Question for free site submitters (not LL owners)

[WarBot]

Ive submitted 13 sites and made 1 single sale. I know, thats pathetic. Im blaming it on my lack of advertising skills and choosing a very popular niche that has alot of competition, maybe even choosing the wrong sponsor sites to promote. Probably mostly my advertising skills though.

Im considering quitting free site submitting. These are my questions for anyone willing to share

1.) How much money do you make submitting free sites and how often do you submit? (you can answer in the poll)

2.) Do you JUST submit free sites or do you do other things? If you do other things, what are they?
3.) What advice would you give a person who was just starting out to guide them to making good money with this adult webmastering thing?

Any other comments are appreciated.

[BishopWeber]

Q1: I have 2 Free sites less than you and the same amount of sales submitting 1 site per week, but saw here at the board that this was not a good month for many people.

Q2: By now Im just building free sites and trying to get my domain indexed on SE's. I'm working programing applications 4 a client to and that's what pays my bills.

Q3: Just keep working, is a fact that if you spend time and money to get something, soon or later you will get it.

[iMan]

From all I've read, 13 sites is WAY too little to base anything on.

I've just started to submit free sites myself and they're coming out slowly at this point.. but I'm putting most time into learning and setting up an infrastructure with recips/sponsors/templates etc. that will (hopefully) allow me to submit at a much quicker phase and with less effort when it's all done.

But I'm not counting on any real results until I have at least 100 sites out there for the SEs to chew on..

I'm focusing on free sites for now... once I have that down, I'll try other things too.

It sure is discouraging to look at the stats right now though

Just my 2c.

[KG Gary]

I do this full time, and I've submitted a freesite almost every day since I started back in March. (Sometimes it's just not possible to do it every day, hence the "almost")

So far I have around 150 freesites built & submitted. Most are listed here if you want to take a peek.

I'm quite pleased with my sales overall, and although I don't make $1000/month yet, but my numbers rise each month and it looks like if I keep building & submitting then it won't be long before I pass that.

I have a hub/fake LL thing here and a spin-off webcam site here. There are also two or three little sites linked from those which are part of my little tiny weensy network.
My advice would be to vary the niches, build many more sites, and stop worrying about your sales at the moment. 13 freesites is nowhere near enough to judge much at all, so keep on building. Surf Linklists and look at other people's freesites to pick up tips on what sales text to use, colours to use, layouts etc. Look for freesites that link to hubs and poke around them a bit.
Build, learn, tweak, build, learn, tweak, build.....etc
Good luck!

[Lemmy]

I didn't take the poll, partly because I don't want people to know that I make an insane amount of money and partly because my results would be meaningless to anyone not doing exactly what I do.

My advice to a beginner in the businness would be to keep building and submitting, hone your skills, and down the road watch the loot roll in.

[kitty_kate]

5 sites and 3 sales by now (started like two months ago).
My friends (much older in this biz) are telling me that summer sucks because the traffic decreases and so the sales, and I tend to belive them.

Anyway, we should keep working and submitting... on the web the money comes with a little delay

[Useless]

I know I'm excluded from this thread since I haven't submitted a free site in a very long time - but that's not because it isn't worth it - I'm simply not someone who could be labeled "productive".

I tend not help newer people anymore since, for whatever bizarre reason, I tend to create hostility. However, I'm going to give you some very solid business advice (and I believe Preacher would back me up on this). - Marry someone whose sole income pays the mortgage, two car payments, utilities, your broadband connection, etc. That way, the weekly check from CCBill for $50 will seem like icing on the cake. It will also help if your spouse has had a couple of psych courses so they'll be able to adequately understand and cope as you become increasingly introverted, socially anxious, and generally bitter at your lack of success while being unable to break free from that which causes you the most pain. Having a dog who can absorb a few kicks helps too.

[Tart]

Originally Posted by Useless Warrior

.....However, I'm going to give you some very solid business advice (and I believe Preacher would back me up on this). - Marry someone whose sole income pays the mortgage, two car payments, utilities, your broadband connection, etc. That way, the weekly check from CCBill for $50 will seem like icing on the cake. It will also help if your spouse has had a couple of psych courses so they'll be able to adequately understand and cope as you become increasingly introverted, socially anxious, and generally bitter at your lack of success while being unable to break free from that which causes you the most pain. Having a dog who can absorb a few kicks helps too.

