How to Monetize a Diet Site?

[SirKhan]

Yeah I know this sounds crazy but I have a site that gets 1500 UV a month from search engines, the site is about diet and weight loss and I'm not making any money with it. It has my uber AdSense layout but no one clicks on the AdSense ads! Weird. It makes like $10 a month this way.

I was thinking about CPA offers or some other stuff but first I'd like to ask if anyone has a site in the same niche or has some tips etc? It has like 200 posts or more and the traffic is very random to each of these posts so putting up a new post with a presell article will not work I think.

Should I put a popup (I have "unblockable" popup scripts so that's not a problem) on the site and build a list? I don't want to lose traffic, but I'd really like to monetize this site correctly
Thx

[Ganceann]

It might be a case of an exit popover to build a list... not sure if the random traffic includes many repeat visitors (or regular visitors).

The ideal exit popover would only come up for those not-subscribed (not sure how that would be programmed specifically).

The exit popover would be better as it would only aim to catch them as they left the site - some never to return, others may return. The email capture form should also be prominent on the site in every page... so regular visitors can see it and sign up... and if they don't sign up, the exit popover hopefully gets them signing up. A short report on the most popular terms used by visitors to find the site may help increase opt-in rate in the exit popup.

[willyboy104]

I would recommend building a list then from the list adding perhaps two or three weeks worth of content, just giving out dieting tips and the likes of and within these follow ups choose two or three different products to soft sell.

Such as CPA offers, CB product and one of your own products (purchase a PLR product sell for $7).

Then at the end of the couple of weeks try selling these products to them.

There are thousands of ways you can go about making money with them after they subscribe to your list.

For those who are just reading your website and have no interest in subscribing to your list, although Google adsense is usually good in this market why not try CPA offers. I had some good success with these last year in a similar sub niche of dieting. You could also write review for products both physical and digital and create a new category section for these reviews.

Just some ideas.

[bluffspot]

Maybe a CPA ad for free cookies or cake or coupons to Brookhaven Labs?

"I luv choklit"

YouTube Video

So, instead of making it about dieting, make it tie into their food addiction - post offers for $$ off cakes, pies and choklit bars

.... wow - read it again... thats pure evil...

[Charles S]

I've run a few dieting sites in the past, monetized with AdSense. They did actually perform reasonably well for me. Are you positive that you are using the best possible ad structure?

336x280 ads always have a tendancy to work for me. I wrap one in near the start of the article, centre-align one at the end and chuck a skyscraper on the right side. Throw in a horizontal link unit too.

I've always been told to blend my ads in to look the content (colour-wise). This has given me no more than a warning from Google. I recommend using the default pallette - people are taught to click blue text.

By no means am I telling you not to build a list or start monetizing with CPA. Use a mixture of different income sources.

[tgrpublishing]

Why not put ads for the biggest CB fat loss products all over it?

[SirKhan]

Thanks Tgr already did that not too much of a conversion. I think it would be better to presell those products. Direct linking (via banners or short text links) to CB vendor pages never really converted well for me.