Which monthly earnings from movie websites can you expect? As of Adsterra’s publisher, Udin, some $9,000 to $14,000 are more than feasible. Seems like you need a more detailed answer, right? Udin is here with a guide covering vital aspects of a movie site promotion, including copyright and SEO issues. He owns and manages three sites with kindred content, monetizing it exclusively with Adsterra ads.
| Top traffic | Ad formats | Earnings |
|---|---|---|
| India, US, Bangladesh, Philippines, Indonesia | Popunders, Social Bar | Up to $14,000 per month |
*The following content was translated into English by the Adsterra team.
DISCLAIMER by Udin:
Dozens of movie streaming and video-on-demand (VOD) websites are out there, and I want to warn you: streaming of copyrightable content without a license is prohibited in most countries. I don’t recommend any activities that deviate from international or local legislation because they lead to severe penalties.
My guide uncovers a legal strategy to create content related to the movie niche. This strategy (when applied with patience) returns high dividends and unlocks almost endless opportunities to grow earnings from movie websites.
My movie niche specifics
In short, I run three websites with plenty of content covering almost all movie topics except for documentaries.
Every piece of content on my site comprises unique facts about the film or TV series and some spicy gossip (if there is any). I also embed official trailers if they’re available to the public on YouTube.
My gimmick is to provide several links to where to watch these shows online. I used to list prices as well, but it’s way too difficult to keep an eye on all paid plans of every big platform, including membership and seasonal discounts and offers.
It’s a good idea to generate individual posts covering the most beneficial special offers from Netflix or Amazon Prime, especially before major sales seasons.
I don’t stream blockbusters under copyright, but I provide a unique approach to posting news. Since all the content is free for my readers, I make money from advertising. Adsterra is now my only source of online income, and it has proved to be the most trusted partner. My total revenues from movie websites in almost two years accounted for some $220K.
How I grow earnings from movie websites
My first recommendation to all of you, movie streamers or bloggers, is not to overdo with advertisements. That is to say, not to put 20 banners on one page. They will create a mess, blending with film covers, which are usually very vivid and eye-catching.
My top ad performers are Popunder scripts and Social Bars. These two are like Twix: they’re better when they come together. Popunders flop away from the site itself. It’s just one new web page a user will view in their browser.
Social Bars are more tricky. You place one script, and it starts sending plenty of ads but their placement is fixed, always on top of content. I must admit, ads look accurate and neat. Visitors can click or skip them, and that’s the secret sauce of quality CTR.
Advertising types are 99% relevant to what visitors of my sites expect to see. The example above is an ad by a local streaming platform.
To Contents ↑You can allow or remove specific advertisements, but I advise making them work full-blast. I allowed Antivirus, VPN, Finance, iGaming & Sports offers, Sweepstakes, and Dating.
Earnings from movie websites: First steps
It makes sense to summarize the stages of the movies website monetization and then walk through every stage:
| Main steps | Notes |
|---|---|
| SEO for movie websites | Main steps to growing organic traffic and content creation |
| Content creation | Tips for making highly demanded content |
| Placing ads to generate revenues | How to integrate ads on your site |
| Developing your monetization strategy | Insights for revenue boost |
1. SEO for movies websites
Obviously, I can only cover part of the SEO topic in one guide, but I will try to give you basic tips and insight to speed up your progress.
What you need to do is to plan how you will form content: from the largest and highly competitive topics to more concrete, low-volume but target ones.
A general plan of building a plan for SEO-optimized content will contain 4 steps:
- Find the biggest topics for pillar pages
- Find subtopics and match them with search phrases
- Scan your competitors
- Look for brand searches
Make a list of big and evergreen topics
Examples of topics:
1. Movies coming out
Global volume with variations: 1.1M
2. Movies online
Global volume with variations: 1.5M
Big and evergreen topics will feed you for many years. These are topics users always look for, and you will just have to update the content to generate more traffic. Such pages are also called Pillars.
I created a site category page that leads to multiple news pieces about new films that will soon be released. This query is always in demand, Semrush estimates 1M+ searches per month.
Your next pillar can be “Superhero movies” or “What to watch,” for example. One of the movie streaming platforms, Plex, has already adopted the “what to watch” topic with a web page that embraces user queries about all popular platforms:
Come up with subtopics + key phrases
Subtopics pages give a more detailed overview of various aspects of the parent topic. They can be linked to a film’s release date, genre, or rating. Here I listed some examples:
- Movies coming out in [Month]
- [Month] movie releases
- Sci-fi movies coming soon
- Latest movies
You know what movie watchers need, what they are eager to watch and who they are. Still, it’s very challenging to grow a content tree from scratch. My recommendation is to try Semrush Keyword Strategy Builder (formerly Keyword Manager). It’s a paid tool, but in case you’ve got one, try it!
The tool will generate a full set of topics and subtopics with the following parameters:
- search intent,
- keyword difficulty,
- search volume,
- and number of keywords
An alternative free tool is SEranking, which will list the highest-popular key phrases related to your main topic.
To Contents ↑Another headsup from me: all SEO tools will first provide the highest-volume search phrases. Take it with a grain of salt because such phrases are very competitive. Websites like mine have gained topical authority, and I easily create content that will rank higher than competitors. If you’re a beginner, getting your movie content ranked in the top 10 is a long way. Therefore, it’s better to start with low-competition and middle-difficulty words.
Scan competitors’ organic traffic
If you operate in the movies niche, you know your nearest competition. Excluding Semrush, which is a paid tool, you can address free organic research tools like SpyFu to scan the main phrases your competitors target. Enter the domain you want to analyze and check the list of leading keywords.
