The $500 site project - update
 

As some of you might remember, I posted a few days ago that I had quit playing MMORPGs and was planning to start a site to fill up my newly gained time, and find out how hard it would be to start from scratch today with a minimal budget and limited time.

I've been doing a bit of planning, and have finally decided to go with a small network rather than a single site. Below is the basic outline of my current plan. Some details are omitted, of course, since I have nothing to gain by giving away marketing strategies.

Sites:
-main site (hybrid, includes blog, tgp, and some other things)
-4 blogs
-1 toplist
-1 fake tgp

Numbers aren't set in stone, of course. What works gets scaled up, what doesn't work gets killed off.

The hybrid site will be the hub of the network. It's intended to gain bookmarkers and SE rankings. Content will be high quality, being surfer friendly is the main goal. Will be a great timesink with few noticeable results in the first 6 months. Replaces World of Warcraft :1orglaugh

The blogs are intended to bring SE traffic and quality traded traffic into the network. Each will, at the start, get 2 high quality posts a week. Results in the first few months aren't likely, after that the search engines should start picking up some posts. These replace Eve Online.

The toplist is intended to distribute traffic through the network and exchange some stale traffic for fresh traffic. Replaces LOTRO (did I mention yet that I used to be a complete gaming addict?)

The fake TGP is intended to bring fresh low quality traded traffic into the network, and maybe make some sales from sponsor galleries. Once I find a design that gets decent prod, it will get a few thousand bought hits a day to keep volume up.


Since it has so far been way more fun than I expected, I might cheat a little and add some extra budget, as well as some of my own traffic. I'll make sure to stay within reasonable limits of what someone who was completely new in this industry could do, though.

I'll give another update when everything's up and running :thumbsup

I heard it all before.

I'm like that single mom with 4 kids and the man is saying............

i like threads like this, i think they really help some new affiliates just starting out and give them some guidance, which in turn will be great for the sponsors

i wish every new webmaster did something like this (instead of trying to scam a quick easy buck)

thumbsup

Cheers,
BV

Sounds like a fun project. Good luck on it, and hopefully it will be a more lucrative use of your time. :thumbsup

Good luck -- looking forward to seeing/hearing about the fruits of your labor.

Anything is lucrative compared to paying $10 to play a video game


I say, as I boot up WoW and wait for WotLK :1orglaugh

please don't

ok, feel free to add budget, but don't use any of your existing traffic sources or in that case this experiment is pointless

most people starting can have some small budget to start, but noone has already existic traffic so it's either bought or gotten for free from scratch...

What he said.

Yeah, I suppose you're right. No point in testing it if I'm gonna skew the odds in my favor.

I'll keep the budget under $1000, and won't feed the project any traffic, mailings or hardlinks. I'll even refrain from using that old domain that would have been perfect for this project :(

but you still know all your old tricks so you already know what works and what not. so you should go get your memory erased as well. lets make this real! haha jk. This should be a good thread.

Good luck on that project of yours.
I am busy doing something like that, but a bit bigger, into 4 different niches.
Hope it works out well.

Bump for the RARE good post on GFY. Keep us posted on your results.

BTW - if you start jonesing for some MMORPG action try smoking a couple bowls of crack. I hear it's less addicting. ;)

Good job on quitting MMO's. I wish you all the best dude. And keep up the good work.

If you want it to be realistic I don't think you should throw in your own traffic and I don't think you should use connections or your personal knowledge of what sponsors work. Remember that newbies will pick shitty sponsors and will not be able to trade with a lot of people because they don't have any contacts and have no idea how to interpret their traffic logs, click thrus, etc. In fact to make it more realistic you should purposely do some things wrong to balance out all the things you will do right just because of your experience...or get your memory erased as the other poster suggested ;)

I like threads like these (I know I just registered but I've been reading GFY since 2003) but they never accurately reflect what a true newbie could do.

-Mindy

....i agree

Well, I started in '98, and my first ventures in adult basically consisted of "freesite freesite freesite freesite freesite hub freesite freesite freesite freesite freesite cj freesite freesite freesite freesite freesite linklist freesite freesite freesite freesite freesite" etc.

In the past few years, my work in adult has pretty much been limited to managing a few existing sites. Meanwhile, I made most of my money with a few mainstream companies. Right now, the real project I'm working on is "cutting out the middle man" for a fairly large mainstream affiliate program I own part of. And yes, "cutting out the middle man" means taking over the market share of affiliates I've had drinks with. In case you're wondering - I do go to bed feeling like Lucifer.

But back on topic, most of my knowledge doesn't apply to the adult industry in its current state. So, it's actually almost as if was an actual noob.

Good luck with project!

We'll go to hell together baby ;)

looking forward to you completing this...so many of these threads never complete

Well, I've got one of the sites mostly up now. Still trying to find decent domains for the others.

what niches are these?

That's one of the details I'm omitting :)

Nice, hit me up when the blogs are on their way and we make some trades :).

So how is this going?

toe da top

wait till someone bumps your "blog project" thread toe da top :winkwink:

I'm lucky I've never had any interest in games.

Cant believe you gave up EVE, :(

I bet he's back to playing MMO's again :1orglaugh

See you at Ulduar tonite!

On another note, you SHOULD use everything you have learned, but explain it in simple terms.

Then its of great value to someone who needs to make a plan like this work. And allthough they may not have the same resources, they can see what you did and try to emulate it.

:mad: :1orglaugh

fuck, you just reminded me I actually have it, maybe I should start a new one? :upsidedow

That always works.

Time to hop online! Patch 3.1 tonight!!!!

As a veteran wow player you know that means you really won't be able to play for another week as they work out all the kinks.

great post... I look forward to hearing more.

J.

Hahaha.... see? PROOF that there is no money in porn.

True, everyone doing porn should jump it now.

Excellent, shadowpriests got buffed :thumbsup:1orglaugh

They took it down for emergency maintenance... ugh :1orglaugh

This thread is useless without posting your experience in adult.

Let's put it this way: if I really had to start from scratch to make a good living, adult would not be my industry of choice. Or even in the top 10 on my list, for that matter.

On the bright side, I did find out about a program that was perfectly willing to fuck over what they thought was a new guy, not realizing what my actual business account was. That was entertaining enough to make it worth it :1orglaugh

fuck, I was just done installing the patch :(