For several years now I have been writing content for other webmasters and wanting to eventually become one myself. For about the last 6 month I have been on the path to doing it. At first I knew exactly what I wanted; or at least I thought I did and set out to develop the site with my limited HTML knowledge. I started off with the design of the site and I though it looked pretty good until I started adding content, then it looked like crap so I started over again. Then I turned to using a CMS, I wanted static because I could host it cheaply, but that was not going to work. By going to CMS I opened up my opportunities drastically and looked at Joomla as the potential winner. Some time later I came across information regarding the resource usage of a Joomla powered site and instead started looking at Drupal which was much lighter. Unfortunately templates are limited and hacking of modules is common place to get your desired results so now I am writing, learning PHP, learning Drupal, designing the theme for the site all while trying to save money while trying to make money and planning on spending it. Now I would have to say that everything is going pretty good so far, but I am far behind where I wanted to be because of the many different changes along the way. Right now I plan on leasing some servers, that is right, multiple servers and have the money set aside already to pay for 6 of them for an entire year in full. But as things go on I keep adding, dropping and changing things so this may also change later down the road. As it sits right now, I am planning for an entire community, a magazine/newspaper style setup for the core with multiple directories like a link directory as well as user article directory. Since I am going with a server and plan on going all the way because if I do not jump in head first I will back out before it develops into anything. Its just the way I am. The site will also feature a forum amongst other things. I have estimated based on the work I have accomplished so far that I will need a full serve for the site itself just in case. As far as the other go, this is what I had planned: Originally I wanted to do give-aways and run contests on a regular (monthly) basis in which I would give away a product. However, for starters I thought it would be nice to give away 1 year full-paid hosting plans. Then I started looking at the costs of doing 3 contests a month, 12 months a year at $5/mo for the prizes or a total of $2160 per year, but after thinking about this I did not think this would be sufficient enough for the give-a-ways n the site. Then I got to looking into the potential for hosting the give-a-ways on my own leased server which actually sounds great to me, because this way I could very easily give away 30 hosting accounts every week and only need a new sever every 2 months with a maximum of 6 since at the end of a year, their free account will be completed. But then I got to thinking that maybe some type of point systems would work as well, and I debated on how to do it, how to award points, how many points would they need to get a free hosting account and the likes. Of course this took away from the concept of contests so I had to back track slightly and think more along the lines of not only will the members get points for just about anything they do on the site, but they will also receive points for winning the contests (enough for the cost of the hosting account) and could purchase their hosting with the points which in reality was free anyway, but allows people who do not win a contest to still be able to get something for free. Then It was time to get back to some more of the templating because I am not really a graphic artists so I want to do it in small chunks and so far the latest design which I will skin Drupal with is looking quite good after many attempts with bad looking designs. Then its back to the design of the website itself and contemplating the concept of moderators and editors and the like. Basically I have been thinking that in the newspaper/magazine section which is the core of the site, and has roughly 90 categories in 10 sections, that the users could "win" the right to be the "editor" of a section for a certain period of time which after that there will be another contest to get someone new. These "editors would have the right to monetize their articles through an AdSense revenue sharing module I picked up for the site. After their tenure their articles would remain and they would still be able to make money from them indefinitely which means that they would be making money in their position but that left forum moderators making nothing. So in all fairness, i contemplated giving the moderators of the forums and other areas a wage of so many points per week that they could use on the site's shopping cart feature and purchase hosting or other products as I am able to add them. Maybe it is my anxiety level that is causing my brain to race every which way, but I still wonder if I have gotten myself in over my head; I am more then 75% finished with the development of the site. What I am hoping is that other webmasters have had this much to deal with with their first major attempt at a website. Should I continue on and struggle through the PHP and hacking I need to do to the modules and core to get it to wok how I want it to, or should I just stop and use my savings elsewhere. I know that if I can get the traffic then I can get the give-a-ways to pay for themselves based on per site user value. How I came up with it is scary to even think about right now, but I am pretty sure it is fairly accurate. I figure that a new member who add only a single small comment (a good comment though, not spam) is worth no less then $0.05 each and it goes up from there depending on the amount of time they have been a member, how active they have been and the likes. What are y'alls opinions on this concept and should I keep pushing forward even if it means another 6 months or more in the development stages? -WorldWide
Well I can tell you are a writer. You're 75% done, I say go for it..at least get something going even if it's not quite what you wanted, feel things out..see how things work out, then modify. Sorry I don't have more to say, goodl uck!