Just to illustrate my point in practice, I entered “plex.tv” to check organic keywords. On the right, you can also check paid keywords, which your competitors use in PPC (pay-per-click) marketing.
Who are your competitors?
Look for digital movie streaming platforms. You need to grab their audience before people start watching their favorite shows.
To Contents ↑I must warn you: people may come and simply leave your site if they don’t find any content to watch. But if you provide hot news and list multiple links to platforms where users can get the content they look for, they will stay long enough to watch ads!
Add brand keywords
Brand keywords are one of the most underestimated parts of a movie website content strategy. Surely, they will not be your main source of traffic, because you’re not the brand owner. However, if you’ll be creative in adding brand names in your posts, especially with long-tail keywords, you’ll succeed.
Brands you’ll be looking for will be pretty the same as they were in competitor research. Let me list some of them, but ensure they are available in countries you send traffic from. For instance, Crackle streams only across the US.
- Tubi
- Amazon Freeve
- Hoopla
- Kanopy
- The Roku Channel
- Crackle
- Vudu
- Redbox
- Plex
- Shout TV
With a list of online platforms, you can then try to find appropriate search phrases by doing the old good keyword research. Enter [brand name] + movies in the search field to get a list of ideas.
2. More content tips
Based on the topic and organic keyword research, you compile a list of content hubs or pillar pages, subtopics, and separate articles/posts/news.
You can only rank high with high-volume keywords if no one of your competitors has created the same content. How to gain more quality traffic then?
- I can recommend you choose middle-volume and low-competition key phrases.
- Another way is to find long-tail keywords
Long-tail phrases consist of 3+ words, and are usually less competitive. You can even discover solid search potential in these. I recently ran across an AIChatOnline, an AI-powered long-tail keyword strategy builder, you can use for free.
This tool is built on ChatGPT, and you only need to enter a correct prompt like “generate long-tail keywords for general topic [your topic]”
The results will be:
- The list of potential long-tail keywords
- Search intent
- Content type recommendations
- Options for a URL slug
- Meta titles and page excerpts
- Reference pages
Carry on chatting with the bot and ask about KD% (keyword difficulty), or how easy it is to rank on Google using this or that phrase. As it’s a free tool, it returns approximate data, but still, it’s enough for the start.
3. Ads for movie websites
In the beginning of the guide, I gave a brief overview of how I grow earnings with movie websites. It is necessary to provide a deeper understanding in this matter. I solely use Adsterra ad network’s monetization options.
I strongly recommend mixing Popunders and Social Bars as they don’t change your website look. It’s important if you stream videos or trailers.
To pull ad scripts from Adsterra, you first register on the platform as a publisher and enter your web site’s full URL.
Give Adsterra more information about your website niche and pick “Movies” from the Website category.
You can choose one ad format at a time, so select either Popunder or Social Bar and click the button below.
You will be redirected to the main page, where you can pull the script of your ad when Adsterra approves your site. It takes about 2-5 minutes.
Update the page and check if your website status is Approved. If so, click GET CODE and read a short tutorial to where to place it.
Anyways, if you feel you have some troubles with any stage of the process, jump to a chat and ask Adsterra support for help. They reply 24/7.
With this approach only, my movie websites’ earnings account to a maximum of $14,100 per month. On average, my monthly income varies from $8,000 to $10,000.
How to boost earnings from movie websites
Outstanding content is not enough, and you will not make thousands of dollars from the start, like real movie streamers or VOD providers do. But this should not frustrate you because you’ve got a workable SEO strategy. And now, you will collect a couple more tips to apply.
- Look for keyword difficulty in different geos. For example, you can easily enter the competition in India, but hardly reach TOP-50 in the US.
- Diversify geo profile. I drive traffic from the US, EU, and Asian regions.
- Learn the earning principle: you can get more money from less-paid geos driving higher traffic volumes, and the same or higher revenue can come from best-paid countries with lower traffic volumes.
- Highly visible and distinctive ads generate greater earnings. Here is why Social Bars are nice for oversaturated movies platforms.
- Accept all types of advertising, including Dating and iGaming. Movie watchers are ok with games, sports, and software ads, as well.
- Run several similar sites with slightly different content, but don’t use the copy-paste method. My earnings come from three multi-page websites.
- Regularly check Adsterra stats using filters by countries and placements. You will learn which traffic to concentrate on to multiply your movie site earnings.
Final thoughts
I appreciate you reading my story. It is hoped that I could provide you with a set of steps to increase your earnings from movie websites. In case, you’re a bit confused, here they are:
- If you stream videos or create niche-related content, enrich your SEO copy with brand keywords to gain more traffic.
- Target long-tail phrases with low competition and high relevance.
- Check your competitors’ sites to scan their best-performing pages in organic search and adapt their best practices.
- Subscribe to film and TV series releases to compile content right in time. Google Trends will help you find the hottest topics across all countries.
- Add links to all streaming platforms available in the countries you target. Add posts with discounts and freemium plans provided by top video on demand (VOD) providers.
- Find an ad network with user-friendly ads and high payouts.
- Take your time and stay persistent in moving towards your goal. Lebih baik terlambat daripada tidak sama sekali!
Udin has been so kind to share his experience of increasing earnings from movie websites. In case you’re only stepping in this field, check our entry guide to monetizing on the movie niche. Or, jump to a success story of a sports streaming website monetization. And remember to enrich your earnings with Adsterra!
