Entertainment/Humor sites are valuable

[gallery]

Hi all,

while reading recent posts on this board, I noticed that a few members are saying that entertainment/humor sites have no value for advertisers, or that they should disappear and that the only valuable sites for advertisers are sites that sells.

So the question is : is the traffic of entertainement/humor sites so bad ?

Following my experience, the answer is NO.

Like any other site, you have to target ads to your audience.
If you do this, you'll get great results.

From my humor sites I've been selling tons of stuff, generated thousands and thousands of leads and millions of clicks.

Every week I get emails from companies willing to advertise on my sites. I even got a request from a travel company that told me that entertainment/humor sites is the best audience for them.

another example : I have generated 500 leads a day from CJ the last 2 days.

And for those who are saying that traffic from humor top sites is the worst you can have, once again you're wrong. A top site is what I call a lead generator :-)

Long life to entertainment/humor webmasters : your traffic is valuable.





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www.aliassoftware.com : a great search and replace software designed for webmasters needing to update tons of web pages at once.
A lot of features to maintain your ad codes, search boxes ...

[Synozeer]

Amen, brother!


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Insane Pictures - www.insanepictures.com
Top MUD Sites - www.topmudsites.com

[kerplunk]

Thanks for the kind words about Entertainment sites, gallery.

http://geekvillage.com/ubb/smile.gif

Gives us guys hope.

[madaweb]

Couldn't agree with you more gallery http://geekvillage.com/ubb/smile.gif I'm waiting for the day when one of these ad companies is going to figure this out, and will start looking to get clients that can benefit from our traffic. Meanwhile I've been advertising entertainment related products and services I've been able to find on my own.

[MikeJeffs]

What sort of CPM do you guys make on your humor sites?

A couple of months back I made http://www.humorlab.com - but I never got round to launching it as I havn't really had the time. I will have the time in a month or so - but do you think its worth it?

At the moment I've just got netezines stuff on it - what are the affiliate programs that you have had sucess with on your sites? Also, would you suggest using a paid tell-a-friend script or your own (and thus build up a mailing list of your own)

thanks,
Mike

[SSacobie]

The problem is that there's so many of them that it becomes a dime a dozen scenario until you really get your brand built.

[jokaroo]

Originally posted by SSacobie:
The problem is that there's so many of them that it becomes a dime a dozen scenario until you really get your brand built.

Exactly. The market is super saturated with humor sites. The only way you can become profitable off this genre is definately a large amount of quality traffic. Your brand needs to be built, and that means 100's of hours of negative payment. Either way in the market now, for whatever site you have, you need to earn your dollar.

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Best Regards,
• C. Pavlovski - Co-Owner
Site: http://www.jokaroo.com
Email: cpavlovski@jokaroo.com

[AhmedF]

I have to agree with Gallery
Er... on one of his last lines.

Top Sites.
I currently run [sorta] a gaming top sites. As a sort of project, I registered the domain when DomainZero first came out, set it up, and then sent a total of 100 emails.

The traffic currently is about 1500-2000 uniques. Not impressive. What is great is the CTR that such a site can yield. With two banner spots, and even three very easy to fit and distribute, I have found that such a site easily outpaces the money it makes from my 15k hits a day gaming website.

Now that I think of that... I think I am going to promote it a bit more... once I stop play Dark Age of Camelot [www.darkageofcamelot.com] ;-)

[gallery]

It is possible to make a successful humor website in a few months period.
Some member of this board have done this and they make a lot of money, even much more than in the so called "high quality" genre.

Why ? Traffic is big.

Of course they have made high quality sites.

Also the way you advertise is important. Now with my experience, I now if will succeed or not with an advertiser. I know how to place ads and so on.

Yes the market is saturated. Just work hard and you will succeed where other fails.

A mailing list is a great plus of course.
The better you know (talk to them) your subcribers, the more money you'll make as they'll trust you.

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www.aliassoftware.com : a great search and replace software designed for webmasters needing to update tons of web pages at once.
A lot of features to maintain your ad codes, search boxes ...

[mellow]

For like some months ago I saw someone posted a script for showing a picture on a template with PHP... Anyone can suggest such a script? I saw HumorLab got such one...
Any ideas? I need to rebuild my site cause I changed hosting...

Thanks,

Michael - mellow

[MikeJeffs]

I use a template for most of the areas on my humorlab site. Its exactly a database, but it makes stuff easier.

If you look at all the links in the picture section, each link to a picture ends with picdisplay.php?pic=filename.jpg (the filename.jpg is different for each picture)

In the picdisplay.php file there is this line:
<img src="<?php echo( "$pic" );?>" vspace=10>

the php tag, just prints whatever filename was set in the picdisplay.php?pic=filename.jpg link.

If you the sample files, then hit me an email mikejeffs@lineone.net

[Knut]

I just thought I'd say that I agree on most that is said in this thread.

It's still very possible to make good money with humor/entertainment sites.

Just a few months ago I was a "newbie" in the "entertainment area" and now my humorsites and newsletters make me most of my money.

Most of this money come from CPA - some from CPC. I haven't tried selling stuff to my general audience yet.

Besides, there are lots of great people and siteowners in this area who are easy to deal with, willing to share ideas, and open to do crosspromotions that actually bring results.

(To try to bring some more stability to my revenues I've started focusing on "higher value" topics and sales now - but I'll always keep running/updating/expanding my entertainment sites - and I expect them to continue to be my main portion of income for a long time :-)

[ Off-topic notice to my linkpartners - I've been neglecting those sites these last couple of weeks because I've been too busy with other new projects - but everything should be back to normal (trafficwise) within a couple of days ]

[Knut]

Hmm. I just re-read my post, and it seemed as if I was trying to imply that owners of other types of sites aren't great people and easy to deal with :-)

That wasn't intentional.

You're all great people ;-)

[EMINEM79]

Entertainment/Humor sites are valuable

I totally agree!

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http://www.HumorHaven.com - Funny Pictures and Flash Cartoons!

http://www.PlatinumJokes.com - The Best, Funniest Jokes On The Net!!

[Rhea]

I absolutely believe that humor/fun pages sites have a great deal of value. Right now that value, in my own case, is hardly monetary but the rewards are still tangible.

Today I got one of the nicest emails I've ever received from a programmer in England who wrote, "Your site is magic!" However, I also received an email from a little girl who titled it, "You stink!" Oh well. http://geekvillage.com/ubb/smile.gif Can't please 'em all.

Certainly because I approach webmeistering as a hobbyist, I'm able to take the current advertising crisis less seriously than many on this BB. But there's definitely something to be said for having a creative outlet with the power to make other people smile. As hobbies go, this one is cheaper than most.

"Be smart. Be feisty. Be like a pig." ~ Yuckleheads



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Rhea
www.yuckles.com
www.bigdancelist.com