Monetizing Natural (Forum) Traffic

[SeoDave]

I came into ownership of the domain chat-and-forum.net through a bulk purchase of domains. At first I didn't have a very high opinion of this domain, but as I do with all my domains, I parked it at Sedo. I was quite surprised to see that over the last 3 months I am averaging 5-7K unique visitors per month. The sedo parked page is shite, so I'm only making like $1-2 a month off this traffic. Now I KNOW I can make better use of 5-7K uniques per month, and I was thinking of just throwing up some zip/email submits on a homepage and seeing how many conversions I could get off that. However, I thought the smart people here at WF might have a better idea for monetizing this traffic. Another positive is that 95% of my visitors are from the US. Referrals come from backlinks and natural search traffic. It seems quite a few people find me in the SERPs when looking for "chat and forum" or "chat" or "forum". So, if you had a bunch of free traffic that hits your site looking for a chat or forum site, what would you serve them up to try to monetize the best?

 

[sp111]

I would take a look at the backlink situation, and see what the referring sites are like, then set up a forum around that topic, since your url is very discussion related. Hope this helps

 

[SeoDave]

Any method of monetization of that traffic though, Sp?

 

[ebiz]

Put up a decent forum around the topic and then use adsense to monetize.
See how it goes..
Then try to push a few copeac offers and people will eat that up!

 

[zayd]

If you don't come up with anything good I might take it off your hands. PM me with a price if you're interested.

 

[Laura]

Okay, I wouldn't put up a forum unless you want to do what smaxor posted last night in the private section. (wink wink)

The traffic you are getting is sooooo general. IMO, monetizing general chat traffic is a real pain because they aren't actually looking for anything tangible. I would just try what you mentioned - zip and email submits - and see what happens. If you can find a way to send them to actual general and chat forums and get paid for it, that's the best thing.

Sorry I have no genius ideas for you.

 

[sp111]

Any method of monetization of that traffic though, Sp?

I agree with laura for sure if your traffic is general. Try to see what the best topic would be if you were going to set up a topic around the site, and then see and try to find some programs to fit that. If it is too general, i would sell it.