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Ask HN: How to increase revenue on my site (Tekkenpedia)?

10 points by Rodeoclash ↗ HN
I've been running a wiki about the videogame "Tekken" for around seven years.

A few details about it:

- Been running for 7 years

- 1000's of pages of content

- Regular core of people contributing to it.

- 600,000 page views per month

- 79,000 uniques per month

- 119,000 visitors per month

At the moment I'm not running any ads but with Adsense I make an alright amount (can't say exactly how much without violating the TOS). Enough to pay for the server hosting.

What I want to know: is Adsense the best option? Should I be looking at other networks or advertising methods?

I want to balance how much money I make with how much I annoy people using the site :)

Full stats report here:

http://eng.tekkenpedia.com/combined_document.pdf

13 comments

[ 3.1 ms ] story [ 48.9 ms ] thread
pmtarantino
I don't know if this will apply for your case, but I have a big website for an specific fandom (similar to videogame, it is a little nerdie), which lead to a bigger Twitter account (almost 200.000 followers).

Try to monetize it with content which will get attention from your visitor. Run teespring campaigns, contact shops who sells merchandising, and that kind of stuff.

You can also create a blog and ask shops and manufacturer for products to write reviews. You will receive them, and after the review, you can sell them.

Rodeoclash
Thanks for the tspring link. I'm a bit worried about selling anything with the Tekken brand on it but I suppose I could see if people wanted to buy stuff related to the Tekkenpedia brand.

The blog idea is also interesting, I could branch out somewhat from the core game and maybe into other fighting games.

garysieling
One thing you might try is taking notes on what Adsense shows (and what shows on competitor sites). You might find a product that is a good fit that way - you might also look through the search keywords in google analytics and see if any are purchase based. You might be able to add Amazon affiliate links as well.
DigitalSea
Cut out the middle man and get your own advertising instead. Adsense has one of the best payout rates in the industry, but you have to remember that Google is merely the middle man for every $1 they're paying out they would have to at least be making $5 - $10 more so they're always ahead.

With stats like that there isn't a reason you can't go out and solicit advertising yourself from gaming companies, stores and publishers and show ads yourself without using a third party advertising network. That is probably one of the most obvious pieces of advice I can give you at this point, but if I think of anything else I'll let you know.

Rodeoclash
I like this too. Just out of interest, is their somebody (a.k.a site) I can pay a one off fee to to make these connections for me?

It's worth a one off expenditure to me if I can find someone to get me the best contacts.

mathattack
It isn't just about the payout, it is precision too. You hit a very narrow demographic that spends money.
hahla
Shoot me an email, I own a few gaming wikis I would love to chat sometime.
orangethirty
Sell over priced merchandise.
bemmu
Give it a try. A long time ago I ran a shop which sold merchandise related to only a single anime/manga series, much smaller niche than Tekken is. I recall it was still making around $1000 / month in profit (nice but ultimately other things took over). If you can engage your community such that your shop becomes the go-to place for hard-to-get Tekken products, it could be lucrative. You already have the traffic of people interested in this, so most of the work is already done.

It would be a service to your userbase and wouldn't need to be annoying. Having a "tekken shop" link in the sidebar, links from your relevant content pages to the relevant shop pages (perhaps even have those content pages BE the shop pages) and periodical more visible banner campaigns (christmas sale, limited sale of some rare item etc) to raise awareness that the shop exists should be enough.

You can start small too. You can just honestly write "we are thinking of opening a shop for Tekken items. Are these some specific items you are looking for?" and have a textbox where people can write their request. If it seems like there is demand and some products emerge that get requested, you can then go ahead and have a simple paypal cart to buy the item. You could do this in the next 30 minutes.

Don't be shy to have a high margin for products which are difficult to get elsewhere and you might just find that you successfully pulled off turning your passion into a business.

Rodeoclash
This is awesome feedback. Exactly what I was looking for.

I like the idea of sourcing say signed items and reselling this. Collectors items.

orangethirty
I wod just go right out and buy something off of eBay. Then sell it in the wiki. No ecommerce store or anything, just a page with a PayPal button in it. Do explain to people why you are doing it. And ask if they would buy cheap stuff from you such as stickers. Just do t waste anytime with getting things right. Everyone knows a King action figure always sells. (: