High rankings, good traffic, but very little income!

[cspelts]

Ctabuk has stated he wants to make this the best marketing forum on the planet – so I thought I’d give him a challenge! Actually this is something that has been challenging me for years.

I own a site, ROCKBAND.COM, that started as a fun little side project back in 1996. Because independent musicians tend to aggressively market themselves on the web, and my site was a free resource, it grew fast. But in 2000 I grew tired of the workload with no financial payoff, so I stopped working on the site. I ignored it for nearly five years. I left it up because it still was a valuable resource, and I figured it still helped the bands listed on it. I also set it up so that new bands could submit their info and they’d show up in a few selected searches but not site wide. During the five years I neglected the site, the database grew from 1000 bands to over 4000 bands.

Then this past January I decided there must be a way for me to make money off this site – so I started to clean it up. I streamlined the submission process so that my role now is very small. I added a new forum this month, and I now have local news that shows up in the local sections, and a brand new Gig Listing section. When I heard about the new TV show, Rock Star: INXS I thought that would be a perfect fit, so I added a section on the show.

Because of the optimization I did years ago, and because quite a few of the bands link back to the site, I’m in the top five for both Rock Band and Rock Bands on Google and Yahoo, and do almost as well on MSN. My traffic before January was about 1500 a day, and last week I averaged 2200 unique visitors per day.

But how do I make money off this site? It’s a huge challenge! The site as it is now, appeals mainly to indie musicians – and they are generally too savvy to click on advertising and are not interested in buying a CD. Initially I was hoping to appeal to people looking for music, but I’ve found that the general public is just not that interested in indie musicians. It’s been suggested to me that I should have the bands pay a fee to be listed – but these are poor musicians – it’s just not going to happen!

Right now I’ve got AdSense on most pages, some Amazon products, and a CD store that is an affiliate for indie cd store, CD Baby. But because my visitors are mostly musicians, none of these things is generating any income.

So I’ve considered dropping the indie angle and focusing on all rock bands – including very famous ones that might appeal to the general public! But I’m a little resistant to that because there are a million fan sites on the web for those bands – at least now I’m doing something different. But another part of me thinks I just need to get over my resistance and jump in with the big fish. I wouldn’t be abandoning the indie bands – just broadening my focus.

It feels really odd to open myself up like this and put this out there – but I trust you guys, and I hope that you can help open my eyes to whatever I’m not seeing.

[ctabuk]

First of all this is not an optimisation problem, or a problem that can be sorted by computer software, this is a Commercial site that you have worked your tail off for and one that deserves to make money. So forget about, what the site looks like, forget everything else except for one word Promotion. Now I am going to use a few people I know, who will look at the site. These are people that I trust. Firstly you need an agent, one who you know and that you trust. The musicians may be hard up, but the people who run the venues are not. This site is ideal for 'Who is on and where they can be seen' - Concentrate your mind on that. I'll post back.

[cspelts]

Thank you ctabuk, I just can't see the forest for the trees anymore, and I need a little help. Or maybe a lot of help!

[wrmineo]

Would I be correct in assuming:

Your GoogleAds produce more than your other affiliate ads combined?

Your website kicks butt! I concur with ctabuk - you've worked your tail off, the site looks great, and deserves to make money. He makes another great point in getting noticed not by the bands, but by those controlling the venues.

I may be able to throw some traffic your way - I'll send a PM to further explain.

[cspelts]

Yes, the Google AdSense does make more than the others - but it's still minuscule. Really. I would have no problem dropping it, if there was something else that made more sense.

And thanks for saying the site kicks butt! The musicians have always appreciated it, and I love it, I just would like it to make some money!

[jomariet]

Instead of messing with a site that is working and doing what it is supposed to do, what about going at this sideways. Turn the success of the original site into income by starting associated websites that are strictly commercial and feeding traffic into them via the rockstar.com site.

So what do musicians need that they will spend money on? How about a Battle of the Bands type site. Entry fee + corporate sponsorship = income. You should be able to get sponsorship based on your original success and you've got a huge database full of potential entries. The bands I know can scrape up $25 for an entry fee if they have the chance to get noticed.

