What does it take to be lucrative in the freesite game nowadays?

[mrenaud]

I just got into doing Free sites full time about 4 weeks ago. I'm not up to building one a day yet, I'm getting about 5-6 a week done. I quit my job to do this full time also. I saw the 1000/week # tossed around in this thread, and that's actually my goal. A year from now I hope to be making 1K a week. I would be extremely happy with that result. 1K a week USD is not bad at all when you live in Canada and are 25 years old. That's just my goal though.

I should add that I'm going to be doing 2 galleries a day on top of my free site. I've been told by some very knowlegable people in this biz that's the formula too follow.

So hopefully I'll be here in a year saying "Fuck yeah, I'm finally making 1K a week!". Not that a year is a long time! Buidling a business, any business takes extreme hardwork and dedication and it takes many years for people to get where thay are today.

[PR_Tom]

It can be a tough business. There's people making money from free sites, the link pages of their own where they list them, the extra ads on such pages.. Their whole network of sites. I can see it in their stats, so I'm sure.
It's not just getting a free site to a link list though, it's building up from there.

There has to be a willingness to learn also, and attend the chats even if you think you know what you're doing and can do no wrong The old "80/20/10" rule is in full force at all times. You can tell 10 people exactly what to do to make money, 8 wont do it for whatever reason (too hard, too much work, dont understand etc), 2 will try to apply it, and only 1 will succeed with it. So you have to be that 1 in 10 person and sprinkle on a little luck.

Try new things. Here's something that is a truism I guess.
"If you keep doing what you've always done, you'll keep getting what you've always gotten.".

So if you submit 10 freesites a week and get 1 sale a week and never change anything, then you'll get 1 sale a week for the rest of your life.

Try a new format, try a new sponsor, try a new site at your sponsor, try a new niche you've never tried before. Try a different content provider, try making your pics bigger. Try asking a link list owner what category gets the most raw hits. Try submitting to new link lists, try old link lists you never really tried. Try finding link lists with search engines. *ANYTHING* new!! Ever open photoshop to make a custom banner? Try it!!

You can most definitely make money from "just free sites" as long as that doesnt mean index, main, 2 galleries and submit. It's alot more than that.

[plateman]

great read guys and I got a little bummed out reading what bill said, but I see what I am doing now and know what needs to be done to go to the next level, I remember what linkster said a long time ago - it takes a min 1 year just to get the hang of this and a good buddy of mine who is making well over 50k a year didnt make hardly anything there first year.. I am going on my 3 year and started a LL just after 10 free sites built..

Is the LL doing as good as I want it to be - NO but that isnt no problem, start another one and target a specific SE,

dont waste a lot of time in a LL early on - build and build and you will soon see that free sites just dont generate a lot of traffic, so go to galleries...

IMO you need a 100k a day of traffic coming into a domain root all filtered out to your free sites and galleries to make a good income... you got to see those big traffic numbers to make bank..

the older LL owners by 5-10 years have the traffic that makes them decent money and with free sites and galleries they can make killer cash..

heck some people have 2 or 3 LL a bunch of smaller hubs and been subbing galleries everyday for years and know wich ones convert the best..

the question was just free sites, I know for a fact that you can make 8 to 9 hundred a month steady off of 100 SE friendly that gets se traffic - so do the math..

yes this biz is a lot of work and when you work for your self it is a lot of work..

[Linkster]

Originally Posted by PR_Tom

"If you keep doing what you've always done, you'll keep getting what you've always gotten.".

Tom - thats gotta be one of my favorite quotes of all time - and so very true! And it applies to everything in life - not just this biz - I used to have that and one other quote hanging on my wall of my office at the corporate job I worked for some time - and finally I "got it" and took the step getting into this full time

BTW - my other favorite quote was "you are either part of the steam roller or part of the road"

[Bill]

Funny thing, I started this debate thinking it would cheer people up, apparently it had the opposite effect.

So I reverse my position. Making a k a week is fairly easy in this business.

