Advice/business mentoring needed for web business

[sparkles246]

Hello all, I'm after a bit of advice and hope this is the best place to post about it!

I am a mum to a 3.5 week old baby and also run a wedding related website which I set up in 2011. I always wanted to find a way to earn an income in a way that may enable me to work from home and avoid having to go back to work after maternity leave, and when I had a great idea for a website I thought I may well have found a way.

Two years on and the website is doing well - we get 30k hits and 260+ pageviews per month, but the problem is I'm not currently earning any money from the site. I know that it has so much potential, but I really need someone with experience of monetising a website to give me advice on how I can do this.

I am desperate not to have to leave my baby and return to work after 9 months and really feel like I need some advice about how to make the most of my website. Has anyone got any experience in this area or can recommend any business mentors?

Many thanks!

Hi there,

This is my first ever post on MN so hurrah.

Congrats on your website that is an impressive level of traffic, I have some experience in monetisation of websites. My advice is to head on over to google and search for the following:

1. Google Adwords
2. Google Analytics

There are plenty of guides on how to set these two up, you will need access to either edit html or if you are using a CMS like Wordpress etc then you can edit it from the front end with plugins. Not sure what you are using so it is best to google the best method for you.
After you have your bit of income from Adwords you can focus on increasing it, read some free online material on SEO and Affiliate marketing and you will have a nice bonus to your incom. I should point out that in order to make an income you need a lot of hits and a good page ranking.

Assuming you have a low page ranking, atm you would only earn maybe £8-10 a month as an estimate.

Hope this helps.

Have you tried selling advertising spaces to wedding suppliers? I have a few contacts who offer wedding-related services, so if you drop me a PM with your web address I'll see if it's something that could interest them.

I'd suggest you read 'how to set up an online business'

Visit a food blog called pinch of yum. Yes it's about food but there will be lots of tips you can use. They post their income each month and it comes in around $6000 USD!

Hi there
Have you thought about affiliate schemes as well as Google Adwords?
Google Analytics is a great idea as it can help you know how many visitors you have, where they come from but perhaps more importantly how they found you - you could have a great "niche" keyword that could be bringing your traffic to your website e.g. lacy wedding dresses (stupid example I know, just trying to come up with the principle!)
Anyway, you could then find suppliers of the "lacy wedding dress" who are affiliates i.e. you advertise their dress on your website with a click to buy button that takes the user to the suppliers website where they buy the dress & the supplier then gives you a commission percentage.
Hope that makes sense?? I use a combination of affiliate schemes & individuals who own holiday cottages on my website to monetise it.
But of course, you need the site visitors in order to monetise your website - it is a competitive internet out there so if you need to know how people are finding your site (via Google Analytics - its free, just a piece of code on your site), before you can target this audience.
Let me know if there is anything else I can help with, I know how hard it is to set up & run your own website business!

Thank you so much for all your replies, I'm going to have a look at the links you recommend etc and take it from there.