Built site with 15000 traffic a day, now what!

I am a bit new here - though been in web development and content for around 10 years.

So essentially I built a site, all by hand, added content, kept adding and now I have 15,000 uniques and 25-30k pageviews every day. Its now a news website, and got 3 writers who write for the pocket money, and revenue is now at 3000 $ a month from Adsense.

The question is, now what do I do. Monthly expenses are around 500 $ a month. Traffic comes if I put up a news story of some interest. Google ranks it reasonably well across some 5000 news pages.

Thing is, it has no CMS, pages are uploaded manually, and I can't seem to grow it fast enough. Because in the end its a one-person site.

I have been hearing and reading up on web 2.0, but I am clueless about it. I think I should add commenting and try to create some kind of a community out of the traffic, but don't know where to start. The guys I get in touch with are instantly trying to con me into something or the other!

Which way do I turn now?

 

Wordpress is a good suggestion. You might also take a look at Joomla.

 

wordpress can be a solution, you can pay someone to make a wordpress theme to look like your website, or, if you want a custom CMS, you can pay someone 500-1000$ to make one to fit exactly your needs, if you make 3000$/month you can pay 1000$ to make your life easier.

 

Yes, finding a good CMS is one part of it. Second is to integrate what I already have. Then comes finding a way to utilise the entire community thing of web 2.0... Thats all just a basic vague idea I have, of course

Thing is, how does one grow a site like this? Content sites have huge potential, especially due to the search engine love. But transitioning from a one person operation to a proper company and business model (instead of the month by month adsense living) is the tough part..

 

If you want an increase in revenue you should start a mailing list on it and send targeted affiliate links in emails to them. You should also create a product for it.

 

i recommend wordpress since you can sort your writers out easily...with ease.

 

Wordpress is the vote. But I would suggest to hire a good php programmer so that you can make Wordpress lot faster. If you have a lot of content - you will definitely want to use faster performing app.

 

Thanks guys, but my question is a bit broader than just a CMS. Its like, I have got this news site, its succesful, it helped me quit my job and now I live off that, it gets good traffic and is well ranked and indexed -- how, where do I take a site like that? How does one expand it, does one look for a partner at this point and try to take it to the next level, do you add features or community or whatever -- I am confused about the future business directions a site like this should take.

For example, a news site that gets 15000 uniques can get 100,000 or 200,000 in theory. But that I dont think is a job for one person. I might take years to get there. I use only adsense for revenue.

What would someone do, if money was no problem? How would you make your millions out of it in the future, instead of just thousands which I am happily making now?

 

integrity nailed it on the head. Sign up with Commission Junction (www.cj.com), and start getting affiliate links on your site, but don't scare away users. Also, have a mailing list, and then you have a whole new set of opportunities. PM me if u still need more assistance...

 

I use clickbank.com. Also. Creating your own product is even better. People will also spend so much money on buying links on a site with that kind of traffic.

 

Alright, honestly if you are looking for a million dollar advice you are definitely asking at wrong place. If we were to know how to make that million we all would already have made it and not be here.

Now a some business advice - if your site is purely content based then all you need to do is take your existing site and move it to a CMS. Which one (you need to learn what are the benefits of CMS out in the market and figure out how it will help you) ? If you don't know how to to do this, partner with a CMS guru and let he/she do the analysis. You can tie up on a revenue share basis.

Once you have a stable dedicated host for your CMS based site - work on SEO/SEM. Once you start making 100K unique visits a day, approach some big companies who would like to advertise on your site (products/services related to the content/theme on your site). At this point you will need your own server, T1 connection and group of people to manage different tasks such as handling advertising accounts, handling new business accounts, handling content writer accounts, editor, etc...

Now this is just one idea. A whole let can be done but for a guy like me without knowing what you are selling I cannot offer you any more expert (if any at all) advice.

 

You might be able to continue running and growing the site by yourself if you used WP or another CMS app.

It is so much easier updating through a CMS than manually uploading pages.

 

after changing your news site into a dinamic portal, why dont you start a payment sistem on your contents. this is very much used by news sites...
thinking in 15 dol by month, by user, it could be better to fill the template with a lot of advertising...

 

I would suggest adding some sort of cpm banner program to the site. with that many page views and visitors per day you could double your monthly income for a few months to help pay for a professional design firm to take over your project and get you exactly what you want while also finding the best way to integrate all of the content you have done by hand. That would be what I would do there are a few top firms that can not only build you the cms but also help you with understanding how to grow a site like that and get you a good business plan going.

Or you could sell it for 70k and buy up a bunch of smaller revenue producing sites that would make you allot more then 3k a month with out all the work this one requires.

You should go with the news letter/updates option that would be a big help

 

sounds awesome.

maybe you want to find a buyer?

or go to rentacoder and find a way to create a custom script to add content.

 

Buy a separate domain for a forum in your topic and tell your users about the new forum. Hire some forum posters and you will at least obtain another 300 at the end

And for obatining more money, you can try TribalFusion as a CPM network. It pays well and a nice starting point to startyour own CPM campaigns by time!

 

Thanks guys, will try to understand all the options you suggested and decide on some course of action. Thanks for all the ideas in tech, revenue, business

 

If you are looking for a content management software install Joomla. Once Joomla is installed and running, it is simple for even non-technical users to add or edit content, update images, and to manage the critical data that makes your company or organization go. Anybody with basic word processing skills can easily learn to manage a Joomla! site. Make sure to use OpenSEF and maintain URL integrity.

 

undoubtely you should use some affiliates! you succeeded to get high traffic.. this is the first step. now monetize. try some affiliates, but no too much!