Ask HN: How would you monetise this site? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: How would you monetise this site?

8 pointsthepaulmcbride9 comments

Hey folks!

At the start of this year the company I work for had a creative week. For the first week back after Christmas, we could do what ever we wanted and on the Friday we gave a presentation on what we'd been up to.

I built https://thedeathclock.co/.

It is a morbid webpage that uses some really dumb data to give you an estimate of how much of your life you've used up.

I posted in HN back then and got a bunch of traffic, but it died off quickly. I checked the analytics of it this week and it seems to be suddenly getting a lot of traffic! So here is where I need help.

Firstly, is the traffic legit? It seems to be mostly coming from Thailand, which seems strange, but google search console seems to indicate it is real traffic.

Secondly, how can I monetise this? I want to be respectful of visitor privacy, but I wouldn't mind making a bit of money if possible. Is it possible to make any amount of money from that amount of traffic?

Here is a link to my analytics dashboard. https://plausible.io/thedeathclock.co

I'm just gonna say it, but does this really need to be monetised?

Look, I don't know you, and I mean no disrespect, but this is one of the reasons why the Internet sucks now, it's filled with built-in-30-minutes-with-the-du-jour-framework websites covered in "buy me a coffee" and "made with heart emoji" sites.

Don't get me wrong, building something and putting it out there is scary and great, so congrats on that.

> this is one of the reasons why the Internet sucks now, it's filled [...] websites covered in "buy me a coffee" and "made with heart emoji" sites.

I wish that was even close to the worst things about today's internet.

Congrats on the uptick in traffic :-) Some monetization ideas, just off the cuff:

- Access to additional estimation models: "Here are two free basic models of how long you'll live and you can pay for the whole set."

- Integrate models of how to live longer, and how much longer you'll live. Add up to 5 to stack, or stack up to 50 models with our "stave off death lmao" plan

- You could do some basic ads with marketing for anti-death stuff. Supplements or healthy diet products for example. Or you could reach out to a store like Archie McPhee to rep their products [1] or sell your own.

1. https://mcphee.com/products/final-notes

Don’t overthink it at first. Just slap a Google Adsense banner on it and build on it from there. Often traffic spikes like this aren’t long lived.

Adsense require content, there's no content on this page. Just a form and a graph.

Shop around and see if anyone wants to buy a dedicated ad spot on the page for $$$$ per-month.

Use it to show off your marketing / webdesign skills and land yourself a good job. Best and most ethical monetisation model IMO.

Something involving life insurance probably.

Sell clocks.

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