Slowly Changing The Monetization Model On Curlers.org
It’s been a while since I have mentioned one of my favorite minisite projects curlers.org! This site has utterly shocked me in a good way and since it has been standing out for my attention it will now receive it. According to Google Analytics the site received 221 unique visits from March 5th 2011 to April 4th 2011. Almost all of the visitors are organic and coming from both Google and Bing.
Currently there is a bounce rate of 68.33% and the average time spent on the site is 28 seconds. This tells me that the current site although it ranks well on the first page of Google for the keyword curlers needs to be upgraded a bit. The site also ranks well for several other keywords which pushes me to believe that I need to give the visitors what they are looking for.
In short, I know exactly what the visitor is looking for. I have had several purchases through my Amazon Affiliate widget included on the site, the only problem with this widget is it looks entirely too small and out of place. My goal with curlers.org is to provide more of an e-commerce feel to it. I want to present products for people to purchase on each page of the site similar to how you would view products on a standard shopping site. At first I thought I would use Associate-O-Matic to do this but I am concerned that I will loose my first page ranking if I go this route.
Since that is the case I will just use my Amazon Affiliate account and place individual product links which pertain to the exact section of the site. For instance I have one section called “Steam Curlers” and another called “Electric Curlers.” I want to give the visitor exactly what they are looking for on the appropriate pages. In addition to this I am thinking of adding an additional link to feature eyelash curlers. This will only help increase my traffic and increase the chances of a visitor purchasing a product through my affiliate program link.
To reiterate my point I am slowly changing the monetization model on the site. I plan on getting rid of the majority of Adsense ads even though the clicks have added up over the previous months. In my honest opinion I feel I will make more off of the Amazon Affiliate program than I am currently making off of Adsence. Unfortunately this is sad but true. The PPC model is dieing and it has become quite apparent these last few weeks. Now is the perfect time to undergo these changes and after a few weeks I will happily share the results. Who knows, in the future I might just change this site into a full fledged e-commerce sites selling curler based products directly to visitors, but for now I don’t want to get ahead of myself.
Here is a screen shot of the site’s Google Analytics page:
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April 13, 2011 8:31 pm
Actually I recall reading that PPC ads are sometimes run despite solid search ranking because studies have indicated that in such cases, searches are more likely to click on the duplicate result (organic & PPC) than they would if only the organic result appeared. While yes, it likely does entail higher cost, given there are other search & PPC results on the same page, it probably leads to additional leads than would otherwise be the case.
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Jason Reply:
April 14th, 2011 at 7:34 pm
Leonard I am sure you are correct, my main problem with this situation is they are still spending money while laying off 500+ employees. An official announcement has been made, yet they are still spending money on PPC ads. Just doesn’t add up to me at this time.
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April 13, 2011 8:53 pm
Leonard’s point is great. Also, many large companies run PPC ads as a direct way to generate dollar margin. If Cisco is doing its job, the cost of the media (including campaign managers) is less than the revenue generated. As long as the margin is positive, I see no reason not to run PPC. Last, even if you’re #1 organic, that is typically below 3 paid ads on a competitive term. Paid is essential to capture more sales since click thru rates decline exponentially.
Best,
Ian
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Jason Reply:
April 14th, 2011 at 7:37 pm
Ian I was waiting for you to chime in. I guess I am more concerned for the 500+ who were laid off rather then the bottom line when it comes to there PPC budget. Somethings not adding up for me, the flip camera has been killed as a whole, lay offs have occurred yet top dollar is still being paid to advertise the product using PPC. That was my main point.
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April 13, 2011 8:56 pm
I want to caveat my comment above that my name is PPC Ian so I’m a little biased.
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