How about an addon site for venues and promoters, or musician services (repair, electronics, transport, instruments, equipment).

AdSense and other affiliate programs are nice for a little money but sometimes you've got to step forward.

JM

[cspelts]

Yeah jomariet, it’s time to step forward. And you’re right, I am hesitant to mess with something that's working well - on some levels.

You’ve given me some things to think about – thank you!

[Feydakin]

The hardest thing for a band to do is find a gig.. Most indie bands have no promoters or agents.. And little money..

Maybe an angle where venues can pay to list open dates for bands to apply to play at..

That's how the resume places make cash, list your resume for free, but job postings cost cash..

[Feydakin]

Try adding a pay area for venues to list opening that they have and are looking for bands to play.. Indie bands have little money, no agents, no promoters.. Give them another reason to sign up and keep coming back by finding a way for venues to list open dates..

[cspelts]

I've actually got a Gig Listing area already - just launched this month - where bands can add a gig and then it shows up on the local pages for their area.

It would be very simple to add a section where venues could list available dates... And that would appeal to my current core audience of musicians. Thanks for the idea!

[kerer99]

Why not sell some ad space on the site? I would look for some advertisers who would be interested in promoting their services to musicians...be it online music stores, online music education providers, etc. Contact them directly, and say you'll place some ads on your site for $x monthly.

You're running an established website with high search engine rankings, a high PR and excellent traffic. Who wouldn't want to advertise on your site?

I would run a "promotion" at first with cheap ad space (ex. buy 3 months of advertising for $500, get one month free). Also think of starting a newsletter - building a subscriber base will give your advertisers another avenue to promote their products/services to their target audience.

Good luck.

[Ne0]

Hey Cspelts...

I love your site and have visited it several times in the last few weeks because of the rockstar inxs page you have up. I know what your talking about... I built and ran freejohnny.com for almost a yr, it is no more. But we were getting 3.5 million hits some months and the site was a real stinker when it came to revenue. As it was suggested above, and IMHO I think your best bet would be to contact some large companies and sell advertising space. ie: Sony, Apple (ipod), record companies, etc... Let them pay you a nice wage and then you can concentrate on having fun with the site and keeping it up-to-date! Hey I was wondering too... have you thought about creating subdomains for the artists on rockstar INXS? jordis.rockband.com etc? I'm not exactly sure what they would be good for yet... but come end of the show and start of the tour I bet you will be listed high in the SE's and be able to profit from that in someway? (maybe you could auction off the subdomains on ebay?) I'll tell ya what... if you figure it out let me know how you did it LOL!
L8 M8
NeO1

[cspelts]

Originally Posted by kerer99

You're running an established website with high search engine rankings, a high PR and excellent traffic. Who wouldn't want to advertise on your site?

I hope you’re right kerer99. I think I just need to figure out the right angle.

Originally Posted by kerer99

(ex. buy 3 months of advertising for $500, get one month free).

You know, that might work...

Neo, I’m glad to see you here! Ironically I used to work for Sony and they made an informal offer to buy the site at one point. I turned it down because it was the year 2000 and I thought the site could make me a millionaire! Because I have experience marketing Sony products, I naturally signed up for their affiliate program – but the program isn’t flexible, and I can’t really market the products, all I can do is put up their banners, and after three months I haven’t had a single sale. That’s mind-boggling to me because the site I developed for Sony was so successful, but with their current affiliate program I’ve failed to make a single sale.

I also signed up with Apple’s IPOD affiliate program but have yet to implement it – I kind of lost interest! But maybe trying to sell the products is my mistake – maybe I need to market the site as more of an advertising venue as opposed to a store?

Originally Posted by NeO~1

Let them pay you a nice wage and then you can concentrate on having fun with the site and keeping it up-to-date!

That would be ideal!

Originally Posted by NeO~1

Hey I was wondering too... have you thought about creating subdomains for the artists on rockstar INXS? jordis.rockband.com etc?

