Your oldest FS that still produce sales

[tigermom]

Someone once told me that if you make 1000 freesites, you are guaranteed a constant stream of revenue. His theory was that once out there, it's enough for each such FS to generate 1-2 sales a year for you to get something like $30-$50k a year.

Now, I don't have 1000 FS out there, only 100+ and I can see some flaws in that theory already. IMO, freesites are not forever (as they are marketed to be - "opposed" to galleries). Linklists disappear, sponsors disappear, your sites are taken off archives with some LL's or simply placed where the sun never shines. With ratios being what they are these days, I say you can't expect old FS over one year old to be making 1-2 sale a year on average.

Thoughts? I was wondering what do the people who have been submitting FS for years and years have to say about this.

[Bill]

That used to be true.

Now, what you are seeing is closer to the general model.

There's still a fair amount of variation, depending on a number of factors like how you support your own freesites, niches, and just plain luck.

[Lemmy]

I've got about 600 freesites under my belt and while my income is within the range of your friend's example it's only because I keep on pumping them out. Should I stop making them money would quickly dry up (and I see evidence of that happening anyway).

Despite what some might tell you there is no snowball effect or critical mass, only hard work that never ends. Based on my own experience of course.

[bDok]

You can't rest on your sites. You have to keep building.

Building in all kinds of different ways too. Blog networks, freesites, galleries. Not not just for submitting to link lists, etc. Building up your own web empire.

Cheers,
B

[SheepGuy]

I know sometimes I sound like an AVS preacher, but I've made 4 AVS new sales today, all recurring and all from sites that are at least 2 years old. OK, I have a linklist with decent traffic and I reserve my top 3 spots in each category for myself but none of the sites that sold today have a better than average spot on it.
I've really just started doing free sites again less than a year ago and I have two sponsor sales from them today, one of which is a trial from an outfit that usually doesn't convert trials and that I don't advertise anymore.
Freesites are OK, but they are not the only way to make a living in the biz.
Tomorrow I might have 4 freesite sales and just a couple of AVS rebills.
A couple of cam sales and I'll be cool.
Diversify.
Sermon over

[plateman]

a lot of it goes by how well you been playing your cards

like how se friendly did you build your free sites and who you picked to submit to

I have sites 2 - 3 years old that still make sales

anyone can build free sites and build up a large number with a lot of work, but how well they rank in the engines is the key...

and how well you can pre sell and other factors

if a webmaster banks on a large number of free sites and galls waiting for sales from traffic pumps then your not gonna do very well in this biz

IMO I dont ever think a free site gets to the point where it could be considered dead for making sales...

you should try other niches cause one month something you never tried is selling like crazy

[Allfetish]

Originally Posted by tigermom

Someone once told me that if you make 1000 freesites, you are guaranteed a constant stream of revenue. His theory was that once out there, it's enough for each such FS to generate 1-2 sales a year for you to get something like $30-$50k a year.

Now, I don't have 1000 FS out there, only 100+ and I can see some flaws in that theory already. IMO, freesites are not forever (as they are marketed to be - "opposed" to galleries). Linklists disappear, sponsors disappear, your sites are taken off archives with some LL's or simply placed where the sun never shines. With ratios being what they are these days, I say you can't expect old FS over one year old to be making 1-2 sale a year on average.

Thoughts? I was wondering what do the people who have been submitting FS for years and years have to say about this.

Stuff happens easily after a year or two. Lists close down. 2257. Extended downtime where your links get removed, etc.

I still do get some sales from my freesites I did way back. But in general after a year or so the average freesite/AVS seems to generate only 1 - 5 clicks / day -- often zero (partially due to the above). It can all depend on how well you do with the search engines as well.

But let's go with two hits per freesite. Okay, 2 hits (uniques) * 1000 = 2,000 hits. Assume an optimistic 10% CTR. That is about 200 clicks to your sponsors per day. It is small but traffic quality is a bit higher than normal tgp or even initial rush traffic for some reason. And I will just leave it at that....

And you are right. Assuming 2 clicks / day * 365, that is about 750 clicks. Assuming the optimistic 10% CTR again, that is only about 75 clicks to your sponsor for that freesite. If you have a 1:75 or better ratio then that is at least a sale per year. If not....

Check out this thread for some (not so perfect) math on it:

http://www.greenguysboard.com/board/...ad.php?t=40130

Basically you want to find constant steady sources of traffic whereever possible. And as much as possible. Freesites work but it probably isn't realistic to think you are going to be able to just do one a day (and no other work like TGP, etc.) and get rich from it. As the other person said you have to keep building and building. This is because most of the traffic comes within the first two weeks of being listed. In fact it is likely you'll get more traffic in the first month with a freesite than you will for the rest of the year combined.

[Maj. Stress]

Tigermom,
One thing you can do to make your freesites produces sales longer is name your pictures using keywords. I have sites years old still getting google and yahoo images traffic that still produce traffic and sales. It's not a lot but it's a few hundred bucks a month.

[bDok]

Originally Posted by Maj. Stress

Tigermom,
One thing you can do to make your freesites produces sales longer is name your pictures using keywords. I have sites years old still getting google and yahoo images traffic that still produce traffic and sales. It's not a lot but it's a few hundred bucks a month.

Do you name each image in a set a different title? Or do you go with a more standard approach to your naming for each image?

Cheers,
B

[Maj. Stress]

Originally Posted by bDok

Do you name each image in a set a different title? Or do you go with a more standard approach to your naming for each image?

Cheers,
B

In the past I've only named my pics in my php build which I use for sites I DO NOT submit to link list. I can do it two ways. sexy-mexican-women-001.jpg or just go down the keyword list hot-moms.jpg, sexy-moms.jpg, etc.

You might see results in a week or it might take years but it does pay off.

[docholly]

We have about 6 sites from 2003-2004 that still produce monthly sales. 1) they are very uniquely titled and texted.
2) they are unique niches
3) they are listed in long term listing sites that keep listings 4 ever
4) They are listed on all our hubs but with different descriptions (4 hubs total) which gives different keywords into the SEs.
5) We've incorporated their galleries into blog posts which increases the traffic to the sponsors.

Like any business -- there is no get rich quick panacea .. you have to keep it going (something i'm terrible at) to keep the traffic flowing.

[Linkster]

I have some freesites out there from 1999-2000 timeframe that still make a sale a year - as well as some avs mini sites that do the same as a minimum
These are all listed on just a few (probably 20) link lists that I used to submit to that have weathered the changes over the years - and the AVS sites are listed on maybe 5 link lists as well as the AVS itself

One thing I did a few years back (other than the standard hub/se/directory stuff) was to make sure that the sites all used sponsors that had been around forever (even when it meant that I went back and changed sponsors where necessary)
and avoided the newer sponsors completely as they seem to come and go with the wind - the reality type tours will get a few nice signups when the free site first goes out, but traditional seems to sell in the long run so I avoid the reality, newest thing on the block type paysites for those types of free sites