Subscribe
Sign in
I just need to know is my way of thinking wrong or right?
I am a small developer and from the last months, I started earning and seeing huge amounts of web traffic for the first time on my sites but still, I am struggling to fully monetize it.
In these days, I have realized that traffic is not the only thing but actually I need to think of the money side as well when I am starting something new.
I just want to know will thinking like this help me in the future or I am wrong? Also, if you want to share please share how you plan your projects.
7
Replies
Best
Mr Ethar Alali
Depends on your ethics and aims, but in general, with a tweak, yes.
I'd broaden the "money" thing into value. It certainly will, if you chase Value not money. The reason I say that, money is a by-product of that value. However, value is different in each case.
For example, if you are aiming to raise awareness of a non-profit to get donations, to then help a community, then the value is in the help & awareness, which is then paid for by money.
If you are a YouTuber, then you likely produce stuff that people want to watch, because they get some knowledge out of it. In which case, someone else pays you money (either as product placement or via YT Ads and AdSense)
If you are running a startup.. you get the gist.
The other thing this does, is move you "up" a level. As the value your code brings (and I say this as a coder who also runs a business) is now you see the code in the context of a wider, end-to-end offering that packages up a lot of non-code stuff, into a vertical. This becomes useful even in Enterprise Architecture. So even if it doesn't immediately help with code itself [but it will] then tech, solution and enterprise architecture will benefit from the fact you can do both.
Report
Share
Monetization should be one of the 3 basic pillars of building your project: Product/Service (offer), Go To Market (GTM) and Monetization are the 3 key things to corner to get a successful venture altogether.
Difficult to bring you a specific answer as you didn't describe what you offer. If you could tell us more, that would help.
But it seems you have a product people are attracting to (they're coming your way) and a GTM that operates well - considering your web traffic.
The challenge in monetizing is 2-folds:
1 - As @ethar_alali rightly said, it's all about 'value' and perceived value. Anything is always too expensive or not worth paying for if the perceived value is not there. On the other hand, people will be willing to pay - and to some degree pay well - if they perceive value.
You might want on this aspect to review your landing pages and/or website content, to highlight what this value is in your case.
People buy solutions, not products or services. Describe well the problem you solve, the key benefits of your solution - and its uniqueness - and you will probably surface the value better.
2 - Despite my previous point, if you do not target the right people, then your monetization rate will always be unsatisfactory.
You have huge traffic on your website, and this is great! But are they the right people? Are they the people who actually need your solution, are looking for it or are ready to spend money on it?
Your goal being to monetize, you should not focus so much on traffic, but more on paid conversions. Sometimes, campaigns or marketing trails that yield the highest revenue are not the ones who attract the most visitors.
Good luck!
@stephane_ibos Thanks for the helpful comment as of more about my project - Well the one i was talking about here is a simple video downloader that downloads video, photos, and music from more than 60 social media platforms from big to small like youtube and everything else. It is attached to a lot of chrome and firefox extensions which bring traffic to it directly recently i got a huge upward trend in my organic traffic as well so now traffic is going to double or triple but still i make only 100 to 200 dollars.
First, i thought it was because of I have no ads just a widget but now even after adding ads there is no significant revenue at all. It's a shame to even call it revenue.
I am thinking of now starting a website that sells something like digital goods or services because i learned this lesson that traffic doesn't matter until and unless you are selling something on your website.
Also, I want to know that how do you target right people like let's say i have to sell a digital product then how would i get the initial sales so as to know that the thing i am selling can actually sell or make any money at all.
@how_to_tutorials You're on the right place ;) You can maybe trigger a poll or even discuss your product (or idea) or launch a product on this very platform. That could give you some insights.
In your case, given your current journey, I would also recommend you to go on Indie Hacker. Plenty of excellent discussions on similar stages of rolling out an idea. You can also test your idea there, and see if there would be some market appeal.
In the end unfortunately, most of the time you discover whether your offer is bankable (or not) when you actually launch it... It's what makes the whole game so thrilling. But you certainly can test the waters ahead of that to a certain degree.
Where I would think you are right is to formalise your offer onto a website - even super simple. Ads revenue is meaningless until you get such large volumes of views/downloads etc. Seeing how you can monetize your solution directly is always an interesting exercise.
Good luck!
When you are starting something new, you should think about how it will help others; making an impact. The money will find you if you know your value proposition and work towards solving a pressing need in the market.
Every person needs money. Despite that, it depends on how you think about money. Is it an overwhelming desire to get more and more and more money? Or is it something else? Some entrepreneurs would say that you should stop being engaged in a start-up if the only motivation that you have is money. Here I would refer you to an interview with Philip Rosedale from Second Life hosted by Kevin Rose. Google: Foundation Philip Rosedale. He mentions this very thing.
Hey Ayush, its a bit hard to understand what you mean. I will try to answer as far as I can understand; If the primary/secondary goal of your project is to make money, then I would suggest thinking about monetization model early on. It's fine for monetization to come later on, but I think its worth considering as early as possible when its a primary objective