How to build a niche site - episode 4: Monetization

This is C.Peter Chen's last guest post in his series of articles on "how to build a niche site".  In this brief episode Peter explains covers his first steps into monetising the site. 

Part 3: Monetization  

I monetize ww2db in three ways:  

1. For contextual ad, I use Google Adsense.  The ad units appear on  the side panel, in the footer of the page, and at the very end of the  articles.  The latter generates a larger portion of revenue than the  others, probably because people are more likely to click around when  they reach the end of the main content.  Google Adsense represents the  bulk of ww2db's revenue.  

2. I also registered with Amazon's Associates program to refer  products, usually books, whenever appropriate.  The book review pages  performs not nearly as well as Google Adsense, but it does bring in a  small chunk of change to bolster the total revenue.  

3. Only recently I started to solicit direct advertising.  My  advertisers are thus far all publishers, and one advertisement I am  hosting belongs to Osprey.  With Osprey and its solid reputation in  the military history industry, I hope I will be able to attract other  businesses serving this niche in the recent future.  

So, that about sums up what I have done in the past three years to  build content and attract traffic; I hope this guest column is  providing you some ideas with promoting your own website.  Do you have  any advice for me and ww2db?  Please do take a moment to share your comments!

This concludes Peter's guest posts on Seopher.com for now.  Hopefully he'll come back in a couple of months to offer some insight into how the methods outlined in these posts are working out for him.  Until them visit ww2db and stay posted for my normal content.

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