1 year to go!

[topcat]

OK....here's the score.....

Presently, I work in IT as a Release Manager. In Jan 06 I will be made redundant :(

The challenge is to make enough money to sustain my morgage and general living expenses each month by the time I am made redundant and I have 1 year, 2 months to do it in!!

Could anyone advise the best approach to do this? Do I, create say 10 good basic sites straight off get them up on the search engines with basic content, back links and PR and then go back and up content and feature etc afterwards? OR....

Do I complete one site at a time to a high standard and just update and tweak it when and where?

Also, I presently use wordtracker.com to decide on what is or isn't a good search term or site idea to use? Is this right or are there other search engine statistical sites that could assist with this?

Obviously, I know there are no quick fire solutions hence why I'm starting to build on this with a year and 2 months to go...also I'm very new to all this, not sure where to start really???

Any help would be brill!!!!

Cheers,

Cat :cool:

[James]

It's smart to go for several websites which bring in a little money each, if you want stability.

Many people tend to pour a lot of their time into sites when they first create them, if that's any help--though I'm sure that Chris has more experience with what's better than me, because I only develop one site at a time, and while it's in developement my other sites seem to suffer a bit.

[incka]

I would highly suggest not making small sites, only making very large content sites. Examples of these are Chris' Literature and Survival ones, Icebane's Survival one, Chromate's carb counter, My URGames and Lyrics one, And two people's movie ones.

Make a few big content sites and you should be set. Pour as much time (and money for other to write for you) into it as possible.

[moonshield]

how many pages makes a site a 'big' site?

[Cutter]

Anything you are really good at / know a lot about? Thats a good place to start. I wouldn't limit myself to content sites either, there may be affiliate items you can promote or a service that you can develop. If you can program there are even more options open to you.

[topcat]

Yep, can program a bit....

Did look at affiliate sites, but there are just sooo many to chose from? At the moment only using adsense on a couple of pages. Hopefully I will complete my Zone Diet site and add a bit more to Dr. Phil and then after Christmas I will start the next one.

It seems to be the publicity and obtaining back links that is creating most hassle at the moment, but I will keep on at it and let you all know how I get on.

cat

[Emancipator]

Topcat I will give you my suggeston based on my experience. I started my movie site about 4 months ago. It now has over 1700 news items, and over 1100 movies in its database. The forum has 3,000+ members and 55,000 posts. We now get lots of nice prizes donated from movie studios and the traffic goes up more everyday as a result.

Dont waste your time doing 10 small sites that do nothing. Do one site, spend 2 months on it, get it up, and then move on. I served 680,000 impressions this month so far on azoogle, so you can see it can make money as well. (Azoogle is my default by the way filling what casale and fastclick cant.)

I am putting the final touches on my new site now, key thing i guess im saying is age of the site means nothing, number of sites means nothing, its all about you. You decide whether you win or succeed, but focus is typically a good start, :)

[James]

Incka, from what I've heard it's best to have maybe one or two large websites and some smaller ones so you can have stability--am I wrong in this assumption?

[incka]

From my experience larger sites rather than lots of smallers ones makes most money.

[Emancipator]

Speaking from my experience i think its clear I agree with Incka. I have a new smaller site ready to launch and we will see how it performs compared to my Movie Site.

[incka]

It won't do anywhere near as well. I've been very impressed by how quick your movie site has grown, the only thing I don't like about it is the domain isn't a .com...

[Emancipator]

Incka, i dont agree with you and have every intention on proving you wrong. By saying I am doing a smaller site I should have been more clear perhaps. I mean its a new small site I am launching.

Glad you like MoviesOnline, why does it matter its not a .com? It has not hindered me. It all comes down to FOCUS, and that is why MoviesOnline has grown so fast, not because i am talented or have some secret super powers, its because of dedication. Work work work and work some more on everything that comes to mind, then go back and do it again, and involve people in the process.

[moonshield]

is MoviesOnline built upon a portal system?

[Emancipator]

yes.. its a system ive been building since i started the site. Its my own custom portal.

[r2d2]

This is gonna sound thick, but what exactly is a portal? Ive heard the word around a few times, but never quite been sure..

[Emancipator]

i consider a portal a content management system. Perhaps I should have asked what poorman meant as well. I am quite proud of my content management system since it took me a fair bit of planning and conceiving.