Me, I have to make a k a week just to make my nut. ("making the nut" means to cover business expenses, taxes, and basic living expenses - it's an old business expression) If I can do it, anyone should be able to do it, because, frankly, I don't work that hard.

So, everthing I was saying, I was just kidding. If you're not making 50k in a year, I'm sure you will be soon.

As I've always said, this is the best home-based business ever invented. I truly believe that.

So, like I said, I was just kidding.

[Useless]

I like the much more realistic approach to business than the motivational speaker approach. Most of us don't have the "if I can dream it, I can do it attitude" because we are realists. Being a realist doesn't mean were necesarily pessimistic either. We're just willing to acknowledge the known hurdles and toss in normal human behaviour. Most people aren't going to build 5-6 free sites per week and submit them. Why? It's bloody boring, that's why. Most of the shit we do is really fucking mundane. When I say that someone can't come along and make a living off of free sites, I'm not saying that it's entirely impossible. I'm saying that the average person couldn't. You'd need to be a mix of highly motivated and skilled. Most aren't.

[ponygirl]

nothing anyone else can say will discourage me. If I need to feel discouraged, I can do a fine job all by myself, thank you

the point to me is not 'can I get rich' doing this, it's can I make enough money to keep doing it ft, pay my personal bills & still have enough money left to put some back into it. So far, the answer has been yes, because to be honest, I really don't invest that much cash in it right now. Content & bandwidth is cheap, and I can see that freesites will provide me with enough to do what I want to do. A year from now, I will have more domains, more hubs, maybe get into more gallery posts, etc. whatever, but I won't be doing just freesites & expecting to be making 50k.
Most people here know that, I think.

It's a business. I didn't get into porn just cuz I like looking at naked people ya know

Being mean is not helpful, being realistic is. This discussion has been very helpful imo.

[Halfdeck]

As long as I see more sales the harder I work, I'll be happy in this biz. And no, I won't build free sites every damn day because that'll drive me crazy. Maybe I need to sit myself down and set up a well-oiled system where i can build free sites a day in 30 min flat, but that's another story.

Unlike working for a boss, there's no one in this biz telling you you're only gonna get paid X dollars an hour after working there for 20 years or you gotta come into work at Y am or get fired because you messed something up.

Realistic is good, but no one really knows what real is. 50 years ago, there was no Ebay or ipod or HDTV. You can either accept that, or change it.

Hmm... that all sounded like a motivational speaker approach

Here's a dose of reality: "Many are called, few are chosen."

[MrYum]

Very true...I've done the 'cranking out free sites' approach. Frankly, I pretty much burned myself out on it. It does get boring and tedious as hell after a while.

So, now I'm still lauching new free sites, but not on the 3/day scale I was doing for a while.

Yes, there is certainly money to be made in the business. The thing that keeps me going at it is I really figure as long as there are men on the planet...there will be porn

As has been alluded to already, it takes a wider approach than just free sites. It's actually one of the very cool things about this biz...there are lots of ways to generate traffic/revenue. And exploring some of those other avenues beyond just free sites also helps keep the burnout at bay to some extent.

The kinds of hours we work are certainly prime for burnout. I've been stuck in that mindset for the past few weeks, but think I've finally shaken it off and am ready to get jiggy with things again

[mrenaud]

It comes down to how motivated and driven one is. Either you do the things needed to be successful or you don't.

Of all the people I know who own successful businesses (there are a lot) not one of them got to where they are without a plan and working hard to execute that plan. There are no short cuts to success!

With that in mind I need to build some sites

[Surfn]

Originally Posted by ponygirl

nothing anyone else can say will discourage me. If I need to feel discouraged, I can do a fine job all by myself, thank you

the point to me is not 'can I get rich' doing this, it's can I make enough money to keep doing it ft, pay my personal bills & still have enough money left to put some back into it. So far, the answer has been yes, because to be honest, I really don't invest that much cash in it right now. Content & bandwidth is cheap, and I can see that freesites will provide me with enough to do what I want to do. A year from now, I will have more domains, more hubs, maybe get into more gallery posts, etc. whatever, but I won't be doing just freesites & expecting to be making 50k.
Most people here know that, I think.