I think you've taken a simple idea and expanded it way too much. Start off small, get yourself some steady visitors and then expand your hosting and operations. As for the actual site, if you're 75% you may as well go for it if you think it's a good way to invest your time. What exactly are you trying to achieve on your site that requires so much editing? Most CMS should have the basic functions built in, but I've yet to try Drupal.
Well, yes of course they have the basic functions built-in or can be added through a module of some sorts, but those functions are limited to the needs of the initial developer. Take the points system for example; it is fairly robust and gives you a number of options, but as anyone knows, when there are points involved there are bound to be people who will game it in an attempt to get more points then they actually deserve such as writing short responses with only sentence fragment. The module does not include a means of controlling this which has to be added somehow. Basically, with the points module I have two areas I need to add, the referral points need to be modified so that they do not actually issue any points until x amount of time has passed and x number of points have been generated by the referred user so as to prevent abuse of the referral points. I think this is important because I am factoring in that 1,000 referrals at $0.05/ea = 1 full years paid web hosting from the average company. Basically anyone wanting to refer their blog visitors etcetera would not be affected by it, but someone who tries to get someone to create thousands of accounts would not receive any points unless those visitors have been active for a set amount of time. The second area is cutting down on those who will leave short and useless comments to another post, article etc. through using a sort of "was this comment helpful" setup. While one or two thumbs down may not do anything, the user can loose points every so many thumbs down. Then of course there is the customization of the output of blocks of content. The sign-in form for example is designed to function a particular way, but I want it to be completely horizontal and does not require the user to be taken to another page after sign in which requires some hacking of the code since Drupal's login form is vertical and loads a separate page after signing. Most of it is basically monotonous and time consuming changes to the code in order to format it, while some of it requires more in-depth changes. On top of this, the amount of resources the site uses on the server is largely dependent upon the number of modules and database queries that are made. I can reduce this by combining certain modules that I want to work side by side as one. Doing this I am able to reduce the site as of right now by 5 modules and 4 database queries for every single page view. I was reluctant to try Drupal due to the learning curve. But I have found that in comparison to other options like Joomla and the like, it also uses a lot less resources. If you take the time to research large scale sites on the various CMSs, you will notice a pattern. Most Joomla based sites I have heard about that get more then 1 million uniques per day, require at a minimum of 2 load balanced servers and 2 database servers to run efficiently. At the same time a Drupal 5.x or later site with similar credentials can accomplish the same feat of traffic on a single server. Monetizing a website of that caliber can be very profitable, however getting that traffic is no easy task. That is what the contests, points and give-a-ways are all about. The give-a-ways for starting are shared hosting packages. Based on 240 sites per server (which is actually better then many "paid" hosting servers) I estimate that I will be giving away 120 of them monthly. Let's take HostGator for example and look at the Baby plan which will give you a number of features that I like. It is $7.95 per month. 120 give-a-ways in a month at $7.95 x 12 months (full year) is equivalent to $11,448 worth of give-a-ways every single month but is only costing me 1/2 of a dedicated server. Let's say the cost of the server is $150/mo times 12 months divided by 2 = only $900. Based on my previous post, a new user without a post is worth $0.05 which at that rate I would only need to have 18,000 active members on the site to break even. If I had 18,000 active member and was giving away 120 free hosting accounts every single month on a website whee most of the visitors will be web masters and people who are contemplating making money through the internet, then that would mean you would have a 1:150 chance of winning a free account every month. So I do not perceive traffic as an issue for the site, making sure that everything is in the right place and set up to handle the traffic is another story. For the record, if I went with Joomla, the site would already have been launched, the difference between using Joomla and Drupal in my case is about 25% hacking of the code to get the same affect. -WorldWide
I'm sure it would help us a lot if you simplified what you wanted, maybe use bullet points because it is very confusing and time consuming going through the multitudes of paragraphs. I myself probably will not be able to help you because I have no knowledge of PHP, only intermediate/advanced XHTML and CSS.
If you need to learn joomla without having to install it on a webhost or on your own computer, here is the link : http://demo.joomla.org/ If you still think you are in over your head, there are others who can do this for you. I seriously doubt you will exhaust the abilities of the Joomla extensions. If you are simply talking about learning PHP to do an installation, just have someone do it for you. It is done once, and some webhosts even do it for you, such as hostgator. What the site looks like is completely taken care of by templates you can purchase online, such as at bestofjoomla.com. If you are too perplexed with Joomla, use Wordpress, which is a few steps below Joomla in abilities, but will get you going online with your own site. Remember, today's web standards ( and of course Joomla also ) will completely separate the content from the presentation. What your site looks like can be changed in seconds, leaving the content unchanged. Good luck.
I agree with steelfrog's comments. I've seen countless internet projects fail from trying to do too much at once. Start simple and have a development plan where you incorporate additional functionality etc. over time. Otherwise you'll get too swamped starting at step 50 instead of step 1. Jonathan
This is a bitt offtopic, but it's in good meaning. You clearly have a great writers hand, have you considered doing affiliate marketing and write articles? You can earn a lot if you write enough articles. Just a tips..
Coming from a community based background myself which started with a few articles and links to other websites I can tell you that you do need to start small. I started with 5 pages of articles and got them online. I then started adding bits to the site slowly as more and more people visited my site. Trying to start big means that your project take too long to get started and is too much hard work. Its easier to spread the work out over a peroid of time.
I decided against Joomla even though I was basically ready to launch the site shortly after the holidays. Joomla is easy to install and manage, but for what I needed, it was going to use up 4 times the server resources then going with Drupal. Matter of fact, I have the entire Joomla set-up still ready to go on my testing server and could easily pack it up and install it on the server as it is now, but it is a resources issue so I am staying clear of Joomla for the time being with this project. I am already writing. Matter of fact I write about 10,000 words a day for other DP members. I am making around $2,500 per month from writing and since I live in the Philippines, my monthly expenses have been only $500 per month. The rest has been going into savings. The website gives me more freedom to write articles for myself and as such if I were to write in all 90 categories on my own, I could very easily update every section every other day. I am too lazy I guess. You see, if I signed up for regular hosting to run a community site, when it gets too large I would have to migrate to a dedicated server anyway. Of course that is if I am luck. If I am unlucky the hosting company would cancel my account and I would loose everything. It is just easier to lease a dedicated server a year in advanced which gives me plenty of bandwidth, resources and disk space to play around with fine tuning everything. Actually, I have about 350 steps in all separated into 4 separate phases. Everything is outlined and is highly detailed. I have a 2,000+ page MS Word doc that I have been using that is filled with design sketches, layouts, navigational information and sections of the site. My quote on being 75% completed is based on the listed outlines I have set out for the website in my plan. My goal for the site in reality, is that I need only $2,000 per month income and everything over that will get used for other things. If I can get the site producing $65,000 per month, I can hire 100 local developers to create applications that I can make available on the website to all members that can be purchased using the same point system as the hosting. But that is in phase 2 of the site which one of the requirements I have set out allowing me to start on phase 2 is a prerequisite that the site makes $50,000 per month. In all simplicity, the site itself can be separated as such: The magazine/newspaper: 90 categories in 8 sections (Advertising, Marketing, Brokering, Communities, Infomediary, eMerchant, Domaining, and Subscription). I can keep each category updated with a new article every other day by myself. Forums: Community based, will need some moderators to help with this in exchange for weekly "pay" points on top of their ability to continue earning points through their things on the site Directories: a) Affiliate Program Directory: community based allowing members to use their affiliate links when adding new listings. They earn points for every new listing as well. b) Website Link Directory: community based. No points earned but allows members to add all of their websites to it if they see fit (even if they have thousands) c) Article Directory: community based, users earn points for adding new articles. Tools: Have not decided on this yet, but basically it will cover the various tools that can help webmasters. Some may be affiliate programs some may not. Basically a review area for webmaster tools. Web Design: Most likely will have to wait until Phase two so that I can hire a full time web developer to keep this area filled. but will try to add something on a regular basis. Eventually I will have contests that will allow members to take over for me in the newspaper/magazine categories, one person per category (90 in all) with a mod for every section (8 in all but all mods regardless of the area will be appointed not won). Users who would win these sections and categories will be able to revenue share using AdSense, however they will be sharing with each other. The site will not have AdSense (other then the users'), but rather my own privately built ad network consisting of custom banners and affiliate links (its a little more in-depth then this but you get the idea). -WorldWide
Okay, good luck with Drupal. I want to look into it also, when I have time. Did you say above that you are running your own affiliate programs ? If so, is there a plugin for Drupal for that ? ( or for Joomla for that matter... ) Thanks.