It has a complete admin interface for those who work on the site to easily add news, images, movies, trailers, etc.

[r2d2]

Nice :) I programmed a fairly basic CMS for my old casino site.

I had thought a portal was like msn.com or something thats just acts like a portal to take you to other sites and stuff...

[Chris]

I believe the standard definition of a portal is one of the large generic homepages on the Internet. A portal to Internet content. AOL, Yahoo, these are portals. Google to a lesser extent.

[moonshield]

like slashdot, that is a portal based design.. I think. I thinking like SOOP...

[Emancipator]

so i guess we can say my site is not a portal by your definition :)

[ozgression]

I wouldn't consider it a portal, either. More so a content site with a strong community element. :)

Cheers...
________
herbal vaporizer (http://herbalvaporizers.info)

[incka]

I wouldn't consider google a portal at all.

[MarkB]

Google News, however, is.

[James]

Should we return from the tangent to help Topcat here, by any chance?

[Emancipator]

i think my post was helpfull. Or at least that was the intent. I keep checking to see if topcat has replied, hes probly afk for some turkey me thinks.

[MarkB]

Personally I think pinning your chances on making enough money to live on (or keep yourself out of dire straights) is quite a gamble. While it's possible to do it within a year, I don't want to get the chap's hopes up :)

[Blue Cat Buxton]

For the record, I think he's a she

[MarkB]

Chappette, then :D

[Emancipator]

yeah im with you Mark. I would NEVER put my hopes into a website. I do mine for the love of movies, and my new website for the love of it to :) It generates money, then great, so long as it covers the bills. But I am sure if people put more effort in they could make enough, where as I am only giving it a bit of effort.

[topcat]

No turkey, i is veggie..and female :rolleyes:

Cool, I think i'll keep my first 2 as smaller sites and start mulling over ideas for a larger more professional looking site to do next.

Mark, take your point on the gamble aspect of this....the plan is to contract every one in a while anyway...plus I have the financial backup of redundancy pay.

Think I'll just go for it and see how much I can achieve in the year. It's a good challenge if nothing else and I enjoy it...

cheers all,

cat

[incka]

Mmm... Nut roast...

Mark, excuse me, but I believe you have my stapler.

[Emancipator]

just remember topcat, even a huge site can be on a VERY small budget. Like less then a dime a day. Mine being point and case.

[MarkB]

Cat: I wish you well :)

[r2d2]

Cool, I think i'll keep my first 2 as smaller sites and start mulling over ideas for a larger more professional looking site to do next.


I think this is probably a good way to go. Improve and learn with a couple of smaller sites, and get an idea of what you would like to do for a larger site.

Only problem is, it can sometimes take a good while for a website to get some good ratings in the SERPs.

Emancipator makes a good point though, if you are making sites to pay bills, then that will put a lot of pressure on you, and that may take the fun out of it.

[moonshield]

wait, it is possible to pay the bills making sites right?

[r2d2]

...? Of course... Is that a serious question?

Some of the people on here make much more than the average wage from their sites.

[moonshield]

okay. Sounds good.

[ozgression]

Topcat, give it a try. If in 9 or 10 months, it hasnt worked out for you, you still have a little while to find a new job (and the payout to keep you going).

The start-up costs are small (for small content sites), so there is little risk in trying.

Cheers...
________
vaporizer answer (http://vaporizer.org/forum/vaporizer-questions/)

[James]

topcat, the last person at a forum that explained to people that they were a woman said that they were a "BIG WALKING VAGINA"--I like how you say it much more toned down.

Remember, that you should probably have a job while doing the sites in your free time, incase anything goes very very wrong you should be able to have enough money to at least sustain yourself depending on your condition at the time of things going wrong. Of course many people end up just quitting their jobs because they earn much more working online.

Emancipator, I find it unlikely you could use $3.65 to keep your sites up--domain names cost more than that!

[Blue Cat Buxton]

Back to the big site little site question - WHY are big sites better?

They take longer to put together, longer to maintain/update etc,etc, and I thought the "popular" internet craze at the moment was for small niche sites....

[AndyH]

If you get a well established large website, cross promoting a new website will instantly get it known.

[topcat]

So are you saying that establishing a large website is a good grounding for the promotional aspects of your other web sites rather than for been a sucsess in its own right?