It's a business. I didn't get into porn just cuz I like looking at naked people ya know

Being mean is not helpful, being realistic is. This discussion has been very helpful imo.

You are on your way keep it up

[ponygirl]

Originally Posted by Surfn

You are on your way keep it up

Thank you, Surfn - that's very encouraging
|blowkiss|

this board has some of the best porn slingers around, you guys are such a wealth of information, anyone who hangs around here on a regular basis is bound to learn a thing or two

[Jel]

I was going to post quite a long post, but it turned into a garbled mish-mash of shit, so instead:

Yes, I think you can make 50k a year from freesites. In your first year, starting from absolute scratch with no knowledge, no sales expertise, like many of us (myself for sure) started? Nope. In your second year? Yep.

[BlackCrayon]

i find writing down a schedule for yourself can help, or chop things up into days. make 7 free sites one day, use the galleries from the free sites to make galleries to submit the next. dedicate one day for SE work and another day for various other projects. its hard to keep up without someone on your ass but thats how it goes when you're self employed. i just gotta get used to working 8 hour days again. it still pisses me off how as the years pass we have to work harder for less income.

[Bill]

Originally Posted by artwilliams

But is the relationship straight line, as you suggest, or exponential? I don't know and maybe some of the more successful people can straighten me out but is there a threshold of sites and links at which you make more money than just a 1:1 ratio?

---art

Well, this is a little complicated.

With the submit and forget strategy, it's pretty much a straight line decline. Over time fewer and fewer links will bring traffic to the site, and even if you are using unique keywords the SE traffic will also collapse.

If you support freesites within your own complete network, the length of time that the site draws in signups is much longer. This is what I do, and it's what Linkster is talking about, or rather, a part of what linkster is talking about.

But, when you analyze a freeites performance over a year, you will see for yourself that, on the average, it's possible to asign a value, a number of signups, for each freesite you make.

My measurements suggest a good free site builder can expect to get about 3 full value signups per freesite.

Why is this so low? Because you have to constantly vary niche, site type, and sale stechnique in order to get your 5 sites accepted to the big guys each week.

You can't always use the best content, the best sales method, the best banner, in the best positions. One does one's best, but some percentage of freesites are going to have dissapointing sales. For the freesite that makes ten sales there are two freesites that make a half sale each, or no sales.

You get an average.

Over on GFY blue_spade suggested that figure should be about $60, two $30 signups.

I think for me the average works out to about 3.25 sales per freesite built. I prefer $35 sponsors but you have to factor in the lower value signups. So lets be generous and average it out to $105 per freesite.

(edit: I need to amend this, it was that figure for me at the beginning of 2003. Now, that figure is much lower, but I haven't done the math. I estimate it at about $80-90. But, blue_spade's 2 signups could be closer to my current figure than I like to think.)

Now, with good overall strategy you leverage that out over time, so the freesite maybe makes 3 sales the next year, two the following year, and four the year after that.

Over time, that means we folks with older networks start making pretty decent money.

[anteyes]

Originally Posted by Bill

With the submit and forget strategy, it's pretty much a straight line decline. Over time fewer and fewer links will bring traffic to the site, and even if you are using unique keywords the SE traffic will also collapse.

Sure, it is a decline per individual freesite, but your overall traffic network is at a constant increase. Let's just say as an example that you submit one freesite every day and maintain about 3000 hits to your sites overall. After awhile, every single one of those sites is going to be picked up by search engines and add a little extra traffic. So, you will have the 3000 hits daily + lets just say 10 hits per day per each freesite, so you could almost say that as each day goes by, your overall traffic network increases by x (search engine traffic or whatever else) so there is an increase over time. Link sites, hubs, and otherwise will definetely increase that network and your bottom line as well.

[Bill]

In that quote I specified _submit and forget_. That will produce a fairly straight line decline of profitability. Test it. See if I'm wrong.

In the lines you didn't quote I described some of the numbers that could be seen, that I have seen personally, in a complete system. So, I already talked about what you just suggested as an alternative to my comment about the straight decline.

