It’s easy to fall in this trap. High website traffic is something impressive. We automatically assume that owners make tons of money. We envy them because, unlike us, they are popular. Or are they?
When I had a somewhat high trafficked site (which is a relative term, in my case it was over 1,500 UV a day) I looked at smaller sites with 100-200 unique visitors a day like I look at kids. I just couldn’t take them seriously.
Everything has changed when I almost accidentally started a site which I even wasn’t planning to monetize. I started it for fun without any clear plan or goal. That site with about 50 unique visitors a day started to earn more than my high-trafficked site in just a couple of months. What’s the secret? A unique cocktail of all necessary ingredients:
- passion for the subject, so it doesn’t feel like work,
- highly profitable topic (I am one of these lucky people who have passions in high-paying niches),
- very niche,
- finding the audience with desperate need,
- almost no competition,
- good affiliate programs,
- previous experience in website building.
If I were to take some keyword tool and start brainstorming high demand / low supply keywords everything would be ruined. I would delude my high quality traffic (which means a type of traffic that converts into buyers) with information seekers, who only want answers to their questions or entertainment.
If you think about this second type of visitors who seek only for information, all they do is spend your money. They only waste your bandwidth. They
- don’t buy anything,
- they don’t click on anything,
- they don’t care who you are,
- they don’t comment on anything,
- they don’t subscribe for anything,
- they aren’t even thankful for what you did!
I must acknowledge I’ve been very ignorant, but not anymore. From now on I’ll concentrate on traffic quality. I have a clear picture of my ideal visitor and I am going to write only for him. From now on, supply/demand numbers don’t matter anymore.
Wish you a good weekend! 
Interesting points Elena. thank you
First, you’ve got to get some buttons on here so people can share your posts on Twitter if they like them, which I wanted to do with this one.
Second, you’ve made a very interesting point. Targeted traffic for sales sites absolutely works best. I can’t remember who recently wrote this post but his comment was that you should try to get 100 people you know you can rely on to see your stuff, buy your stuff, and share your stuff, because that’s how real money is made.
Oh Mitch, I had buttons floating on the left side of the screen then someone complained that they were annoying so I removed them. I will add something at the end of the post. You know this blog isn’t very old and most people who come here come for technical issues so they post a questions in my forum, get their answers, say thank you and leave. They don’t read my ramblings
But I will get the buttons today!
That one isn’t even a sales site, it is making money via affiliate program. This is a very interesting quote you are mentioning. I had a suspicion that networking is the way to go and what you are saying confirms that. Thanks for your comment