The Other Search Engines

**fjnjn2000** · 06-28-2003, 03:51 PM

Could somebody please tell me how you can monitor the direct traffic to a site. Also, is there a way of buying traffic, and then turning it into revenue. Lastly, how much could one realistically expect to make, on a monthly basis, from pay-per-click or other affiliate programmes? Thanks

**saver0** · 07-05-2003, 08:58 PM

If you want to monitor the clicks... simply install a click tracking software.

you get get one from hotscripts.com you can get a PHP or a Perl script for that.

**eConcept-Web** · 07-24-2003, 02:55 PM

me i use XITI

**david** · 07-24-2003, 03:47 PM

Quote:

Could somebody please tell me how you can monitor the direct traffic to a site.

It depends on exactly what you want to monitor. You can use a simple counter (like http://www.sitemeter.com) which counts pageviews etc., a click tracker as saver0 said, a full tracking program you can install or simply process your web server log files (if available).

Quote:

Also, is there a way of buying traffic,

Yes. There are loads of ways. You can make a banner and advertise on another site relevant to your audience, if you are selling something you could have an affiliate program and pay comissions, you could buy clicks from an ad-network or you could use a PPC search engine (try http://www.overture.com or Google Adwords).

Quote:

and then turning it into revenue

This is the difficult bit! There's really three ways:
1. Sell something, either a product or service
2. Sell something someone else produces/provides (with some programming knowledge you can have the whole of Amazon's store on your website and they pay you 15% comission or you could promote an affiliate program). This is difficult to do well, though.
3. Produce content and place adverts on your site. This is the most difficult way to make money quickly, but with work it can be quite profitable.

Quote:

Lastly, how much could one realistically expect to make, on a monthly basis, from pay-per-click or other affiliate programmes?

Again, this all depends on the type of site and the programmes chosen. If you choose well targetted programmes and have decent traffic, you can make a bit of cash. Not enough to give up work (usually), but certainly enough to cover your costs. Just to give you a small idea, I've been working on my site for about 4 years, get about 1,500 unique visitors every day and sell between $100 and $200 of advertising each month. I'm probably not the best example, though, as I don't work especially hard at getting new traffic and finding the best advert network, as my site is really just something I enjoy doing, not a business.