I said this, "Now, with good overall strategy you leverage that out over time, so the freesite maybe makes 3 sales the next year, two the following year, and four the year after that.

Over time, that means we folks with older networks start making pretty decent money."

Traffic doesn't increase endlessly. It tends to reach a average level, and, if you are good at what you do, stay roughly at that level. This level is based on how much work you are doing, and on your traffic strategies, and also on the seasonal and stochastic distribution of traffic generally on any given day or month.

Traffic isn't infinite, and adult traffic has in general been slowly declining and slowly becoming less profitable.

Search engine traffic has also declined, in general, altho some types of pages are doing better now than, say, two years ago. But, the little freesite has much less chance of a listing that will actually bring hits now than ever before.

(I'm simplifying the factors involved in average levels of traffic, for the sake of simplifying this discussion.)

The bottom line is that everyone has to do the measurements for themselves. Some niches and sales strategies might give a better average number of sales per freesite - shemale has that reputation.

So, I invite you to work the numbers. Count how mnay sites per week you can realistically submit, and average out how many sales you get.

[anteyes]

Originally Posted by Bill

In that quote I specified _submit and forget_. That will produce a fairly straight line decline of profitability. Test it. See if I'm wrong.

In the lines you didn't quote I described some of the numbers that could be seen, that I have seen personally, in a complete system. So, I already talked about what you just suggested as an alternative to my comment about the straight decline.

I said this, "Now, with good overall strategy you leverage that out over time, so the freesite maybe makes 3 sales the next year, two the following year, and four the year after that.

Over time, that means we folks with older networks start making pretty decent money."

Traffic doesn't increase endlessly. It tends to reach a average level, and, if you are good at what you do, stay roughly at that level. This level is based on how much work you are doing, and on your traffic strategies, and also on the seasonal and stochastic distribution of traffic generally on any given day or month.

Traffic isn't infinite, and adult traffic has in general been slowly declining and slowly becoming less profitable.

Search engine traffic has also declined, in general, altho some types of pages are doing better now than, say, two years ago. But, the little freesite has much less chance of a listing that will actually bring hits now than ever before.

(I'm simplifying the factors involved in average levels of traffic, for the sake of simplifying this discussion.)

The bottom line is that everyone has to do the measurements for themselves. Some niches and sales strategies might give a better average number of sales per freesite - shemale has that reputation.

So, I invite you to work the numbers. Count how mnay sites per week you can realistically submit, and average out how many sales you get.

So, if a person was to take many niches and target the SE's for several varying keywords (shemale sex, shemales fucking, shemale ass, etc and when they run out do bbw sex, bbw ass, bbw tits, etc and on and on) and achieves them to an extent (not necessarily first page, but getting some traffic) and they do this for every niche and as many keywords as possible, you say that the profitability will decline? Why is that?

At what point do you think the decline starts happening? 100 freesites? 1000?

I would just think that if targeting many niches with different kw's for the SE's, traffic would slowly increase over time, and not really plateau.

I guess there could be the eventual deindexing of old old sites that could most definetely cause a plateau. What do you think?

Oh, and sorry if this post doesn't make sense, heh...just trying to put my thoughts into text

[Bill]

Ahhh, I think we might be having some confusion about terms that I'm using.

When I say "a straight line of decline" for certain type of freesites, that is, build and forget freesites, what I mean is that a certain type of freesite is most likely to make sales when it is first listed, and is getting the most traffic it will ever get from new listings. Then, as time goes on, it's probability of making sales drops in roughly a straight line. It becomes stale, all the biggest linklists drop the listing after a certain number of months, and surfers have seen the site before.

Such a site is likely to make a total average of, lets say, two and a half sales during it's active lifetime. So, lets say it's worth 30+30+15=$75.

Lots of niches are lucky to see a sale per site. Lots of niches only make a sale every two sites. Some niches make 6-8 sales per site. But you get an average.

