Anyone Developing at the moment?

[philiporchard]

I'd also be interested in hearing about how you market to schools Phil. We're currently moving towards targeting schools for a completely unrelated product and are going through a few marketing techniques.

Rob

Direct mail to all primary schools, full page ad in the leading primary magazine, Adwords, banner ads on a leading primary website for teachers, email...

 

[SF]

It really doesn't sound thats the direction you're heading in if you're talking about developing a site every week

I was going to get wordpress theme get a nice logo done, buy content from content supplier prob indian written and then hand to seo company?

 

[Murray]

I was going to get wordpress theme get a nice logo done, buy content from content supplier prob indian written and then hand to seo company?

Hmm you were too obvious with this one wind up merchant lol

 

[Retired_Member38]

I actually think he's half serious.

 

[SF]

I was joing a little in last one but i am totally serious.

 

[BeachLife]

Last week purely for fun as I had a couple hours free I set myself 2 hours to buy a domain, add a site, add some content and get it live, the result was Carzaa as you'll see I've not added anything since the day it went live. Few posts on a few sites and it's had around 1000 uniques so far. Note it's not setup to make money, made it purely from an interest hobby point of view.

Does it update automatically, or are you providing the posts manually?

 

[Retired_Member38]

I was joing a little in last one but i am totally serious.

If you genuinely think developing a site every week is a viable idea then I think you're beyond help. I would seriously suggest giving up and trying something else not related to developing sites at all.

 

[mat]

To be honest I once set myself the task of making a site (or more) a week, albeit the correct way, with loads of content hand written by myself. At one point I was writing over 10,000 words a day.

I nearly killed myself while I was doing it, but they are still up today and bringing in good money with very little or no updating.

 

[SF]

To be honest I once set myself the task of making a site (or more) a week, albeit the correct way, with loads of content hand written by myself. At one point I was writing over 10,000 words a day.

I nearly killed myself while I was doing it, but they are still up today and bringing in good money with very little or no updating.

Yeah thats what I want to do mat.

 

[ian]

I remember about 10 years ago when I joined affiliates4u that churning out micro sites for niche products was the popular thing...I thought the scene had moved on since then tbh, but I see it is live and well

I'd personally prefer to focus on a larger, brandable website, with a long term view to profiting from a large corporate sale rather than commission based sales and advertising, but I guess that just depends what position people are in to support the development without the revenues coming in.

 

[mat]

Mainly in niches that have worked well for me in the past but also others based on new ideas.

You do need to be prepared that many of the sites won’t do anything. You will spend days of solid work on sites that won’t even end up making a penny. But by keeping at it and getting some "just right" they will reward you for years to come.

I have updated some of the better ones, made them responsive, more useable and added more content to even further target the niche.

One of the main advantages of having all these sites is that some go up, some go down, the income tends to average out no matter what happens with new Google updates. It has been like that for over years now.

I am definitely putting more effort into long term projects now, but they are a nice source of income to have ticking over in the background and I am glad I put in the hard effort a few years ago!

 

[DaveP]

Yeah thats what I want to do mat.

No, no, no. Long gone are the days where you could knock something up in a week and profit from it.

No dedication, no gain.

 

[Retired_Member38]

Sean's plan to build lots of sites may sound like a waste of time these days but if we exclude his time, his financial exposure is pretty low and if he's been realistic on the subjects that he's chosen to develop, then who knows what can happen? He's certainly not sticking all his eggs in one basket, like building a single, more sophisticated site would be.

You can't promote the sites without a reasonable budget though. Even if you said say £500 total budget per site build, including content and promotion, I still wouldn't expect the sites to perform well.

I think You'd spend £26,000 before you'd even made £1k.

 

[mat]

Interesting, is this a full time job for you Mat or do they not earn enough to pay a living??

I make a full time living from the Internet, not from those sites alone, but that being said I could live off the money they make.

 

[Retired_Member38]

I understand and I see the logic but I was questioning if the chances of success are greater just because you stick to one name and spend money? I can see that at face value it's probably giving you a better chance of success but is it still a slim chance. Whose is the greater risk?

If you assume a £100,000 budget I'd bet on one single £100,000 site over 1000 x £100 sites, any day of the week.

The former gives you a chance of pulling off something great. I think the latter would leave you bald, stressed and penniless.

 

[DaveP]

Monkey is absolutely correct. As I said above, LONG GONE are those days.

 

[mat]

By the way I do also agree with what Monkey, DaveP and others are saying here. Many of my sites I feel were made in the "sweet spot" when you could easily rank emds and content sites overnight with not much effort.

They still stand well today, but having tried similar things recently it is not something that can be achieved near enough as quickly or easily, which is why I am working on more longer term projects.

 

[Retired_Member38]

(this isn't aimed at Mat, I don't know him and don't know a single site he owns)

but "making a living online" can mean a lot of things. From living in a £5m house, fancy cars, holidays, awesome lifestyle and earning 6 figures a month, to still living with your mum and doing a little bit of affiliate stuff here and there to add to your Job Seekers Allowance.

This doesn't just apply to acorn but i do see quite a lot of what I think is absolute crap advice being handed out from people who say they do it full time... but then when you look a bit deeper there is no real substance to it. Cut off parental or government support and they'd be on their arse :lol:

 

[Retired_Member38]

Anyone one here spent this kind of money or a sizeable amount and was it money well spent?

I've tried it a few times, some huge failures, some huge successes. If you're earning well from other sites then not quite so bad but to wake up one day and realise you've lost a quarter million quid... it sort of puts a dampener on the rest of the day :lol:

It would be a massive risk if you were working a regular job, had a site idea and were just going to pull all of the equity out of your house to give it a try. You've only got 1 crack at it then, and it might all go horribly wrong through no fault of your own. And you'd already know there is no realistic back up plan.... it would be stressful.

 

[mat]

(this isn't aimed at Mat, I don't know him and don't know a single site he owns)

but "making a living online" can mean a lot of things. From living in a £5m house, fancy cars, holidays, awesome lifestyle and earning 6 figures a month, to still living with your mum and doing a little bit of affiliate stuff here and there to add to your Job Seekers Allowance.

This doesn't just apply to acorn but i do see quite a lot of what I think is absolute crap advice being handed out from people who say they do it full time... but then when you look a bit deeper there is no real substance to it. Cut off parental or government support and they'd be on their arse :lol:

I know what your saying Monkey. Im not a millionaire, but would like to think my advice and experience has some weight. I make enough to pay the mortgage and enjoy life through my own sites and handful of clients.

The stuff you say is true and you speak with way more experience than me and most on this board, but I like to give people some hope, as its not all doom and gloom and putting in alot of effort through multiple sites can and does make money.