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

[juggernaut]

I submit free sites to promo my site, all I can tell you is I think this would be very hard if not impossible. I see at most 12 to 16 unique’s a day from the sites I have submitted to. I submit to good link lists, not the big boys here but that mainly cause of my niche and the content I can provide for it, so I don’t waste their time submitting to them when I know they won’t take the sites from posts i have placed here asking about it. Personally I feel if you were going to do this for a living, you would have to really bust your ass with a shit load of sites and a really really good plan. There are tuts around on how it can be done with building a submitting around 10 per day, but they are some what old and I really can’t say if they would work as I have not tried them personally. I used them to figure out what I had to do. But look at the numbers people post here in their sales stats and then start doing to math and you will see what it takes to make money on it. Now how much money are you talking? If you are living in a 3rd world country where a pack of smokes cost $1 then maybe yes you can, but if you are living in the USA, you better get a day job cause for the whole 90 days odds are you wont make enough to put food on your table.

[ponygirl]

If you're strictly going to do only freesites, then yes, volume is definitely the key. If you are generally getting even 1:800 with a sponsor & you send 800 uniques/day to them, statistically you should be getting a sale a day. I know there are ups and downs, but if you evened it out over a long enough period, it probably would work out. The only thing would be to work out how many sites you need to build to get to the level of traffic that you need to make the $ you want. Basically, set a goal and work towards it.

What I have found, though, is that building freesites leads to other things...galleries, LinkLists or TGPs, hubs, more and more 'web presence'. All these things are a potential source of income.

The main thing is time. If you have a family to feed, mortgage to pay etc, then yes, get a day job & do this on the side. If you have alternate sources of income & can devote a ton of time to it, it will pay off.

[BlackCrayon]

so how does everyone pay their bills? not that i want answers to that but if the people submitting can't make a living off it, are most people here besides the linklist owners part timers? seems to be a bit much to expect people to used paid content when they won't even be able to make a living off it. i'll never forgive myself for not starting a linklist or tgp when i first got into the biz in 98. all those yummy backlinks i would of aquired over the years...no point in making myself depressed over it though. i make enough to keep doing this full time but i really miss making 10-20k a month. seems there are still lots of people making this, or they make it look like they do. i guess the traditional methods just don't work like they used to. the big money is in seo, creating new ways to spam and drive traffic direct from the source. the question is, how the hell do you do that when things are more restrictive than ever. working your ass off to make 4k/month a year down the road just doesn't seem worth it.

[th3g4me]

I plan on making a living from this stuff in the next 4 to 10 months (I been in again for 2 months) from... Free sites, galleries, some hubs, maybe a fake TGP, or LL, a blog, SE doorways, submit to some link dumps, and forums. I might pick up some google listings on the way?

I don't see it happening from free sites alone though...

I don't see making all these sites and etc as working my ass off. I call working my ass off, working in the mines, factory/plant, welding, being a mechanic, and doing construction, logging, or working on a farm. This... What people do online is... Kind of like being an artist. Set on your ass all day thinking creatively and getting paid for it.

I don't want to be impolite to any one, but when some one says that the new comers can not make it... It would be like the Duryea brothers saying no need for any one else to build a car we have one that works!

[ponygirl]

Originally Posted by th3g4me

I don't see making all these sites and etc as working my ass off. I call working my ass off, working in the mines, factory/plant, welding, being a mechanic, and doing construction, logging, or working on a farm. This... What people do online is... Kind of like being an artist. Set on your ass all day thinking creatively and getting paid for it.

exactly. It's a matter of perspective. I definitely made a lot more money working in a 'cushy office job' but...was it fun? did I enjoy myself? did I meet interesting people? well it had it's moments but I'd rather make 4k a month doing this than doing that. I don't need 250k/yr to call it a living, or to be successful.

although there's always those goals

[juggernaut]

Originally Posted by BlackCrayon

so how does everyone pay their bills? not that i want answers to that but if the people submitting can't make a living off it, are most people here besides the linklist owners part timers? seems to be a bit much to expect people to used paid content when they won't even be able to make a living off it. i'll never forgive myself for not starting a linklist or tgp when i first got into the biz in 98. all those yummy backlinks i would of aquired over the years...no point in making myself depressed over it though. i make enough to keep doing this full time but i really miss making 10-20k a month. seems there are still lots of people making this, or they make it look like they do. i guess the traditional methods just don't work like they used to. the big money is in seo, creating new ways to spam and drive traffic direct from the source. the question is, how the hell do you do that when things are more restrictive than ever. working your ass off to make 4k/month a year down the road just doesn't seem worth it.

