Marketing suggestions needed!

[rruth]

I have a genealogy website that basically gets about 5000 to 6000 visitors a month www.myAnceStory.org. About three years ago I built the site to display my family history and it just grew from there. Dispite the fact that it hasn't been updated much over the past year it has this steady stream of visitors. It would be great to figure out how to make the site generate a little income. I've never tried to market the site or really know how.

Any suggestions would greatly be appreciated.

[mlevenhagen]

How fun! Great job with the site!!

I'll throw three suggestions out at you and someone else can pick up from there.

#1 Take a look at Google Adsense. You have a beautiful opportunity to generate some income by placing Google ads on your website.

All adsense is is a feed that displays Google Ads in a variety of ways on your websites... and Google will actually read your page and provide ads related to the content.

You will make money when people click on those ads. The odds of them clicking is very high because they are related to your content.

You have a lot of flexibility creating them. They can blend in with the surroundings. You have the ability to customize them.

#2 What did you do?? Did you do all the research and put this website together yourself? How did you do it? What was the process?...

Do you think you could write out that process? Could you create a step by step guide to doing it?

If you can, there is another stream of income for you. Chances are the people hitting your website are interested in doing what you did. They might want to do it with their family. They might be very interested in the process...

So you could create a basic 10-15 page report or even a full blown eBook...

And then the next step would be to offer it on that site to all your visitors...

#3 You've missed out on a great opportunity these last few years! Find a way to capture e-mail addresses. Start a monthly or quarterly newsletter related to the topic.

By doing this you create a nice list that you can find ways to market to and make some extra change.

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Just a few things off the top of my head.

You are in a wonderful place. The foundation is laid... and you haven't even tapped it's potential. You can drive even more traffic there as well.

Good Luck!

[lloydienames]

I really like the site.. however.

On my monitor, when you click "Families".. not all the names show up and there is no scroll bar to see them all..... ???

Other than that..great job (thumbs up) and I agree with the email marketing by a newsletter..that would really help things..

cheers,
Amie

[ctabuk]

rruth, I edited the post to show the URL that makes it easier for others to follow, please add it to show in further posts. Everything Mlevenhagen said is endorsed by me.In fact you won't get better advice. Really leap at the opportunity that you have created.

[xmx]

I know there are many websites online that offer
paid services to access databases to build your
genealogy tree.

Adding some affiliate links to these services
can be an addition or an alternative to Matt's
suggestion to add adsense ads o your site.