Seekyt.com is a platform to do exactly that. By building an online hub for writers to publish a variety of articles and earn advertising revenues, Seekyt has made it easy for people to make a few extra bucks in their spare time (sort of like those crappy informercials, but much more legitimate). The way it works is each writer uploads an article to Seekyt, plugs in their own Google Adsense or Amazon Associates account, and is able to monetize 70% of their traffic through those accounts. Where Seekyt makes its money is by running its own ads across your articles 30% of the time. It is a simple model, and Seekyt prides itself on its transparency. I recently had a “virtual” chat with the founder, Tyler Norwood about his experience building and maintaining the site:
RH: What’s the goal of Seekyt and what drove you to launch the site? TN: The goal of Seekyt is to be the most honest, most user friendly, and easiest to use revenue sharing website on the Internet. We have an amazing community, do our best to weed out spammers, and have a lot of fun doing what we do best: making money with our writing.
RH: How long did it take to build your business to where it is today? TN: We have been an actual website for about 1.5 years, but Seekyt has only been what it is for the past eight months. Before we were a revenue sharing site for writers, Seekyt was a social bookmarking site. We currently have over 4,500 authors, and a participation rate of more than 75% per article — that is, more than 75% of our content is shared, commented on, tweeted, etc.
RH: How big is your team? Are all your employees full-time? What sort of backgrounds do they have? TN: The Seekyt.com team consists of me, myself and I! My name is Tyler Norwood, I’m a graduate of Business Management from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV), and I have a passion for web development. I’ve done everything myself, and the stuff I couldn’t figure out was coded by a freelancer. I work full-time on Seekyt, but it is more fun than it is work. Our community is awesome, and have shaped the website with their feedback. Sometimes I really consider it to be a 4,501 member team.
RH: What’s your monetization strategy? Is Seekyt profitable yet? TN: Seekyt is solely monetized by AdSense and Amazon ads. We have been profitable since the first month, surprisingly! Nobody is rich yet, but things are starting to take off.
RH: How have you funded the company thus far? TN: I have only put a few hundred bucks into Seekyt so far. The design and programming have been done by me, and the marketing has been done by our members via a referral incentive program. We are lucky to have organically become what we are without a major investment.
RH: What’s the future look like for Seekyt? What milestones are you looking to hit? TN: We are planning to hit the top 50,000 websites by the end of this month (Alexa.com), and we plan to have over 5,000 authors by then as well. Our biggest goals are to be one of the top five internet writing outlets online, to attract over 100,000 people interested in making money online, and to continue our legacy of honesty and excellence in this particular industry. We have grown by more than 100% in just the past two months, so it’s exciting to think about what the future might have in store for us! So there you have it — sometimes all it takes is a good idea, a few hundred bucks, and the ambition to make your vision a reality. In all seriousness though, who wants to make money from writing articles on the Internet when you can do it for free! 😉
