Creating a Website that Makes Money

This website was originally intended to be part of my journey to make millions of dollars. Over the few years I've run it though, it has made me about $200. That's enough to justify continuing to pay for the URL, but that's about it. I have a wide variety of interests though, so I have started a few other websites, and have written about them all here. None of them have been very profitable. Until now.



My current website I'm working on is apocalypticprepping.com (I'm pretty proud of that URL). That website has been live for 3 days and I just checked my amazon affiliate page, and someone had ordered something through one of my links. I was pretty thrilled. This led to me doing more research into conversions, why people were ordering, and why this website was making money better after 3 days than any of my other websites.

Traffic coming to Apocalyptic Prepping:

The audience is key for why I believe this website is already making money. I'm creating my content for preppers- people who want to prepare and stockpile for emergencies and for the end of the world. These people are shoppers. They buy and stock pile. My tagline for the website is- Have the best when the worst happens. It's my goal to provide people with the best, and my content revolves around this quality. People appreciate that already. In the first 3 days the website was live, I had 55 visitors. These visitors clicked on 13 Amazon links, and from that there was the 1 order. 

When I first created Millennial Making Millions, I made my audience people like me- people trying to save money and live frugally. It's a much bigger challenge to make money from starving students than it is to make money from people actively trying to stockpile up by buying things. I've worked to rebrand Millennial Making Millions, and plan to use this website to discuss actual strategies and to interview entrepreneurs and small business owners and side hustlers to look at how they're making money. While I still value frugality, the goal will be more on making money and becoming wealthy, rather than on saving money. 

What buttons do people click on? 

Custom buttons that strike their curiosity and native ads. The buttons I create say See Amazon Best Price. I don't give the price- partially because I want them to go to amazon, and also because prices vary over time. If I say a price, and then it changes, I'm now giving wrong information. A good example of this can be found on this article I wrote HERE. This one in particular received a larger percentage of the clicks than others. The buttons had been experimented with on previous websites, and paired with the right audience, they are doing their job.

Native ads

Amazon Native Ads look through my content and show items and products that relate to what I'm talking about. It's automated and easy. Some people would rather click on something that looks like the amazon they're familiar with. Native ads also show the current price, so people are able to get instant information. Because of this, if and when they do click on it, these have a higher conversion rate. 

Making Money Moving Forward:

My only monetization of my website currently is via amazon. There are a couple other strategies that I intend to use. 

1. I plan to offer emergency preparedness consulting to companies and individuals. I have written the emergency preparedness manual, quick reference guide, and web publications for about a dozen schools and child care centers as part of my current job. These include everything from your regular fire drill to dam's breaking, active shooters, and gas leaks. I do presentations on these emergencies and have responded to several in my role.

2. The logo for this website, shown above, is an ammo can with Apocalyptic Prepping stamped on it. There are a number of different things I could do to merchandize this, from the ammo cans (empty) themselves, to survival kits inside these. 

3. Other tasteful paid advertising. I don't want my website to be spammy, but many of the websites you see have a lot of ads because they make money. I plan to explore this more fully. I don't intend to sacrifice quality for these ads. I intend to grow a readership that cares about quality, and don't want to jeopardize that. 

Questions or advice? Leave it in the comments below! Interested in looking at the website? Check it out! apocalypticprepping.com

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