Very good advice.. it's worked for me. Although I now make enough to pay for my own internet connection. And the dog kibble.

[ponygirl]

Originally Posted by Useless Warrior

Marry someone whose sole income pays the mortgage, two car payments, utilities, your broadband connection, etc. That way, the weekly check from CCBill for $50 will seem like icing on the cake. It will also help if your spouse has had a couple of psych courses so they'll be able to adequately understand and cope as you become increasingly introverted, socially anxious, and generally bitter at your lack of success while being unable to break free from that which causes you the most pain. Having a dog who can absorb a few kicks helps too.

ok, I will back this up (except for the dog, I've got enough chaos in my life )

Warbot, don't get discouraged. I've been doing this for 2 yrs now (although I definitely don't submit every day) and it took me a year just to see regular cheques of any kind. I do freesites, hubs and have a little LL. It now pays for hosting, content, and groceries (I have 3 males in my house so that's not small potatoes lol).

Just get it in your head that YOU WILL NOT MAKE ANY MONEY for a while. I think that's what kills most newbies in this biz. If you have a year or 2 to build it up and keep working at it, YOU WILL MAKE MONEY. It's almost that simple. Build freesites, hubs, pages, get domains whenever you can afford it...keep making your little slice of the pie bigger and it will happen.

This last month has been terrible, for whatever reason (some people believe in summer slowdown, some don't), and one of my main sponsors tanked for me, so I've been spreading my traffic out a bit which doesn't help sales. But I'm optimistic and I know it will get better again.

My advice is to just keep going as long as you can before starving to death. And if it looks like you will, then get a part time job, eat lots of mr noodle, and keep going.

oh ya, and stay here...this is definitely THE place to be if you want to do anything in the freesite/LL biz.

[docholly]

I had a hard time on the poll.. cuz we (tart and I) go in cycles.. we submit a whole bunch then stop for sometimes MONTHS.. then realize our traffic has dried up to our hubs and then we submit...but this time we've made ourselves a promise of at least 2-3 subs per week..

If you want short term quick cash.. build galleries. which you should anyway.. from every free site you can get at least 1 gallery.

Free sites, as MML has drilled into us in OTB, are built for long term SE listings. 1 site can produce over its lifetime, more sales than 1 little short term gallery.

If you need an influx of really fast cash, get a web cam and shake your ass..

Of course UW gave you the best advice.. oh yeah and attend OTB.

[HarryM]

13 sites probably isn't enough to base your decision on. Speaking for myself I always have at least 1 sale per site, but it can be 6 months later. You need more time to get listed, build more sites, make some hubs and test different sponsors.

Sometimes people I know ask how to get into this business, I tell them to just forget about the idea unless they have enough money to start things off properly with and can survive the first months/years of crap all money coming in. Can't really expect instant returns without laying out a shitload of cash first, same thing goes with any business really...

[Kenny B!]

Originally Posted by Useless Warrior

and generally bitter

No not you!

[sue-fl]

Warbot you are getting frusted way too soon. I've been working hard at this for two years and just started seeing results over the past few months.

If you are depending on this for a living get a second job, till you've been at it for a few years

[Magix]

i have 42 FS, i am working on FS from june, i got my first sale after two months, and after that first sale i'm having 1-2 sales per week ( well only in moth of august ) and it's keep on rising i think i will be getting 1k per moth after two months i hope!!!
Got to keep working

[BishopWeber]

Originally Posted by Useless Warrior

Having a dog who can absorb a few kicks helps too.

This really works.

[Preacher]

Originally Posted by Useless Warrior

However, I'm going to give you some very solid business advice (and I believe Preacher would back me up on this). - Marry someone whose sole income pays the mortgage, two car payments, utilities, your broadband connection, etc. That way, the weekly check from CCBill for $50 will seem like icing on the cake. It will also help if your spouse has had a couple of psych courses so they'll be able to adequately understand and cope as you become increasingly introverted, socially anxious, and generally bitter at your lack of success while being unable to break free from that which causes you the most pain. Having a dog who can absorb a few kicks helps too.

I have a cat!

[Xallow]

I have submitted maybe 30 FS's now and am getting some good traffic to them, I have a very small LL that is actually getting a lot of traffic from my FS's

I have made 8 sales now and quite frankly I am not happy with that, but I can see from my stats that every time I submit a new FS, traffic to all my FS's increase because of the traffic to my LL and my Hub, I have also finally got a few submitters to my LL so I am getting a bit of traffic from them also...