If you put that site into a complete system, where you link to it again and again from new hub pages, and use it as a listing in a fake linklist, and so on, you can extend it's value. But even in that case sites tend to go slowly stale. Sponsors get overused, content gets seen too many times.

This is another type of decline, but it's not what I meant when I talked about a straight line decline. A straight line decline happens with _unsupported_ freesites and galleries.

People will tell you about "That old site I built years ago just made another sale...", and that is a very real phenomenon, but this is a type of selective perception - they forget about the dozens and hundreds of other old sites that are making fewer sale sthan they used to make.

In the search engines, pages are constantly being forced further and further back in the serps, and you have to work steadily to keep your pages alive. Unless you are using a centralized strategy - basically, unless you have a sucessful linklist or tgp with a steady flow of thousands of incoming links, your freesites will tend to dissappear. This isn't an absolute for every site, but it is pretty much an absolute for your 'average' site. On the average , all pages are falling out of the serps.

A hard worker, who is constantly exploring and exploiting new traffic sources, can slowly increase their average traffic pretty consistently - but this is substantially harder that it sounds in theory, becuase everyone else is also trying to hold and increase their pool of traffic.

[anteyes]

Originally Posted by Bill

Ahhh, I think we might be having some confusion about terms that I'm using.

When I say "a straight line of decline" for certain type of freesites, that is, build and forget freesites, what I mean is that a certain type of freesite is most likely to make sales when it is first listed, and is getting the most traffic it will ever get from new listings. Then, as time goes on, it's probability of making sales drops in roughly a straight line. It becomes stale, all the biggest linklists drop the listing after a certain number of months, and surfers have seen the site before.

Such a site is likely to make a total average of, lets say, two and a half sales during it's active lifetime. So, lets say it's worth 30+30+15=$75.

Lots of niches are lucky to see a sale per site. Lots of niches only make a sale every two sites. Some niches make 6-8 sales per site. But you get an average.

If you put that site into a complete system, where you link to it again and again from new hub pages, and use it as a listing in a fake linklist, and so on, you can extend it's value. But even in that case sites tend to go slowly stale. Sponsors get overused, content gets seen too many times.

This is another type of decline, but it's not what I meant when I talked about a straight line decline. A straight line decline happens with _unsupported_ freesites and galleries.

People will tell you about "That old site I built years ago just made another sale...", and that is a very real phenomenon, but this is a type of selective perception - they forget about the dozens and hundreds of other old sites that are making fewer sale sthan they used to make.

In the search engines, pages are constantly being forced further and further back in the serps, and you have to work steadily to keep your pages alive. Unless you are using a centralized strategy - basically, unless you have a sucessful linklist or tgp with a steady flow of thousands of incoming links, your freesites will tend to dissappear. This isn't an absolute for every site, but it is pretty much an absolute for your 'average' site. On the average , all pages are falling out of the serps.

A hard worker, who is constantly exploring and exploiting new traffic sources, can slowly increase their average traffic pretty consistently - but this is substantially harder that it sounds in theory, becuase everyone else is also trying to hold and increase their pool of traffic.

Ok, yeah, I think I did misunderstand ya at first. I always thought of the submit and forget principle a little differently, which included adding the sites to hubs/etc. I guess that is not really forgetting

I totally agree that if just creating generic freesites that after a certain period, they would go bye bye...just like galleries to an extent.

I know what you mean though about the eventual decline in All sites from the search engines over time. I think that once you reach that point though (if you submit constantly and support those sites) you should be doing pretty well though, so the decline won't affect you too hard.

[stfuvt]

great info here

[jds]

Noob question : Could I see an exemple of a hub please ?

[Surfn]

Here ya go

[jds]

Originally Posted by Surfn

Here ya go

It's not funny .... well actually it is

I was more waiting for this in fact but anyway

[KG Gary]

You folks are insane!

Originally Posted by jds

Noob question : Could I see an exemple of a hub please ?

There's a few examples of what people consider to be hubs in this thread from a while back:
(I think it's still relevant two years on)
http://www.greenguysboard.com/board/...ead.php?t=3130

Hope that helps.