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Ask HN: Taking my project to it's full potential

15 points by lachyg 16y ago

Hi HN'ers :) I posted a little while back on finding a co-founder. I decided to trial a few people out, but I thought it would be a smarter move paying the outright expenses, and keeping the site for myself. I guess what I'm saying, is that I don't really need a co-founder / developer. My new problem, is getting the site too it's full potential. I'm doing 2000 uniques a day, with the majority of traffic coming from the US, then Japan, UK and Australia. The traffic is highly targeted, and of great quality. But, how do I make the most of this traffic, and bring in the most income? (Whilst keeping a quality, and non spammy site) Currently I'm selling an ad spot, and affiliate revenue, but I don't think I'm making the most of it. I'd appreciate any comments, ideas and or feedback! Cheers, Lachy Site: iPadCaseFinder.com

gizmo 16y ago
You left out all details, so there isn't anything I can say about your specific situation. The general rules apply: good content leads to more visitors which in turn leads to more ad impressions which finally leads to more money. So you can either improve the content, improve the navigation so your visitors stick around longer, get better targeted ads or get better paying ads. What is going to make the biggest impact in your case? Just make changes and measure the results. Figure out what kind of changes make the biggest impact to your bottom line and optimize ruthlessly. Then go back to square one and re-evaluate. Generic advise, I know.
- lachyg 16y ago
  What more information do you want? It's not really the content I'm worried about, it's the money. Should I go into drop shipping these cases? Should I optimize my affiliates? Should I concentrate more on banner ads?
  - ErrantX 16y ago
    What he means is that it's next to impossible to give that kind of advice (beyond generalities) without some more insight into the product/site itself. Because it is all relative. (for the GP: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1370042 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1370042 is the previous submission) I would focus on affiliate sales through the site; it makes more sense. Also: expand the network into other cases like you said in the other thread. That way you should be able to build up a big base of traffic across the niche. Then you'll probably have more success selling targeted advertising space (i.e. case manufacturers who cover the whole niche)
  - netcan 16y ago
    I don't think you can get a meaningful answer this way. All or any of those options might be good ideas. Optimising affiliates or working on banner ads might be a good idea and there are businesses out there that make money this way. Dropshiping might also work for you. It's kind of like asking 'should I be a barber or an antique dealer?' It's not really answerable, is it? That said, here is my opinion: Affiliates/Banner You are a pretty decent candidate for being an affiliate. Your site is about products and I assume your visitors have a reasonable chance of buying them. But, you need to be realistic about what your value per visitor can be on these. A conversion rate from visit to purchase of 0.1%-1% is probably the best you can hope for, assuming they are the right kind of visits, the products are good and the affiliates are reasonably "optimised". If you make $10 per sale that's $20-$200 per day. You probably know your own numbers. That is just my guess. Banners are probably going to bring in a bit less because they get a lot fewer clicks. You can't optimise them as well because they aren't yours. Affiliates and banners is very scalable. You don't need to worry about prices, sales, customer service and an extra 100k visitors will not add to your workload. Retailing My own preference (because of my experience and my bias) would be to think of myself as more of a retailer. This includes, but isn't limited to drop shipping. You stand to make more per visitor this way. But, it isn't scalable the way affiliate marketing is. If you get 10 times as many sales, you will have a lot more work. Customers will call you. You will find yourself between vendor and customers. etc. etc. margins can be tight and efficiency is important. On the other hand, they are your customers and your products and yours. You can convert more visitors and make more on each sale. If you convert 1%-3% (good, but achievable e-commerce numbers) and your gross profit is $20, you can make $400-$1200 per day (less expenses, which will be more substantial). I think that if you take this route you need to be willing to go past drop shipping if needed. You could probably stock up on a few hundred units for less than $5 per piece. You could even start your own brand. http://www.alibaba.com/trade/search?SearchText=ipad+case&Country=&IndexArea=product_en&ssk=y http://www.alibaba.com/trade/search?SearchText=ipad+case&#38... Back to disclaimers, it isn't really about what choice you make in the sense that banners are better than dropshipping. All the choices you are looking at are reasonable. The question is what sort of business you are trying to build.
danielh 16y ago
I assume your project is the site you talked about in an earlier submission. If that is the case, here are a couple of observations: The site looks very clean and I think another one or two ads would be ok, as long as they are relevant and of high quality. The current ad for screen protection is a good example. I find the search to be a bit confusing. I would putting "type" at the top would help. I thought I had to choose a brand first, as it was not immediately clear to me that the categories are independent. I would rather search for a black leather case than for a case made by i-nique. Use A/B-testing to evaluate changes to the site. Random ideas: become an affiliate of a company that makes customized cases. Enter the itunes affiliate program, add a badge with the iPad app of the day or something similair. Make a dedicated site if one the non-case products gets a lot of traffic, e.g. an ad for screen protection. I'm intentionally a bit vague because you didn't name the site. You might want to post the URL to get more answers. Edit: added some more concrete examples.
- lachyg 16y ago
  Sorry, just added.
lachyg 16y ago
Direct link: http://ipadcasefinder.com/ http://ipadcasefinder.com/
kishorenc 16y ago
How about featuring iPad cases which are on sale on the ebay on your site (along with a affiliate link) - this should also earn you some affiliate money...
roel_v 16y ago
Have you A/B tested making the buy button more obvious? Bigger and more prominently colored? Also, maybe you're better off, for the cases where you have multiple affiliate links, to make one of them big and shiny and put in small letters below 'also available on...' You'd made the affiliate that pays out most the prominent one of course, if your contract allows that. I like the site, this would be exactly the type of site I'd love to have if I were in the market for an ipad case.
mattmanser 16y ago
Surely it's selling some of the cases directly yourself? That way you don't get the tiny affiliate %, you get the full sales markup. Though I guess that's a whole new skillset/risk point.
famfam 16y ago
Semi-related, is this you, or are you getting cloned? http://www.ipadcasestore.org http://www.ipadcasestore.org