All in all, keep submitting your FS's and make Yourself a Hub, make a recip table to your hub and put it in there with the Recips of the Sites that generate the most traffic for You.

The kicking of the Dog part is not the way I would go, I am an animal lover and the 1 person I have ever seen kick a dog.... I took down HARD

[ponygirl]

Originally Posted by Xallow

All in all, keep submitting your FS's and make Yourself a Hub, make a recip table to your hub and put it in there with the Recips of the Sites that generate the most traffic for You.

be careful with that, though...some LLs don't like hub links in recip tables. If you have an actual LL that's ok, but if I link my hubs it's a link on the page using one of the 3 out.

Originally Posted by Xallow

The kicking of the Dog part is not the way I would go, I am an animal lover and the 1 person I have ever seen kick a dog.... I took down HARD

umm...I think they were kidding

[Xallow]

umm...I think they were kidding [/quote]

So do I, I certainly hope so

I realize that some LL's don't like Recips to hubs, but noone has declined me for it yet... I hope they dont start now

[gavelo]

Sorry, what are hubs?

[ponygirl]

Originally Posted by gavelo

Sorry, what are hubs?

a hub would be a list that holds all of your freesites, galleries, sponsor hosted stuff etc. Kind of like a Link List or TGP in structure, but doesn't take submissions just has all your stuff on it. You can pretty much do whatever you want design wise to it. They're good to have on the root of the domain you submit from.

[WarBot]

Originally Posted by Useless Warrior

I know I'm excluded from this thread since I haven't submitted a free site in a very long time - but that's not because it isn't worth it - I'm simply not someone who could be labeled "productive".

I tend not help newer people anymore since, for whatever bizarre reason, I tend to create hostility. However, I'm going to give you some very solid business advice (and I believe Preacher would back me up on this). - Marry someone whose sole income pays the mortgage, two car payments, utilities, your broadband connection, etc. That way, the weekly check from CCBill for $50 will seem like icing on the cake. It will also help if your spouse has had a couple of psych courses so they'll be able to adequately understand and cope as you become increasingly introverted, socially anxious, and generally bitter at your lack of success while being unable to break free from that which causes you the most pain. Having a dog who can absorb a few kicks helps too.

Very sound advice This is why I read every single one of your posts lol

[WarBot]

The day job thing isnt a problem, Im not working right now because I quit my job to move and get settled into my new home (and my vacation is added in there so its not a total loss). I have a job lined up so when I get moved in Ill be able to go right to work.

For some reason I thought that I should be getting at least 1 sale per free site. I mean, I get listed on LOR, Penisbot, Smutgremlins, etc... so I figured that traffic I should be turning into at least 1 sale per site. After 13 sites I felt like I was way behind and I couldnt figure out what I was doing wrong. I dont have a problem with long term free site submitting. I wont be able to do it daily (I build sites extremely slow) but a couple/few a week shouldnt be a problem.

Im not a quitter, I just was expecting a sale here and there was normal and I wasnt cutting it. I didnt see any point in continuing to torture myself and spend so much time on it when I wasnt doing good and everything I have tried wasnt working. But I will take it as a long term project. I love building free sites so I can at least keep it up as a hobby. Maybe one of these days I will catch a break and be able to move to full time

Theres some great advice here and in the PM's Ive gotten. I feel like an attention whore or something now but Im glad I was burned out and posted this. Its given me an entirely new outlook on this and new motivation. Replaced my short term motivation with a long term one and a better understanding of how this whole adult thing works these days.

[gavelo]

Originally Posted by ponygirl

a hub would be a list that holds all of your freesites, galleries, sponsor hosted stuff etc. Kind of like a Link List or TGP in structure, but doesn't take submissions just has all your stuff on it. You can pretty much do whatever you want design wise to it. They're good to have on the root of the domain you submit from.

Thanks ponygirl...do you think LL owners allows to put links to hubs in FS ?

[Bill]

The free site building biz ain't what it used to be.

But, 13 sites, 1 sale, that suggests you are either in a bad niche, or that your selling is too weak.

There's a natural tendency to try to build freesites to make reviwers and list owners happy, but a freesite that only provides free content for somebody else and makes you no sales is a lose-lose for both you and the linklist - altho much more of a loss for you (It's a loss for the linklist, even if the linkllist owner doesn't realize it, because linklist owners needs happy submitters, even if they act like submitters are the enemy).