Donating To The Forum?

Running a website/forum is expensive and it takes a lot of time, especially one this big. Bandwidth and storage costs money! The money goes into keeping this forum up and running for our enjoyment. Not only should every member donate, we should all click on the links everyday to help CC.

It's only fair, you probably get more enjoyment out of this site than any magazine or newspaper...send them a few bucks.

Also Coindexter, I wanted to thank you for pointing that out to me, even though I previously noticed it. It is nice that you thought of me

Just so there's no confusion here ... to donate to CCF for upkeep and maintenance of the site (no it doesn't buy Bobby a new coin toy), find the red "Donations" button on the left column and have your credit card ready. If you don't have or don't care to use a credit card, send SusanLynn (forum Mom) an email. I'm sure she'll take checks and/or money orders ... sorry, no first-borns, I tried.

I might have come off as being alarmist... You're right the vast majority of visitors don't turn into conversions. I have no idea what the conversion rate is for coin related sites. Even on HIGH conversion sites a good rate is close to 1%.

Also I was off on my percentages trying to prove a point... Lot's of times sites aren't interested in purchases (per'se) but on gathering visitor information and details (be it an email address, phone number, etc...)

One of the ways that I make money on some of my sites is through newsletter subscriptions. A visitor signs up for the site (just like you did here on CCF). When the site hits a certain userbase I'll create a newsletter. I'll then use that newsletter to notify the users when something of importance shows up on the site (Just like CCF does when they send a PM notification.) Tagged onto the bottom of the newsletter or sometimes incorporated into it, I'll place an unabtrusive ad (I don't think CCF does this... they should think about it though). These sorts of ads sell much better and produce better conversion rates than normal banner ads. They're targeted to a specific audience which is receptive to the ad and it provides them with a valuable service. (Specific User information is never shared with the advertiser.)

One of the things I pride my self in is that I don't chase the dollars when it comes to this sort of thing. The internet isn't my full time job, it's just how I fund my hobby. If an advertiser has something which I know my readers are going to want to know about then I accept the ad. If it's something I think they might be interested in I don't place the ad. Just as a for instance I run a couple of Home Owners Association websites. When an advertiser comes to me and says "Can I place an ad on your site and in your newsletter?" I ask them what the ad is for. If it's for an MP3 site based in Singapore I say "No Way." If the ad is for a pool supply company I say "That's not going to work." as not everyone in the subdivision has a pool. But then if the ad is changed to provide a benefit that could be of use to everyone such as adding a discount coupon for supplies or free estimates or some such THEN I accept the ad. The great thing about this sort of advertising is that it's fire and forget, I don't have to keep track of whose paid for what ad slots for how long.

Anyway... Long story short. IMO ads are great things, they allow for even modest sites to turn a profit (or at least break even) relatively quickly without requiring the site to charge membership fees. Visitors should be aware though that Ads also are meant to bring revenue (in some way shape or manner) to the site that's placed them to at least cover the costs of placing them.

Another for instance... you'll notice that I've placed an ad for my CRH site (towards the bottom of this page). I'm currently paying 10 cents a day for that ad, it's bringing roughly 150 visitors a day to my site. My site doesn't make any money but traffic is important, and the link itself is important as it will help my site improve in the search engines. Hopefully at some point this site will average about 500 visitors a day. I'm pretty good at creating this thing called PR which is mucho importanta in the ad world. IF I have a site which has a daily average of 500 visitors that has a PR of 4 (which is what I think this site will top out at... hopefully a 5) I'll be able to sell links off of the site in the range of $10 a month (probably with a max of 10 paid links). They'll have to be links that I approve of and they will have to be relevant to the site but at that point the site will have a monthly income of at least $100. Might not sound like a lot and it really isn't but with a few other creativities I'll be able to bump that up to the $200 range. Once again not a lot. But when you start talking about having multiple sites that are all averaging $200, it starts to ad up into real money. So does it make sense for me to be paying 10 cents a day for the ad at the bottom of this page? Well it's already managed to bring a third of my target visitor goal to the site. With a little time google will see this and reward me with higher PR (not exactly that straight forward). So yes it does make sense.

I'm really run off on a tangent here.

Moral of the story...
Click on ads because they're interesting. Don't click on ads because you think it helps

EDIT: ADDENDUM: One of the things which I look closely at in determining the number of visitor I have is time on site. I discount all visitors who stayed less than 30 seconds as they were probably just clicking through... They're just so much involved in this that stating one thing as an absolute opens up so many problems.

Good point BadThad, I am an all cash guy. I will drop the forum mom an email. I agree, try to donate something. We all enjoy it here!

Wow. Where do I start.

Money donated goes mostly towards the domain and hosting bills. Those of you that run your own websites will appreciate this... we are cruising the 200 gigabyte/month mark for bandwidth and have almost 4 GB of pictures alone hosted. Needless to say a 4.99/month shared hosting account at GoDaddy doesn't cut it. We outgrew that within 6 months of being open. We'll bust a server that has 6,000 sites on it like those. Money also goes toward new coding for the site occasionally. Although I have learned a lot since running this site, sometimes I have to pay someone to get things done when it's over my head.

Springcypress has the perfect grasp on the Google ads. Bottom line is if the ad truly interests you, have a look. Otherwise don't. To put it in harsh terms, if you click just to help us out, you're stealing money from someone else to give to us and we just don't want it that way. Now this is for the Google ads only, the others are not "pay-per-click", so you can click those any time you like.

We recently added a few new advertisers on the left. Sedwick Coins is new and will be there for a year. Some of you have bought from a previous advertiser, Historic Real Treasures. The owner, Augi Garcia, has teamed up with Sedwick Coins and Susan and I have dealt directly with Mr. Sedwick to authenticate some cobs. Class acts all the way.

Beth (IC Toys) and Donna (Southern Jewel) are old friends (never call a woman old) friends I've known for a long time. They have some cool stuff and I personally vouch for them.

We appreciate everything the members do for us to make the site run smoother. Donations and visiting sponsors are only a small part of it. Members always helping other members with site operation, hitting the "Send note to Staff" button to bring things to our attention, and things like this all help tremendously.

We appreciate all of you.