maybe a Clickbank product on your sites... you may see a higher conversion rate and roi.