Experience in creating and monetizing ShopTop.ru

I want to talk about my experience in creating, developing and monetizing the catalog of ShopTop.ru online stores . And how this site from a hobby turned into a source of income. And, since the site has existed safely since 2003, this has accumulated enough experience.

History of creation

So, it all started back in 2003, when there was no contextual advertising, no link exchanges and e-commerce was just starting to gain momentum. It was just an idea to create a website with an unclear prospect of how to make money on it. Also, an important requirement was that the site develop and grow on its own (the first makings of web 2.0). I decided to make a catalog of online stores. There were competitors, but they were either technologically backward or simply a dump of links.

And, although I rather vaguely imagined how and how much I would earn on this site, the emphasis was on the fact that the site should be profitable. Commercial topics were selected based on these assumptions. And the initial scheme of earnings was based on the receipt of interest from orders through my website, in other words, on affiliate programs of online stores.

The first site engine was built on a CNCat script (which, by the way, still exists). However, it soon became clear that it would not be possible to build a quality website on it, because it is a boxed solution and quite difficult to modify. Therefore, with the growth of my knowledge in the then newfangled PHP language, an understanding arose of the need for a complete alteration of the site. Two weeks of sleepless nights and the site was ready. The database was completely redone, new fields for filling appeared, specifically for online stores (for example: delivery region, payment methods).

The downside of this modernization was that it was necessary to completely remove the old database and all online stores that managed to be added to the catalog during the existence of the first version of the site. However, a notification mailing was made on these sites, and the base slowly began to be dialed again.

In the new version of the site, emphasis was placed on quality content. All stores underwent manual pre-moderation. I myself edited the terrible descriptions that the stores added. Often it was just a bunch of keywords. At that time, people believed that with such a description you can get into the tops of search engines (which sometimes happened).
The site already had certain traffic (more than 1000 visitors per day) and the hoster began to complain that virtual hosting was not coping with the load. Then I switched to VPS, which had a positive effect on download speed and a further increase in traffic.

In 2006, the site was again completely rewritten from scratch. The site design has not changed outwardly, but now the layout was not based on tables, but on (lo and behold!) DIVs. New functions were added, a filter and a search by parameters appeared. And the store owners have a new office where they were able to replenish their balance and with this money raise their link up the directory with pay-per-clicks, post banners and news on the site.

And now, more recently, in the fall of 2010 the site underwent another reincarnation. The design was completely redone, it became more convenient and understandable. Thumbnails of sites have been added, the system of reviews and ratings has changed. Well, a lot of minor changes were made. And plans for the future are to create a forum. In the process of designing various sections and functions, many questions arose: how to do this or that thing. For example, how to sort reviews: top new or old? And over time, an understanding came of what needs to be done for people. First of all, think about how it would be convenient for visitors. Often, it is better to abandon complex functions for the sake of simplicity and ease of use. And then there will be happiness.

Promotion

As soon as the site was created, there was a reasonable need for the initial filling of content. For this, a method was chosen in the spirit of guerrilla marketing. A database with emails from online stores was anonymously purchased from a main competitor. According to which spamming was successfully carried out with information about the new catalog. Stores began to be added a little, the site gradually began to appear in search engines for various requests. Also, to increase the rank, stores were invited to install the 88x31 catalog button on their website, which in the future made it possible to accumulate a rather high TCI and PR.

No special actions were taken in search engines; everything happened somehow by itself. Attendance was gradually growing, the site began to go out in search of rather bold queries, such as "store", "online stores" and others. Shops were added with enviable regularity, 5-10 stores per day. And to check them, I had to hire a moderator.

Recently, I nevertheless engaged in targeted promotion in search engines, for which I attracted a special person. The goal is to double traffic. Let's see what happens, but now I can say that such cooperation is useful, because many small but annoying stocks were discovered.

Monetization

We came to the most interesting question - how to make money on the site anyway. As I said earlier, I did not seriously consider the site as a means of earning. Earning at that time on other affiliate online stores. But over time, the site began to generate quite a decent income. I won’t say how much, but I’ll say that you can completely live on it and not work in other jobs.

When there was no contextual advertising, the main income - affiliate programs and direct payments from store owners for raising their website in the catalog, brought quite a bit. When contextual advertising appeared (from Google and Yandex), I began to place it. And she showed (and continues to show) a good result and became the main means of traffic monetization. The commercial theme of the site played a key role here, which affected the rather high cost of a click (there is something to compare with).

Next was the experience of selling links. I, at one time, posted the Sape code and began to watch with pleasure as they buy out hundreds of links per day. Counting the possible profit (if you sell 10 links from each page), I have already begun to imagine myself a millionaire. However, after a month or two, when the site’s TCI began to fall sharply and steadily from 1200 points to 600 and PR5 fell to 3, the prospects seemed not so bright. So that the site did not die at all, I had to temporarily abandon Sape and use it in the future with extreme caution, selling links is expensive and small. In general, judging by the latest trends, search engines began to actively struggle with purchased links, so this way of making money and its prospects are very doubtful.

Also, on the site I offer banner display ads, but they are reluctant to buy it. To sell banners, I think you need to have traffic from 10K visitors per day.

I tried a lot of things to earn money. These are Soloway banners, and partnership programs from Quatrix, and Runner, and Rorer, and much more. The result is one - the more advertising, the more the clicks are sprayed and the revenue from the context decreases. Instead of increasing profits, often only a decline was observed. And at the same time, the site becomes like a Christmas tree. In fairness, I must say that I was pleased with the results from Rorer, the rest of the programs did not impress me.

conclusions

1. Make websites for people - with quality content and really useful.
2. When developing a site, first of all think about the people who will come to it, because they are your breadwinners. If they are satisfied, you will be fine too.
3. If even the monetization model is not clear, continue to do your job, over the years it will surely bring you success.
4. Constantly improve the site using small everyday improvements. Also, sometimes a serious modernization of the site is required, since technology does not stand still.
5. Experiment with the placement and appearance of contextual ads until you achieve optimal results in terms of revenue / acceptability of appearance.
6. Pay great attention to usability (usability of the interface), this is the future and this is an important competitive advantage.