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Google Adsense + organic (non-paid) traffic == "passive" money. Not an insane amount of money, of course, but enough that you can consider the project successf
by david_shaw 10y ago
Google Adsense + organic (non-paid) traffic == "passive" money.
Not an insane amount of money, of course, but enough that you can consider the project successful if you're getting a solid amount of views.
My largest project, http://sleepyti.me http://sleepyti.me, gets about 1.5 million unique views per month. The revenue Google Adsense brings in is not nearly enough support myself, but it's enough to make the effort feel solidly "worth it" in terms of development time and hosting costs (which are very low at this point).
How (or if) you should be monetizing depends on the nature of your side project. If your "side project" is a business -- say, designing WordPress themes -- then you should sell your product! If it's something that gets 50 views per month, maybe it's not the best candidate for monetization (and is instead a portfolio/resume builder). Either way, gaining experience building things is almost always a good thing.
- econner 10y agoHow did you get traffic?
- david_shaw 10y agoOriginally, Facebook likes/shares (that displayed on news feeds), and -- believe it or not -- StumbleUpon. I put the Facebook button on the page, but the StumbleUpon wildfire was done by a user. From there, growth was organic/"viral," in that people shared it amongst themselves. I've also had some traditional media (NYTimes, Toronto Star, etc.) cover the site, but that was after traffic was already pretty high.
- brilliantcode 10y agoI always find the virality aspects of software/website very interesting. Looking at your website, there's nothing that suggest anything out of he ordinary. Yet, you've reached a lot of audience through sheer luck. What year did the share happen and how long did it take?
- nicholas73 10y agoWould you mind commenting on my site? http://sudokuisland.com http://sudokuisland.com I tried social shares but they resulted in virtually nil traffic. There is the top right Like and Tweet buttons, and an option to share after you complete a puzzle. After 4 years I get <10k views per month, and only rank high for "sudoku with pencil marks" searches. I think it's clear that my site isn't viral material, but honestly I'm not too sure how yours works in that regard either! Why did you end up removing the social share buttons? Thanks.
- auoerlclh 10y agoI can't tell you about getting views, but I can name a few things about your site that turned me off. These are intended as constructive criticism, so sorry if they come off as harsh. 1. The background looked kind of cheesy. It's not a huge deal, but a solid color would look nicer. 2. There's a timer the second I load the page. If I'm trying to relax with Sudoku, this site is not for me. It looks like you can turn it off, but I know people who will just leave once they see the timer. Timed games are pressure-inducing and not fun for them. 3. I don't know what the various tools shown do. Why would I need a pencil tool for sudoku on the computer? Can't I just type the number I want? What's the one that looks like a checkbox? Why is there an error check? Other sudoku apps just mark it in red if it's wrong. (These are things I would think as a normal user. Obviously I read the tooltips, but most users will not.) Overall impression - hard to use, not fun. Plus, a little late to the Sudoku trend. There are thousands of Sudoku sites and mobile apps. What would be my incentive to use yours? If I already have one I like, why would I switch? Also, I have ad blocking turned on, but if there were ads and I saw them I would never come back to your site. (Obviously different people have different feelings about that.) I can pay 99 cents for a great Sudoku app on my phone with no ads.
- nicholas73 10y agoThanks for your feedback. For the most part I agree with your statements - I never was satisfied with the UI, but this was my first site so I built with the tools I knew (in fact I personally hate icons for controls). Eventually I had to call it a day, since it wasn't growing. The thing is that I'm not sure quality is the problem - it's already a vast improvement over most high ranking sites (but not apps). My challenge is getting people to the site in the first place. As you said it was already a crowded niche. I'm not really banking on this site taking off anymore, but I worry my next one will have the same "non-sharing" issues. I thought with social sharing you might have a shot at getting noticed in a crowded niche.
- clockwork_189 10y agoWow, that is so cool! I remember using sleepyti.me in university to get decent sleep and found it pretty helpful.
- david_shaw 10y agoThat's great to hear :)
- yeukhon 10y agoSorry, but I don't see any ads displayed. Am I missing something?
- vatotemking 10y agoAd is throwing an error in console. OP should check it out
- always_good 10y agoCheck the console. The Google script throws an error related to availableWidth=0.
- david_shaw 10y agoWow, weird -- the ads display on my end. Thanks for the heads up, I'll check it out!
- softwarefounder 10y agoWas going to ask the same thing...until I remembered I had ad-blocker enabled.
- matbram 10y agoThe ad is displayed on the results page when you click 'calculate', not the main page. Although I think he may increase ad earnings if they were on both pages.
- arthurjj 10y agoThis is a great example of a webpage that does one thing really well. The problem of "when should I go to bed?" seems simple. But just doing the subtraction of REM cycles is to much friction for me to have ever done it. What made you think of making that a site?
- mrfusion 10y ago1.5 million visitors seems like a lot. Shouldn't that be able to provide a living?
- Rainymood 10y agoJust want to swing by and say thanks you! I use your site every day!
- futuretro 10y agoCan i assume it's a html site, with the calculator running your own code?