You can always do what I did. Marry a hot chick who works on cam. Then you can sit home and work on sites. She pulls in 5k a month easy. And we pay our bills by check. But seriously its like anything else, work work work. Know the business enough to keep your head above water. But I do think that some if not most have other means of income. IE advertising spots on sites can cost you 1k per month. I don't know why you dont put up a LL? I would think if done correctly in a short period of time you would have some great backlinks. This is just like any other business. Thats why they call it the adult business. There is no way of getting rich quick, but just like opening up a store front it will take time and hard work. I think to many people get into this thinking they will just wake up at 11am, work on their site to 2pm and then call it a day and watch the money roll in. If it was that easy everyone would be doing it. The good thing about this business unlike others, is it will still pay off if you work hard and dont give up. You just have to be willing to pick yourself up when you make a mistake and drive on. Other industries are not that forgiving. As far as your 4k a month dont seem worth it comment. I have to disagree. Thats 50k a year. And thats a good living. Not great but good enough to live off of.

[Halfdeck]

I made my first sale on October 10 of last year off my first free site I made I subbed to LOR and 2 other places.

Looking back, most of my sales aren't free sites related, so I wish I could say free sites are lucrative but I really don't know. The last free site I built a few weeks ago made 4 sales in 2 weeks, but that's from pouring on my own traffic besides submitting it to 6 LLs.

Some of my mini sites turn 400 clickthrus into 4-5 sales a period, and others do 1:1000 but I just hammer it with traffic...the bottom line is more pages out there, the better your chances are, but to make it easier on yourself, link to a good tour, offer bookmarkers a good product that sells themselves (do a little research on what you're actually selling), and avoid "selling shoes to people looking for boots." Usually, when I run into a site that makes me want to enter my credit card info, that's the site I promote and usually it'll make money for me.

I'm working on a bookmarkable site now... Although the site isn't getting anywhere near what I want in terms of uniques/day, and its indexed but not placing at all in the SEs, I am seeing a few sales with ratios like 1:2 and 1:60s off inside pages and it sells sites I hardly promote, so it has potential, just a pain in the ass to work on it every day..

One thing I've found about ratios like 1:800 is when it's that bad, I need to filter it and make it harder to get to the paysite. Send surfers who REALLY want to go to the tour to the paysite, keep the rest of the traffic and sell them something else.

[tickler]

Originally Posted by Linkster

...researching niches that convert as opposed to just doing general teen submits, .... and researching the heck out of a niche

I would highly recommend checking out some of the TV shoes like Kink, if you can get access to it.

I found out more about latex and all the related products after watching a half hour show, then months of surfing SEs would have provided. Another one recently explained the difference between balloon fetish "players" and "poppers". And they really don't get along with each other.

I even started researching a couple of niches after seeing them on CSI. One show had Plushies & Furries, another episode had a Biting fetish character.

[Surfn]

I can tell by how often a person submits their level of commitment to making this a full time biz. And I can tell by the quality of their submits if they are going in the right direction to succeed.

This isn't rocket science. It's just plain hard work.

[Simon]

Originally Posted by tickler

I would highly recommend checking out some of the TV shoes like Kink, if you can get access to it.

I found out more about latex and all the related products after watching a half hour show, then months of surfing SEs would have provided. Another one recently explained the difference between balloon fetish "players" and "poppers". And they really don't get along with each other.

I even started researching a couple of niches after seeing them on CSI. One show had Plushies & Furries, another episode had a Biting fetish character.

This is most excellent advice for anyone looking to promote fetishes that they're not personally into.

Niche markets are one thing, fetish niches are something else. When you're selling to a need instead of a want/desire, then the whole platform you build your copy on is different. Having at least a basic understanding of what the fetish is, what drives people to it, how they explore and exploit their fetish, how it's portrayed publicly versus in private... all those things can be important if you want to have your marketing speak to the actual fetishists too and not just the curious newbies.

And yeah, you don't want the balloon players and poppers at the same party. Almost as bad as a group of weekend/bedroom-only bdsm players talking to a bunch of Gorean lifestylers.

Simon

[selena]

~ears perk at the mention of Gorean~

[neveremail]

After some work you should be able make a freesite and submit it in 2 hours (3 hours max) and I'm sure some ppl can do it quicker. If you expect to make a living off 2 hours work a day then you would have to be crazy.

That leaves you atleast 5 hours to do something else and get your hands in many pies!

[Toby]

Some very excellent advice in this discussion. The fetish niche comments in particular caught my attention.

The premise of the question is strictly building and submitting free sites, but there are some other things that go along with that which aren't strictly building and submitting that also need to be done in order to maximize that effort. Namely a hub site or sites and all that goes with it, such as link trades, traffic filtering, etc.

