Welcome, webmasters, search engine optimization (SEO)
experts, search engine marketers (SEMs), techies, idea masters, dreamers and interested parties!
I recently acquired the website, Shaded-Relief.com. It
provides a World Map built upon the Google Maps API with custom tiles (images)
that display the world in a "Shaded Relief" format. It also has some other
unique measuring tools and neat stuff built into the site. The site has a
PR7 DMOZ Listing and the site
itself is a PR6. The site was expensive to buy and now costs a lot to
maintain, so it's time to figure out how to make money off of this site!
This is where your skills come in...
Contest Purpose:
For contestants to come up with the best ideas to monetize
(make money on) Shaded-Relief.com in the most profitable way
possible.
Contest Winner's Prize:
The grand prize winner of the Shaded Relief Monetization
Contest will receive their choice of a $500 Home Depot USA Gift Card
or One Month of Exclusive Advertising on Shaded Relief! Three
runner ups will also get $50 each via Paypal!
Monetization History of the site:
Shaded Relief
had a sponsor on it a few months ago that was paying the original creator of the
domain $550/month to be listed on the right hand side under the menu.
Since I acquired the site, I have only tried adding Google Adsense but the
clickthrough rate is terrible and only making the site about $1 a day if even
that. No other monetization methods have been tried!
Website Traffic / Analytics:
Shaded Relief
gets about 200 unique visitors a day. Google Analytics were installed on
4/18/2008 and I can give you access to a view only account if you email me (jfox
at foxnv dot com) your Google Account's email address and your first and last
name. If you just need a general analytics report you can
download it here in pdf format.
Contest Timeline:
The initial idea submission period runs until June 15th, 2008. If
you have an idea, submit it in the "contest submission thread" link at the
bottom.
From June 16th until June 30th the public will then vote on all of the
contestants ideas and the top 4 will be the winners!
Those 4 top ideas will then each be implemented on the website for a
period of two weeks each, starting July 1st.
On September 1st, 2008 the prizes will be awarded and the highest
grossing monetization idea will win the grand prize!
Contest Rules:
All monetization ideas must be legal and Google friendly.
That means no paid links, link farms or anything else that will get me
Google banned.
Adult ideas will be rejected.
Ideas that may jeopardize my DMOZ listing are not allowed.
Ideas that degrade the user experience to the point of loss of return
traffic will be rejected.
If an idea is too complex, requires sales or advertising in excess of
(30 minutes of time, 15 phone calls or $100) to be implemented by me (the
webmaster) then the constant will be required to implement, sell or
advertise their idea to have it make money on the site. If programming
is required to implement an idea, it will be necessary for the contestant to
do the work.
If two people submit the same idea, the person submitting first will be
the only one used for the public voting period.
Sample Ideas:
I've come up with quite a few ideas for the site but only implemented one,
Google Adsense. I don't recommend you suggest it, as the revenue is not
high for a site like this. Another thing I thought of was to implement
some sort of map based advertising by expanding upon the Google Maps API the
site runs on. Since this is a site primarily targeted at cartographers,
the site could have country specific ads popup via the Google Map API for map
makers. I know nothing about how to implement such an idea but maybe you
do...
Where do I submit ideas and/or vote on the contestant's ideas?
Shaded Relief
is using BioFuel Debate Forum to manage the contest. For general talk and
discussion on the contest go to the discussion thread.
To submit a monetization idea go to the
contest idea
submission thread. If you want to vote on the ideas, visit
the voting thread.
Thanks for your
time and good luck in the contest! If you need to ask questions of me
(Jason Fox), ask them in the
discussion thread
please!
