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Ask HN: I have a portal with 500k monthly users? How do I monetize it?

The traffic is increasing by almost 7-10% every month and monthly users have crossed 500k. In spite of such high traffic numbers, the revenue from Google Adsense is negligible. I want to get rid of Adsense and want to monetize it via some other means.

What are some possible ways through which I can monetize the site?

Link: http://www.bonobology.com/

( 8 comments | 8 points | on HN )
Re:Ask HN: I have a portal with 500k monthly users? How do I... by aboutphilippe on Tuesday April 14, 2020 @11:37AM (#22867273)
Some quick thoughts:

Depending on the audience demographics, contact marketing team of top dating apps in your target countries (probably US and India) like Tinder, Badoo,etc.. and make custom deals to feature them. Negotiate a base monthly subscription + performance deal.

Have a look at https://advertise.buzzfeed.com, apply to their program pretending to be a large brand or new startup with series B/C funding and attend their sales call, they have the exact same business model.

Look online at Casper's strategy regarding SEO, they ended up acquiring the review website for mattresses that brought them seo traffic.

Ideally you could negotiate an exit strategy to one of the dating players if you have a good relationship with their SEO manager.

Re:Ask HN: I have a portal with 500k monthly users? How do I... by ffumarola on Tuesday April 14, 2020 @08:01AM (#22864847)
How many pageviews are you doing per month and what is your Google Adsense RPM? Before throwing advertising out, wondering if the ads are working as effectively as they should.

In addition, agree with keiferski that ebooks could be a good path forward.

You could also do classes or "bootcamps" for skills training.

Re:Ask HN: I have a portal with 500k monthly users? How do I... by milanspeaks on Tuesday April 14, 2020 @08:43AM (#22865139)
Pageviews are around 600k. But on many page's ads are not being displayed due to Google Policy.RPM is very low due to the niche category.
Re:Ask HN: I have a portal with 500k monthly users? How do I... by Sevii on Tuesday April 14, 2020 @11:20PM (#22874147)
Look into selling dating related products. These can be information products or actual physical goods like makeup.

Beauty products

Fitness products (weight loss/ muscle, etc)

Dating advice products

You can either make your own or affiliate with people who already have products, basically selling access to your audience.

Re:Ask HN: I have a portal with 500k monthly users? How do I... by keiferski on Tuesday April 14, 2020 @07:28AM (#22864709)
It seems pretty common to sell Ebooks and other products in this niche (relationships and social skills.) If you don't want to make your own products, contact popular authors in your industry and work out an affiliate deal with them.
Re:Ask HN: I have a portal with 500k monthly users? How do I... by saradhi on Tuesday April 14, 2020 @08:26AM (#22865021)
From similarweb.com, https://imgur.com/Gd9FG8o, I see the page has over 80% bounce rate which might be the problem?
Re:Ask HN: I have a portal with 500k monthly users? How do I... by hahla on Tuesday April 14, 2020 @04:12PM (#22870875)
Tools like similarweb, alexa, etc are pretty useless when it comes to insight into traffic. I wouldn't put much reliance on those stats.
Re:Ask HN: I have a portal with 500k monthly users? How do I... by milanspeaks on Tuesday April 14, 2020 @08:43AM (#22865145)
Even with 80% bounce rate, there are still 100k users left which can be monetized.