[emmanuelle]

Originally Posted by tickler

I would highly recommend checking out some of the TV shoes like Kink, if you can get access to it.

I found out more about latex and all the related products after watching a half hour show, then months of surfing SEs would have provided. Another one recently explained the difference between balloon fetish "players" and "poppers". And they really don't get along with each other.

I even started researching a couple of niches after seeing them on CSI. One show had Plushies & Furries, another episode had a Biting fetish character.

Tickler, I apologize in advance for this.
The producers of Kink, (who I know personally) have no f&$%ing clue. I have never met anyone with their head shoved so high up their rectum.
summary: caveat emptor

If you are looking for a decent fetish reference, I would recommend Deviant Desires, written by Katherine Gates

http://www.booksamillion.com/ncom/bo...sbn=1890451037

It will really give you a good idea of what is going on inside the heads of your target market.
Television programs thrive on exploitation and drama to make themselves interesting rather than credible

[anteyes]

Just out of curiosity, with the bigger freesite submitters (people who have submitted over 300 or 400 freesites), how many sites do you actually have out there? Are they still bringing in substantial revenue?

[Bill]

I'm not trying to discourage anybody from anything. I just think there's a ton of bullshit that flies around in this business, and like I said, I don't think it's nice to taunt people.

If it's so easy to make 50k a year just from freesites, where are the people here in this community, here at GG&Js, that are doing it? All I ever hear is talk about how little money most people are making.

I guess all the 50k from freesites guys only post at gfy.

If you make 360 freesites a year, and get an average of 4 $35 sales per freesite, you can gross 50k. Both of those are unrealistic numbers.

I'm not saying you can't make 50k a year in this biz, absolutely you can.

But, 50k a year from freesites? After a year? Starting from scratch? I don't believe it.

People have a tendency to exaggerate how much money they are making.

How do you think this makes the folks who are only able to make 15k or 20k a year from freesites feel?

[sue-fl]

Thanks for the great thread everyone! I make money off of my free sites. Not a 1000 a week but make money. I don't ever expect to make 50k a year it would be nice but I don't have my expectations near that high.

What I have done in the year and a half since I started is spend money. Mostly in content so far. I invested in content and housing before I was making a dime. I have a fake tgp with galleries that I link to on all my free sites. I also have a link list which has all my free sites and my sponsors free sites, plus submits. I have noticed that I'm getting sales now from my tgp, not my link list yet.

So I have invested the money and certainly the time, as I feel like I live on my pc! I usually make four free sites a week, on average. My next step is to invest in some better programs for my pc to make better sites, logos etc.

So can you make a living off of free sites that I don't know. My husband is the income maker this is more or less spending money, and unexpected expensive money for us. So I'm happy with what I'm making a month at this point. Do I want to make more money? Shit yeah and I can tell you I would not be sitting here an average of a least 8 hours a day every day if I didn't.

I hope I'm on the right track with how I'm doing things and it will continue to pay off for me. The first week if ever I make 1000 dollars you'll all hear me celebrating from here.....

Great advice everyone and good luck to all of us!

[Surfn]

Life is about choices. Each of us make them every day. You can listen to positive people that try to help or you can listen to negative people who have a hidden agenda.

Most of the posters on this board need help and there are some willing to help them. Others want to shut you out to keep more of the pie for themselves.

The people that are making good money usually help people that are trying and appreciate their help. It's your life and your choice who to listen to.

Good Luck

[Linkster]

Bill - please reread what I said - after 1 year with the use of all the tools (hubs etc) along with those 360 free sites (and hopefully people still submit to places like DMOZ and other SEs with a made for SE copy of their free sites) starting that second year $1k a week should be average - to break it down to a certain # of sales per free site is not realistic as you will get sales from your "mousetrap" sites, traffic pumps and hubs that you have built along with these free sites (hopefully) although realistically at the one year point you would really only need 2 sales per free site out there if you were still building as after one year you have 360 plus the sites you are building today.
To those making 15-20k a year from submitting free sites I would only say that you could increase your income quite a bit - its not an easy biz and unfortunately that is why so few actually stay in the free site end of it - that compounded with the fear generation that has plagued this industry for the last year has dropped the number of submitters drastically. To me that just means there are even more opportunities out there

[BlackCrayon]

