Content-Sites Case Study: NotByTheHour.com
The Idea
I like websites with a fresh style and good information. And the latest that I found is NotByTheHour.com. How I stumbled upon it … well, here’s a short version. I have a few designers on my Yahoo Messenger. One of them has a link to his website, that has a link to Freelance Switch (a blog for freelancers), that has a link to NotByTheHour.com.
First let me tell you what NotByTheHour.com is all about. It’s actually for freelancers, mainly designers (web or print). You know how designers normally charge by the hour. They all have this “hourly rate.” When you ask them for a quote, they will estimate how much time it will take before they can give you a price.
NotByTheHour.com teaches a few simple ways freelancers can use to generate streams of passive income, on top of their hourly fees.
In simple terms, it’s just a content-site, like those you would build for Adsense.
But the approach – well, I like the approach.
Though it’s just a simple content-site, it doesn’t look that simple. First of all it has a nice-looking, Web2.0-style design to it. The huge clean font is a giveaway. Coming from a talented designer, Collis Ta’eed, who writes for Freelance Switch on the topic of designs, you expected that.
Let’s first talk about the content. Collis shares four ways to create passive streams of income for designers. For me, none of the methods are new. But I it’s still valuable information for some. At the very least, it provides a good overview of the options available.
The four strategies that Collis writes about are:
1 – Sell Stock
2 – Making Stuffs
3 – Sell Subscriptions
4 – Web Business
I suggest that you checkout the site itself to know what Collis means by each of those four. But I am going to tell what Collis mean by Web Business. Collis lists a few types of web business, and one of them is content site.
What About Traffic…
It’s great that Collis covers that and created NotByTheHour.com at the same time. It’s because NotByTheHour.com is just exactly that – content-site.
The way I look at it, rather than simple content-sites that many of us build for Adsense, this site really shares value. And you see that the creator really put in time, effort and a lot of thinking in to it. With a good design like this one, you won’t be ashamed to promote it using mainstream media.
You can write press release. You can ask reviews from top blogs and design websites. And you can even appear on radio shows or podcasts, if you can get any.
To take it a step further, Collis employs a little viral strategy too. On the main page, you will find a link to the free PDF version. A little ebook like that can get a lot of reviews and get people downloading it like crazy.
Apart from the ebook (which I think is a great idea), Collis also created some wall paper artwork that you can use on your desktop computer. I don’t know how well these two are doing as a viral traffic tool. But it’s great that you are not depending on your outside traffic alone. You need to use the traffic that you get to get more traffic.
Monetization
Now let’s talk about monetization. Talking about passive income, the site too is a passive income source for the creator. When you look closely, the site employs strategies like:
Affiliate program
Adsense
Paypal Donation
Product
I like that the NotByTheHour.com recommends a few other sites visitors can look at for sources of income. In each of the four methods, the author will list a few websites, with huge thumbnail. And if you look closely, some of the sites have affiliate programs. CafePress and Zazzle are a few examples. And when linking to those sites, Collis uses his affiliate link. It’s nice to see a good promotion weaved in between good content. Collis provides good content and not being pushy at all.
And when you read through all the articles, there are Adsense links in there. So obviously Collis aims to make some money with Adsense. Unless you have some very strong reason, in today’s Internet, not putting Adsense on your site is like leaving money on the table.
And on the front page, Collis just put that a Paypal donation link for those who feels generous.
And here’s another thing that I see about NotByTheHour.com. I see that on the main page, NotByTheHour.com links to SpeakLight.com, which is content management solution. I don’t know the relationship between Freelance Switch, Collis and Element Fusion (creator of Light), but according to the site, NotByTheHour.com is built on Light.
So the whole site kind of like a showcase of what Light can do. If I were Element Fusion, I think it’s a great marketing strategy to promote Light. You build a website that shares free information, promote it heavily and get it famous with viral marketing, and then let everyone know that it’s built using your product.
Even if Collis is just an affiliate to Element Fusion, or just a marketing man for them that earns commissions on sales, I still think it’s a great marketing strategy.
I guess that’s all then. I just would like to add that it’s great to see content-site built this way, rather than all those Made-For-Adsense.
I hope they do well with this …
