Content websites: scaling does not work in my case
When you browse webmaster forums (the ones that cover AdSense issues) you are certain to come across a discussion of this kind:
Question: How do I earn $100/ day from a website, now I am making $10.00 from it.
Answer: Optimize this one or better – start nine more websites. You know how to make $10.00 from one website, so just repeat the same algo with other nine websites and earn the amount you want – $100.00/ day.
As a rule, AdSense brings more or less good income for content websites. Do you have any idea how to keep running 10 content websites with unique and preferably interesting content on your own? It is impossible. So you need some outside help.
That is what I did. After I have succeeded to make a few hundreds dollars a month from each of my websites I could run myself I have decided it is time to grow and hired a few college students to help me to repeat the steps I did with my money making websites. I have arranged a sort of a training course (a selection of the most important things and techniques to know when running a website of the kind).
Why college students? They are more affordable than professional copyrighters. So, I started a few more websites using WordPress as a content management system, hired a few quite talented freelancers and anxiously waited to reproduce what I knew how to do. Month after month the results were quite poor – those websites could generate income to cover the college student help, sometimes even less. At the start I was certain of my poor performance – the websites are new (were just a few months old when I hired the help), the guys are learning the basics.
So, one year later the situation did not change – the same guys are running the same projects, they have learned something, but the websites generate some uneven income from AdSense and text link sales and do not show any desired progress.
Summary: My conclusion is that it takes hard work to make some decent money with content projects nowadays and it takes time. And it requires skills and passion. You compete with thousands of websites in your niche; most website owners are enthusiasts who are really passionate about the topic. And you can’t hire a college student and make him passionate.
So, the above mentioned forum discussion does not hold true in my case. I might have done something wrong, but I have just followed the logic of the answer.
What is now? I run my PPC arbi tests (will certainly publish my results) and make arrangements to do PPC marketing (promoting some CPA programs), I run an e-commerce project and am going to start 1-2 more, I also have some ideas of a service website kind. So, I have some ideas about the direction to follow, but at this time I am fed up with content projects.
[tags]content websites, webmaster forums, AdSense earnings, seo, internet marketing, affiliate marketing, make money online, earn your living online[/tags]