No I hadn’t. For some of them my current bio page ranks higher than their own sites for their names, and a few don’t even have sites. I suppose that could help both them and me.

Originally Posted by NeO~1

I'll tell ya what... if you figure it out let me know how you did it LOL!

Wouldn’t it be great to find a way to make a site like this work? I envy wrmineo because I assume he enjoys looking at half-naked starlets all day, and guess what? He makes money doing it! I want to be like that!

[collusion]

Wow, you went to my competitor to create your store! I own CDARMY.com which is a direct competitor of CD Baby.

I would have to tell you that the best way to make money is to have indie artists be able to upload their music and sell their cd's from your website through your own store, (not CD Baby's!) and you can make it free to register their cd's (which we did for a year) and only charge them a small fee when the cd is sold.

If you follow my advise you would then become my competitor also.

[tal]

It looks like you target the same market as this network (http://www.indieclick.com/). I am not affiliated with them, but if it is good enough for BoingBoing (who had the same problem a year ago) it could be good for you

[cspelts]

Originally Posted by collusion

If you follow my advise you would then become my competitor also.

Guess what? I did that in 2000! Because Derek and I ran in the same circles at the time, and he launched his store first, he already had the majority of the business. Plus, I found that I didn't really want to run a CD shipping service - it's a lot of work! So I shut my store down. I just signed up with him last month - but maybe you have a better offer for me?

I have been considering selling music downloads though - no shipping there!

Small world, huh?

[arius]

When you can not make money from a lot of quality traffic (quality in the sense of the specific niche you are in) and you just cannot figure out why affiliate (like the Sony one you are on) does not work, I would recommend to step back and find alternative ways while investigating your options to commercialize and monetize your business. We all want to do automate and dont want to get our hands dirty to monetize our sites, but sometimes it is not really possible. My few suggestions (by the way I had portal type business myself that did not make money in the past, and I ended up monetizing it to a reasonably good extend, I can give you more detail if you PM)

First run an extensive survey on your site asking your visitors what would they buy (product or service) on your site. It could be information, it could be service, it could be product. The results might give you some idea. Also throught keyword search analysis in your area, might also give you some good ideas.

If no good idea comes up from your survey and your research, here are couple things I can think of with my limited knowledge of your space:

Even if most of your visitors are small bands without money that try to get attention, I am sure they would still pay for something. Like ebooks about bands, how to find a manager, how to get gigs, whatever (sorry I dont know the industry well). Or simple tshirts, other promotional items, that have their names printed on them. Nice posters, business cards or some other thing that they would need for making. Discounted items for some supplies or accessories that they use a lot (for drums, guitars, keyboards, studio type activities...)

Hope this helps a little.

[collusion]

Well, email me at brandon@cdarmy.com and we can talk numbers there. I do not know your deal with Derek so I have no way of knowing what a better deal would be.

[solarchris]

I run a very successful music site for indie artists at www.aandronline.com (A&R Online). Gets a lot of traffic but I target it to very high quality artists in order to get industry attention. I make pretty good money from the site as I write educational music ebooks and sell them on the site (along with one or two other affiliate products). I have a very generous affiliate program and I would give you a very healthy commission if you want to offer these products to your demographic. One such package that is very popular is the "Indie Artist DIY Smartkit" - you can see it here:

http://www.aandronline.com/smartkit/index.html

Drop me a line if you like - perhaps you can give it a try and see if it works out for you. Just a thought.

Chris

[cspelts]

Originally Posted by arius

Even if most of your visitors are small bands without money that try to get attention, I am sure they would still pay for something. Like ebooks about bands, how to find a manager, how to get gigs, whatever (sorry I dont know the industry well). Or simple tshirts, other promotional items, that have their names printed on them. Nice posters, business cards or some other thing that they would need for making.

You know, no matter what else I decide to do, this might be a good addition. I could find other businesses that offer these things, and let them handle fulfillment. It's not that I'm resistant to getting my hands dirty, it's just that I have always felt you are more successful if you focus on what you do well. I'd much rather focus on building the site and promoting the bands, rather than boxing up a shipment of stickers.

[cspelts]