How to Monetize a News Website From Scratch [Case Study]
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Hello, today we are ready for another new case study!
This is what we received from one of our publishers. And yes, we are ready, too — so let’s see how an Indian student created a news website and achieved a stable income from it with Monetag.
His case study is about a great start in website monetization business — so we picked it not because of some sky-high profits but as a guide for beginners — and a great source of inspiration.
Yes, you can successfully combine your college studies and monetization efforts — and here are our proofs, right here in this text below!
How It Began
Our publisher started with the free blogging platform:
While reading news articles, I’ve always felt like ‘I could do the same, too’. So, my father and I started to write articles on a free website, but soon we realized that it was not what we can monetize.
So, after a time, our partner purchased a domain and created his own news website, targeting Hindi speakers. It had gained enough traffic pretty quickly — the first ad network was already there within three or four weeks. Later, he added Monetag, too.
We tried several networks — but it all turned out to be a big waste, with zero revenues before we switched to Monetag. Here is our traffic after a month we started running a site — and we didn’t manage to monetize it. But, as we joined Monetag, things began to change.
Why Monetag?
Our publisher targets India — and mainly people interested in finance and sports news. It turned out that Monetag had very efficient ad formats, greatly suitable for news portals — like In-Page Push Ads.
Comment from Monetag: We know the ropes of working with Indian publishers and, besides our tools and ad formats, can provide them with great CPM rates.
By the way, our publisher tried another network before — and realized that he was getting much more profit with Monetag.
Monetization Strategy: How to Earn Money With a News Site?
At the very beginning, the website traffic was pretty low — you saw the screenshot above.
So what did he do to promote the site and increase traffic?
- Step 1. Organic Traffic. Our publisher decided not to spend extra money on paid promotion, so he began to learn SEO. He created high-quality backlinks from guest posts and do-follow backlinks from popular portals.
- Step 2. Social Networks. Making several social media pages on networks like Facebook, Instagram, Quora, and Twitter helped, too.
Social Traffic Case Study: Stories and Tips from Successful Publishers
So, new traffic volumes were really inspiring — and also profitable with In-Page Push ads from Monetag.
Later, our publisher discovered our new ad format — Vignette Banners. He immediately added it to the website, and it boosted revenues even more. For some time, he even refused all the other formats, but later found out the best-working formula for his website:
Interstitial and Vignette Banners perfectly work together. Mixed with good high-quality content, I can earn about $3 or more for 1,000 visitors.
Of course, you might have another approach and a strategy. It might depend on different factors — for example, your audience. Our publisher shared some information about his users: check out the gallery:
Comment from Monetag: Vignette Banners are probably the best format for a news website: looking so awesome, it doesn’t distract users from content.
To Sum Up
After a couple of months of partnering with Monetag, our publisher earned $455:
Why does it seem so impressive to us?
— First, the publisher does everything himself — no designers, copywriters, or paid SEO tools — only some small spending on the domain and server.
— Second, he was also busy at college and couldn’t spend all his time working on his site. There was even some revenue drop during the exams — but he still began to earn money without much effort and experience. Isn’t it inspiring?
Note from Publisher: I didn’t want to disclose personal details — but what I want to say, is that I’m sure Monetag can greatly help you to benefit from your creativity.
We thank our partner for sharing his case study. Keep up — and don’t hesitate to contact us if you need our help!
Read up till here? You seem to be motivated enough, then — and you are just a click away from getting your profits.