And regarding the popularity of smaller niche sites, I was also under the same inpression as Blue Cat. I know of a some other webmasters pulling in at least a $200 per week on just 5 - 10 pages of content??

[MarkB]

My thinking is, the larger a site is, the more chance you have of connecting with people - particularly if your content is varied (even within a niche subject). Whereas smaller sites have narrower focus, and therefore narrower visitor base.

(All just assumptions, of course)

[AndyH]

I am saying "success breeds success". With an established large site, already making good money, starting another and cross promoting will get it established and making money faster. You then have 2 large websites, so then you start a 3rd...then a 4th etc.

[topcat]

oooohhhh, i get it! :)

yep, that makes a lot of sense actually...

thanks

[James]

And let's not forget that big bucks from big sites can let you buy other sites with those bucks, so you have the ability to cross-promote, benifitting both sites allowing for an even higher profit.

[incka]

I would suggest trying to compete before trying to buy out the competition. That's Bill Gates' stratergy...

[Emancipator]

Emancipator, I find it unlikely you could use $3.65 to keep your sites up--domain names cost more than that!

*pissed off rant removed*

[Emancipator]

So are you saying that establishing a large website is a good grounding for the promotional aspects of your other web sites rather than for been a sucsess in its own right?

And regarding the popularity of smaller niche sites, I was also under the same inpression as Blue Cat. I know of a some other webmasters pulling in at least a $200 per week on just 5 - 10 pages of content??

I cant say to much on this, since i typically design sites for others, not run them for myself. I have found that alot of content results in alot of people from VARIOUS niches reading.

If your selling product then 5-10 pages of content can make more then a 2000+ page site like mine. But if your relying on advertising I would think a site with more content will perform better.

I cant say for sure, I dont have enough sites to be a fair judge, but that is my cent and a half :)

[Cutter]

Big sites earn lots of money, but so do small sites. The real issue is what your strategies and goals are and how you go about achieving them -- not the size of your site. I have one very large site, and several smaller ones.

Now, here is my reasoning behind having a large site. If you have a bigger site it means you have more to offer than your competitors. In the short term this may not be an issue. 2, 3, or even 5 years down the road you may need to do some work to keep your 5 or 10 page site at #1.

That being said, I have one site that is somewhere around 400 pages. It took months to build. I have another site that took 2 days to make. My first site may be big, but it also has a lot of information you can find elsewhere. The small site has exclusive information you would be hard pressed to find on the internet. The small site started making money almost instantly, the larger one took several months. My big one is making more than the small one right now. As far as CPM earnings the small one is doing a whole lot better. Once traffic picks up on it I expect it will earn a lot more.

Heres another reason multiple small sites are better: diversity. If you are relying on Adsense you know how much advertising rates fluctuate. No matter what kind of site you are running, you know search engine rankings change. If you have a single site that is relying entirely on search engine traffic and something changes, you could be in big trouble.

Look at the big picture. I don't think its fair to say that a Ferrari is better than a dump truck. I wouldn't want to haul around gravel in a Ferrari anymore than I'd want to race a dump truck. Look at it that way. Check your expenses and income and see what works best for you. We all may be webmasters, but some of us are better in some areas than others. Some of us are running affiliate sites, other adsense, and some of us rely entirely on banner ad revenue.

Should you run big sites or small sites? My answer -- try both and see what works best for you.

[moonshield]

try both... have both. A small site is not hard to make at all.

[topcat]

ok will do both...

will let you know how I get on.

thanks for all your help.

Cat :)

[Emancipator]

yeah you know poorman you hit on it. A small site is easy. I did mine in about 2 hours. Content sites however take a bit more. :) Let us know how you make out topcat.

[topcat]

...sorry, one more thing :rolleyes:

This should probably go as a seperate post really, but....

Is it better to aim sites at the american market or the english one. E.g. I've noticed a lot of sites from English web masters are aimed at America, therefore my first one, Dr. Phil is also aimed for an American audience. However, I know the English markets much better? Is it a waste of time aiming sites at an English audience because there are simply not as many people here? Has anyone had any sucsess with an English only based site?

[incka]

I would go for US market.

[Emancipator]

topcat I would not target the US market. Target a topic not a demographic. My site is a nice broad mix of people and thats important when you are looking for readers.