Originally Posted by juggernaut

You can always do what I did. Marry a hot chick who works on cam. Then you can sit home and work on sites. She pulls in 5k a month easy. And we pay our bills by check. But seriously its like anything else, work work work. Know the business enough to keep your head above water. But I do think that some if not most have other means of income. IE advertising spots on sites can cost you 1k per month. I don't know why you dont put up a LL? I would think if done correctly in a short period of time you would have some great backlinks. This is just like any other business. Thats why they call it the adult business. There is no way of getting rich quick, but just like opening up a store front it will take time and hard work. I think to many people get into this thinking they will just wake up at 11am, work on their site to 2pm and then call it a day and watch the money roll in. If it was that easy everyone would be doing it. The good thing about this business unlike others, is it will still pay off if you work hard and dont give up. You just have to be willing to pick yourself up when you make a mistake and drive on. Other industries are not that forgiving. As far as your 4k a month dont seem worth it comment. I have to disagree. Thats 50k a year. And thats a good living. Not great but good enough to live off of.

yeah, 4k a month is a decent living but it taking one year of work just to achieve it is what i think isn't worth it. i'd imagine there are other more lucrative things you could work at for one year straight and make much more.

i know the online adult industry isn't get rich quick but it used to be, for me at least. when i first started doing this i was making 10k a month within 6 months. i spent years waking up at noon working for a couple hours a day and partying the rest still pulling in good money. i guess all of that has spoiled me because now all i can think of is how much better it was back then.

as for the reason i don't start a linklist now, its too late to be a greenguy, or a tommy, or xxxjays. no one is gonna submit to a site that doesn't have hundreds of thousands of hits per day.

i've just got to face the fact that things are very different now and will never return to the days of old but if i can't make 50k a year working 8 hours a day at whatever in the online adult world, i think i'll have to find another area of work but i can't for the life of me imagine working for someone else now, after all these years of freedom.

[Bill]

Linkster, I feel I know exactly what you mean. Working a whole system, taking advantage of all the traffic oppurtunities out there, tapping search engine money (which is a lot _slower_ these days than it used to be, remember, if you are starting from scratch), I agree, a skilled person could do it.

I believe I could probably do it, for instance. But I sure as hell would hate to have to try.

But that's not from freesites alone. The traffic coming from linklists alone is just not that lucrative these days.

I understand the point you are trying to make - but, I think you are splitting hairs here, and going fairly far outside the original scope of the question.

I don't want people to feel bad because they aren't seeing that 50k a year you are suggesting should be "fairly easy to make".

I keep coming back to one essential point - if it's so easy, where are the people doing it?

Because the only people I see doing it are the oldtimers with established networks and a wealth of contacts and skill and resources.

[neveremail]

Originally Posted by Bill

Linkster, I feel I know exactly what you mean. Working a whole system, taking advantage of all the traffic oppurtunities out there, tapping search engine money (which is a lot _slower_ these days than it used to be, remember, if you are starting from scratch), I agree, a skilled person could do it.

I believe I could probably do it, for instance. But I sure as hell would hate to have to try.

But that's not from freesites alone. The traffic coming from linklists alone is just not that lucrative these days.

I understand the point you are trying to make - but, I think you are splitting hairs here, and going fairly far outside the original scope of the question.

I don't want people to feel bad because they aren't seeing that 50k a year you are suggesting should be "fairly easy to make".

I keep coming back to one essential point - if it's so easy, where are the people doing it?

Because the only people I see doing it are the oldtimers with established networks and a wealth of contacts and skill and resources.

I think Linkster is trying to say if someone who is prepared to work really really hard at it can achive it. But I'd agree with you on saying dont get your hopes up.

I have read a few tutorials of experienced webmasters pretending they were newbies staring from scratch to show you can make money (LB did one on netpond) and they make it look much easier than it actually is.

[ArtWilliams]

Originally Posted by Bill

If you make 360 freesites a year, and get an average of 4 $35 sales per freesite, you can gross 50k. Both of those are unrealistic numbers.

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

[tickler]

Originally Posted by emmanuelle

Tickler, I apologize in advance for this.

Not required E. I was just trying to point out that there are other places besides the net to explore. And many other TV shows also.

[Linkster]

artwilliams - it is pretty much exponential if you are using the things I suggest like hubs and other traffic filtering devices. Which is why I stick to the basic notion that anyone that is willing to put the 12-14 hours a day that this would require into actually doing it - I know for a fact that those levels of money can be made - Ive seen it done first-hand, however Im kinda reluctant to point out any names without their permission.

Bill - as far as having to be an old-timer or not - I dont believe that has anything to do with it - the people I have watched do this exact thing have taken it upon themselves to network on this and other boards, go to the shows and build those relationships over that first year that get them a few extra bennies with LLs and other traffic sources. Im sorry but maybe this whole "plan" I am talking about is outside your definition of just making free sites - and you are correct - if someone just wants to spend 2 hours a day making and submitting free sites every day - they are going to be limited to the 10-15k or so a year. I have always considered making free sites a part of a complete free site package which is what I kinda base my thoughts on