15 points by lachyg 16y ago

gizmo 16y ago

You left out all details, so there isn't anything I can say about your specific situation. The general rules apply: good content leads to more visitors which in turn leads to more ad impressions which finally leads to more money. So you can either improve the content, improve the navigation so your visitors stick around longer, get better targeted ads or get better paying ads. What is going to make the biggest impact in your case? Just make changes and measure the results. Figure out what kind of changes make the biggest impact to your bottom line and optimize ruthlessly. Then go back to square one and re-evaluate. Generic advise, I know.

lachyg 16y ago
What more information do you want? It's not really the content I'm worried about, it's the money. Should I go into drop shipping these cases? Should I optimize my affiliates? Should I concentrate more on banner ads?
- ErrantX 16y ago
  What he means is that it's next to impossible to give that kind of advice (beyond generalities) without some more insight into the product/site itself. Because it is all relative. (for the GP: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1370042 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1370042 is the previous submission) I would focus on affiliate sales through the site; it makes more sense. Also: expand the network into other cases like you said in the other thread. That way you should be able to build up a big base of traffic across the niche. Then you'll probably have more success selling targeted advertising space (i.e. case manufacturers who cover the whole niche)
- netcan 16y ago
  I don't think you can get a meaningful answer this way. All or any of those options might be good ideas. Optimising affiliates or working on banner ads might be a good idea and there are businesses out there that make money this way. Dropshiping might also work for you. It's kind of like asking 'should I be a barber or an antique dealer?' It's not really answerable, is it? That said, here is my opinion: Affiliates/Banner You are a pretty decent candidate for being an affiliate. Your site is about products and I assume your visitors have a reasonable chance of buying them. But, you need to be realistic about what your value per visitor can be on these. A conversion rate from visit to purchase of 0.1%-1% is probably the best you can hope for, assuming they are the right kind of visits, the products are good and the affiliates are reasonably "optimised". If you make $10 per sale that's $20-$200 per day. You probably know your own numbers. That is just my guess. Banners are probably going to bring in a bit less because they get a lot fewer clicks. You can't optimise them as well because they aren't yours. Affiliates and banners is very scalable. You don't need to worry about prices, sales, customer service and an extra 100k visitors will not add to your workload. Retailing My own preference (because of my experience and my bias) would be to think of myself as more of a retailer. This includes, but isn't limited to drop shipping. You stand to make more per visitor this way. But, it isn't scalable the way affiliate marketing is. If you get 10 times as many sales, you will have a lot more work. Customers will call you. You will find yourself between vendor and customers. etc. etc. margins can be tight and efficiency is important. On the other hand, they are your customers and your products and yours. You can convert more visitors and make more on each sale. If you convert 1%-3% (good, but achievable e-commerce numbers) and your gross profit is $20, you can make $400-$1200 per day (less expenses, which will be more substantial). I think that if you take this route you need to be willing to go past drop shipping if needed. You could probably stock up on a few hundred units for less than $5 per piece. You could even start your own brand. http://www.alibaba.com/trade/search?SearchText=ipad+case&Country=&IndexArea=product_en&ssk=y http://www.alibaba.com/trade/search?SearchText=ipad+case&#38... Back to disclaimers, it isn't really about what choice you make in the sense that banners are better than dropshipping. All the choices you are looking at are reasonable. The question is what sort of business you are trying to build.

danielh 16y ago

I assume your project is the site you talked about in an earlier submission. If that is the case, here are a couple of observations: The site looks very clean and I think another one or two ads would be ok, as long as they are relevant and of high quality. The current ad for screen protection is a good example. I find the search to be a bit confusing. I would putting "type" at the top would help. I thought I had to choose a brand first, as it was not immediately clear to me that the categories are independent. I would rather search for a black leather case than for a case made by i-nique. Use A/B-testing to evaluate changes to the site. Random ideas: become an affiliate of a company that makes customized cases. Enter the itunes affiliate program, add a badge with the iPad app of the day or something similair. Make a dedicated site if one the non-case products gets a lot of traffic, e.g. an ad for screen protection. I'm intentionally a bit vague because you didn't name the site. You might want to post the URL to get more answers. Edit: added some more concrete examples.

lachyg 16y ago
Sorry, just added.

lachyg 16y ago

Direct link: http://ipadcasefinder.com/ http://ipadcasefinder.com/

kishorenc 16y ago

How about featuring iPad cases which are on sale on the ebay on your site (along with a affiliate link) - this should also earn you some affiliate money...

roel_v 16y ago

Have you A/B tested making the buy button more obvious? Bigger and more prominently colored? Also, maybe you're better off, for the cases where you have multiple affiliate links, to make one of them big and shiny and put in small letters below 'also available on...' You'd made the affiliate that pays out most the prominent one of course, if your contract allows that. I like the site, this would be exactly the type of site I'd love to have if I were in the market for an ipad case.

mattmanser 16y ago

Surely it's selling some of the cases directly yourself? That way you don't get the tiny affiliate %, you get the full sales markup. Though I guess that's a whole new skillset/risk point.

famfam 16y ago

Semi-related, is this you, or are you getting cloned? http://www.ipadcasestore.org http://www.ipadcasestore.org