Ask HN: Ideas to monetize my site?
Well, I have a site - www.fiwishop.com - that I started long ago (in 2003 to be exact) when I first stumbled across the power of the interwebs and user-generated content. I realized that when people go to websites to look at pictures of events, they are really looking for pictures of themselves so I setup a site that allowed a small niche (Jamaicans specifically - because I am Jamaican) to upload their own photos. This was early 2003, so pre-facebook, flickr, myspace, youTube, etc.
Anyway, the initial feedback I got was very positive and I saw a surge in traffic with nothing but word of mouth. However, I had used an off-the-shelf script and at the time didn't know any programming so couldn't grow the site more than what I initially put up.
I decided to throw a games section there just to see what happens. I went to college and eventually the site got neglected, I did nothing, but for some reason the traffic for the games section would not go away.
I literally have not updated the site in about 2 - 3 years (the forums, the photo gallery, nothing). The most I have done was changed the home page about 6 months ago to add that survey.io link.
Needlesss to say, for the last 2 years, I have been averaging about 2000 - 5000 unique visitors, with a relatively low bounce rate (25%), average pageviews of 6.7, avg time on site of 06m:39s.
Last month, 35% of all my traffic came from the keywords "fiwishop games".
I used to have Google Ads on the site, but they would perform poorly, because they were mainly for text content - which I don't have, so I have since removed them.
I am thinking of putting up some HeyZap games - given that that's the most popular part of the site, to gain some additional income - but would love to hear some ideas on other ways I can possibly monetize the site and grow traffic in a meaningful (non-spammy) way. I am not trying to be the next YouTube or Flickr, just want to be able to generate at least a few hundred per month - and scale to more than that if possible.
Thanks much in advance, feel free to ask any additional questions and I will try to get as much feedback as possible.
Edit:
In the last month, these are some of the stats straight from GA:
28,204 Pageviews 18,319 Unique Views 25.37% Bounce Rate
/Flash_Games/New/index.html 6,341 22.48% /Flash_Games/index.html 5,516 19.56% /index2.html 2,420 8.58% / 2,408 8.54% /Flash_Games/New/DragRacer.html 1,300 4.61%
Not "major" traffic, by any stretch of the imagination, but at the very least something to start with.
Also note that any suggestions would be able to be integrated with Paypal for me to receive payment.
5 comments
[ 2.5 ms ] story [ 19.9 ms ] threadThe truth is, I found these games some time ago in 2003/2004 and just put them up on my site and left them.
I can't remember the exact sites right now.
What sort of affiliate links are you thinking?
You could always do adsense but really throw it in their faces. Perhaps the screen just shows ads and the user has to scroll down to get to the games.
I lurk here, but got an account just to reply :) I will be speaking here wholly in the context of online flash games, as I can't and won't comment on picture sharing, community websites or any of that new-fangled social or "SpaceBook" aspect :)
What you've got here, (and you probably know it already), is a game portal. You are also what's known as a publisher. Portals host, filter, select and promote games and take a cut of the in-game ad revenues. In return, they provide traffic (eyeballs!).
I haven't heard of HeyZap before, so thanks for bringing them to my attention. I had a browse through their site, and saw some attractive offers, so if I can find more info on their system, I might be interested to use them some day... What caught my eyes was their very attractive developer share of a whopping 70% of the ad revenue! From what I can gather, publishers get 15% of the ad revenue. Is this correct? Perhaps you could also comment on the eCPM of their offerings -- how much are you receiving from the in-game ads compared to the traffic? I assume your traffic stats are daily numbers?
I am not sure why you were not keen on Google Ads, they've been quite popular among the portals that I have heard of. Google can now index Flash assets, so in-game text, tutorials, etc should get picked up. For more games, have you heard of: mochiads or CPMStar, or other portals like Kongregate, armorgames?
mochi: Developers get 50%, publishers 10%
Don't know about CPMStar (anyone?)
Kongregate: Developers get 25-50% (depending on features). No publisher affiliate system that I know of, they are after all a portal too.
When you say you haven't done anything recently, does that mean you don't update those games on your page? There are portal software out there (www.flashgamedistribution.com has a "portal in a box", download, click, and you're away [disclaimer: I haven't used it]) that automate the delivery and distribution of games from source. All you gotta do is play a suggested game, and approve/reject them from your front page. Sounds like a dream job for game crazy teenagers! (I'm not saying you're a teenager here of course.)
I am sharing this as a game developer who's been pondering the pros and cons of having my own portal. If you subscribe to the Long Tail hypothesis, then portals benefit from the long tail. However, I feel that the competition is intense, though I have no experience here. Most portals are starting to move into proprietary micro-transaction systems, but the revenue from this area is still relatively small. It is definitely a growth industry, and the key is always more traffic, though I wonder if it's possible to do better? I would appreciate any experience you may share from your end (if you do go further with this). :)
Here's something that might interest other readers. Remember that this guy develops games and runs a portal, so the portal section of his analysis is really only about 8% of the total.
http://mochiland.com/articles/developer-recap-badim-shares-t...
I should also mention flashgamelicense.com -- you might see Badim mentioning licensing deals in his blog. Lots of portal owners (I'm assuming you need to be a certain size first) sponsor games in order to be able provide their own branding and ads. Could be interesting to check out once you reach a certain size I guess...
I would appreciate any useful stats other readers may know about this new and exciting (for me) area!