Thread: How would you monetize a webiste in a country where people do not buy online?

Hello!

My wife runs a site about cosmetics written in Romanian for three months (Produse cosmetice: tot ce trebuie să ştii despre ele for those that may be interested to have a look). There are still a lot of work left in order to make it more attractive, especially the home page. We managed to reach the 2nd in SERP for one keyword (now I am working for other keywords).

For the moment, only Adsense is used, but the revenue is not important, perhaps also because the traffic is not high. But, well, I do not expect much from it since ppc is very very small

I would like to know which strategy you would follow to earn more revenue, taking in mind that people from Romania do not buy a lot online.

Thank you in advance for your advices!

What kind of revenue are you expecting? To cover the costs or to earn an extra $100 monthly? You could sell a blog post from time to time, you could sell links on the website, I see there is a newsletter subscription, maybe you can contact companies in Romania and ask if they would pay for such advertising?

One thing I would look at?
Is setting up the site so that it has a translation option so english readers would know what is selling there.

Aquarezz: Thank you for your advice! Well, as everyone of us, I would like to earn as much as possible . The idea of contacting companies seems the best one. I tried to find some affiliation programs but they are not very attractive.

Iowadawg: That is I a great idea! I saw indeed that a lot of traffic is coming from US (well, at least Google Webmaster Tools shows that) but I did not think of trying to translate the content, mostly because the website is .ro. But now I realize that this argument is completely idiot. For the moment, we do not sell anything, my wife wanted to make this site in order to inform people about the best use, the content and the price of cosmetics products.

Ah, I forgot: I know that it would be better to translate the content by the book, meaning manually, but do you think an automatic translation would be enough for the beginning? Meaning that English readers could have an idea of the content, but seeing that it aims Romanian public. If yes, is there a good Wordpress plugin for that?

I don't find the question legit. Looks like you are looking more for a backlink than going down to the real question.

Non the less, how can you set up a website to sell a product without knowing your target customers? I guess that the website has the "content" or "products" to make money from it. Then the main revenue should come from sales of the product(s), not links or other alternatives. Side revenues as sales of links, posts, advertising or other side revenue should be treated as secondary, focusing on your main product and your main customer target make sense. If Romanian don't purchase online, then, find out who will you be selling to. Then start by changing the language of your targeted customer.

~Mike

Originally Posted by Mike30

If Romanian don't purchase online, then, find out who will you be selling to. Then start by changing the language of your targeted customer.

I have to agree with that. If you already know that there will not be too much interest in purchasing from those you target, it seems like a waste of time to me.

The website is not about selling products, it is not a "cosmetics shop". Its main focus is to inform people about what their ingredients are, their average price is , if they are tested on animals and, in the article part, to give best practices and natural ways to take care of your body. Maybe the way I presented the situation was misunderstood. We do not want to sell something concrete (for the moment, we will see in the future if we decided to open an online shop), we just want to find the best way to monetize this kind of informational website. That is why we chose Adsense since it was the easiest way. But we realized that Romanian people do not click a lot on the ads because, since the online shopping is not "in their blood", they do not want to be in a situation of having to buy something when they see those links

We could indeed target another language, English, French or German, but this is not the point. We wanted to have advice from more experienced people in markets that are more challenging. I do not think it is a waste of time. The market is still virgin, Romanian people are not so used to Internet as compared Americans, for example. They do not have confidence in this kind of exchange. They still prefer face to face business and to use cash.

In conclusion, if we want to be constructive, let's not go in the pessimistic side, please . Also, do not think that I just opened a thread only for a backlink. Instead I would be glad if someone could give me the golden advice.

Cheers!

It looks to me like you are in this for the long run, which might well pay off for you down the road. Unfortunately at this point with your business model I cannot see much monetization. Unless you want to start a cosmetics directory of Romanian businesses providing these products where people can find the right store. You can either then charge for a listing, or it might increase your traffic to where you make the money from adsense.

Aside from that: An English language version would be IMO the right way to go. Have one of those English flags on top and give people the option to view the site in English. Or add even more languages in time. Keep the main site in Romanian, but see what you can get when you also translate it into languages more likely to target visitors who are willing to click and pay.

Originally Posted by keryanjames

The website is not about selling products, it is not a "cosmetics shop". Its main focus is to inform people about what their ingredients are, their average price is , if they are tested on animals and, in the article part, to give best practices and natural ways to take care of your body. Maybe the way I presented the situation was misunderstood. We do not want to sell something concrete (for the moment, we will see in the future if we decided to open an online shop), we just want to find the best way to monetize this kind of informational website. That is why we chose Adsense since it was the easiest way. But we realized that Romanian people do not click a lot on the ads because, since the online shopping is not "in their blood", they do not want to be in a situation of having to buy something when they see those links

We could indeed target another language, English, French or German, but this is not the point. We wanted to have advice from more experienced people in markets that are more challenging. I do not think it is a waste of time. The market is still virgin, Romanian people are not so used to Internet as compared Americans, for example. They do not have confidence in this kind of exchange. They still prefer face to face business and to use cash.

In conclusion, if we want to be constructive, let's not go in the pessimistic side, please . Also, do not think that I just opened a thread only for a backlink. Instead I would be glad if someone could give me the golden advice.

Cheers!