A+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Don’t try to eat the elephant all at once. Eat the elephant one bite at a time, and hopefully you won ’t start with the tail.
WWPinoy, I join those who say you're a great writer. If you've never done webmastering before, you will find that it is extremely hard to drive traffic to your site. I usually suggest that newbies start with a WordPress blog under a subfolder (e.g. yourdomain.com/blog) and if they get the grip of the game, then add other features like forums, directories and a portal on the root. However, in your case, if you're 75% through, I wouldn't want to discourage you saying its all nonsense Think of it as a learning curve, regard it as your hobby. Don't concentrate on money-making as that will drive you in the wrong direction. Nobody can guarantee you're going to make money. There is no bullet-proof money formula. If you like what you're doing, just go on with it and see where it gets you eventually. Good luck!
Actually, to do your own affiliate progams, what you want to do is to sign up to several niche to your topic, then get a simple "banner rotation" plugin or module depending on the CMS. You can create your very own banners and even point them saying click here unlike with AdSense. You are in control of what ads are seen. The only difference is, is that instead of getting 1 check from Google you may end up getting hundreds of checks from affiliate programs. It's basically creating your own ad network. I look at it this way, if I am lucky I will get $0.05 per click with AdSense and their TOS can be a pain sometimes. Or I can sign up to several hundred affiliate programs that are in my niche or close to it, make several sets of banner (to see what layouts and colors work best). If you have a crappy conversion rate of like 1:100 then with a program that pays out $50, you will be making ten times as with AdSense. But if we say, a 10:100 conversion with a program paying out $100, then you are making $10 per click. With the same conversion on the previous example that comes out $5/click. It's much more profitable to tell Google to #%^%* off and make your own that way you can guarantee relevancy Agreed, that is why the servers and the like I am paying for it all up front to cover the cost of running the site for the next 12 months. Well that and the fact that I always have issues with monthly credit card payments and the Philippine banking system. That will give me an entire year to play around and focus on clearing up the bugs and developing the site.
Bold and color are mine : I was thinking you had software made to have your affiliate program. Someday it will of course be that way. Everyone will own an automatic adsense program or clickbank simply by being online. Software will allow the webmaster to have an "instant empire" affiliate-wise and not have to pay to use someone else's site again and again. Thanks ! Good luck...
Phase 2 of my website includes this. I want to work to develop so much monthly income which will allow me to hire full time developers to create programs which everyone wants, and then offer them in exchange for the points earned. Since the points are earned and not paid for, then the programs would be free. My goal is $68,000/mo which would allow me to hire up to 100 programmers locally... Imagine the possibilities -WorldWide
I imagine that computers will eventually just write their own programs, maybe soon. Maybe in the not too distant future, if you want a web site, you just get a computer, get online and everything is done automatically, just like you want it to be. Imagine a 7 year old child wanting to make a website, and they get online, speak what they want ( speech recognition software ), and they immediately have a site that has their own PPC network ( that others can use ) their own clickbank-style affiliate network ( that others can use ) ... okay you can see where this is going...