Two Questions

[Nexmax]

First my main site is staying pretty steady with traffic.

my numbers are about this every day

53,000 hits per day
4000 pages
964 visits

monthly total
sites 7290
visits 32443
hits 1.8 million

I'm making a little money but not what I think I should

My question is this. These numbers are pretty good aren't they. I mean I have done a poor job of making the site look good. Finding ways for members to make me money, getting ranked, but the traffic is there. Honestly I have no idea, are these good numbers?

[Edwin]

Too many variables for anyone to be able to make an accurate appraisal of your specific situation:-

A) What kind of traffic you're getting (i.e. who is coming to your site and for what purposes?)

B) What kind of site are you running (e.g. informational, forum-based, game, humor, etc.)

C) Whether your audience is likely to shop online or not (e.g. kids are not very likely, teens a little more likely, business people very likely and so on)

D) What affiliate programs you're using and how closely they fit the theme of your site and the interests of your visitors

E) How effectively you're "pre-selling" the products and services you're promoting. In 2003, simply slapping up a few banner ads simply won't work!

F) How much money is "a little money" and what it works out on a CPM and per thousand unique site visitors basis

Unless we know the answer to A-F, it's impossible to give even a vague reading of your level of success (or lack of it)

[Nexmax]

It is a stock market forum, all adult traders/investors about 700 members. The only two sponsors are relavent, but I really haven't seen too many programs to send them to.

so A. Adults looking for info/talk about the stock market.

b. forum based info, but there is other info to be found

c. Mostly business people, pretty wide base, but mostly a middle age business

d. both sponsors are very well fit, but I could really use some other quality programs.

e. yep thats what I've been doing. I would be glad to other products, but need something I can feel good about.

f. I guess the site clears about 200-500 a month. Sometimes more sometimes less, but that range is about right and 350 a month is likely the average.

Thanks for any help you could give.

[insomnia]

Those are great statistics, but with forums I guess you gotta go with the number of members and the amount of threads being posted since forums are visited and refreshed constantly. 700 member is pretty good, you've got yourself a nice community.

[Edwin]

Those numbers sound pretty good now that I know the details.

On the positive side, you're attracting a valuable demographic (adult investors)

On the negative side, you're running a forum, which is a notoriously hard type of traffic generator to monetize

Overall, if you've got 32,000 visits a month and $350 income, that's slightly over $0.01 per visit, which doesn't sound bad.

You may find it's easier to get more traffic than it is to squeeze more income out of the existing traffic - on the other hand, it's always worth seeing where you can tweak conversion rates.