Look at my budget

This is my budget plan for a new blog I'm planning to start. It's basically a "GQ" for college students, and revenue will come solely from ads. Since we're looking at students I decided to advertise on Facebook rather than Adwords. I'd like to know what everyone thinks and if there are any better ways to use this money, for example a different designer, better SEO services, etc:

Site
- Dedicated hosting, 1000GB storage, 33TB monthly transfer and domain name (1 year): $100
- Design and logo (by theappleblog.com): $3500
SEO
- 100 blog submissions (via submitcomfort.com): $25
- 80 Social site submissions (via submitcomfort.com): $25
Random
- Stickers (1000) - $150
- Facebook CPM ads (100,000 impressions) - $25

I have a team of 4 people (including myself) that will be writing and marketing, mostly doing social media submissions (Digg, Twitter, StumbleUpon, Facebook) and commenting on blogs and forums. The "sticker" idea is similiar to this: http://youtube.com/watch?v=rnHJuu-V4HQ and since we're targeting a college market and 2 of my writers are girls I think it would help a lot at first (slapping stickers all over campus, at clubs, restaurants, etc). I'm also thinking about getting XRumer for $450 but I've heard mixed reviews about it.

Any ideas / feedback? Thanks!

 

Great Plan, Good Luck.

 

that sounds good, instead of seo blackhat forum subscription I would spend that money on backlinks or onsite seo.
SEO BH forum is great resource but you dont really need any blackhat tactics especially if you are not one of those "profy" seo guys and you cant play with Google, never know when they decide to ban you
good luck with the project.

 

Pretty good plan there.

I agree with Elvirs, a sub to Blackhat may be cool (I've always wanted one out of curiosity), but you could likely do something with a more concrete return.

I'm curious about submitcomfort.com - have you used their services before? Looks like a hell of a deal.

Keep us posted and good luck!

 

That's a big budget to me.

 

Yeah, I'm gonna cut out the Blackhat subscription. I've been researching it and most people with memberships say 90% of it is just people asking questions and no one to answer them. As far as buying backlinks, how does that work? Is it the same as buying ads on higher PR sites?

I haven't tried submitcomfort but the prices are so low, I'm just gonna spend $50 and see how well it works. I'll let you know how it is. Has anyone tried any other SEO services?

 

and besides blackhat doesn't yield long term results. You can end up kicked!

 

I would change the plan a bit.

First, I would get a cheaper design. You REALLY don't need a $3500 blog design. You can get a more than decent design for $500. Then I would take those $3000 left and put them into marketing. Before I start spending serious money on marketing, I would work on the blog a bit. Don't blow all the money when you have no content. Do some easy marketing for 2-6 months while your creating content and learn more about your users. After you guys have some more experience, I would put some serious cash into SEO and viral marketing. Have some funny videos made for viral campaigns and do some SEO for the most relevant keywords.

 

I don't even know how many hours I've spent looking for designers and I probably found 3 (out of thousands) that I liked, all in the $1500+ range. If you can recommend some good $500 designers I'd really appreciate it.

 

I just discovered getafreelancer.com you can find masses of cheap labor there.
post your requirements and see if some good designers find you.
i bet you will find it in 200 usd range

 

I'd recommend http://www.vandelaydesign.com/ . Contact Steven Snell and ask for a quote. Although his prices are no longer available on his site, I remember that they used to be reasonable. And no, I'm not being paid to promote that site. It's just that I know Steven is a serious, reliable professional.

 

Based on the theme of my site I don't think that's really the style I'm going for.

Tried getafreelancer 3 times with a $1500 budget and didn't like any of them, guess I'm just really picky

 

youve got a big budget there, i would build up a bit slower if i were you.

 

Yeah, I've used getafreelancer.com and they were OK priced, but sure were slow. I had a friend recently use guru.com and I thought they did a great job with his site (uplanders.com). I think the secret to using those sites is to spend enough time planning out the site and creating a project plan with very specific milestones and then only paying when each milestone is met to your satisfaction. Otherwise you may find dealing with offshore developers a frustrating experience.

 

Interesting plan. Good luck with it!

 

$3,500 just for a design and logo?

Ouch.

But good luck with your site.

 

You can cut your Logo and startup expenses, is listed high!
Karl

 

Cut the design by -$3,000 and dump it into links and marketing over long term.

 

That plan looks like it would work. Great idea advertising on Facebook instead of Adwords, because of your niche that would probably work out the best because of all the college students on facebook.

As for your budget it looks quite good. Except the design part, you could probably get it a little cheaper...I'm getting a whole membership site set up for about $2300 and that is probably more work than a blog.

goodluck

-- Hamish

 

I found someone to do the design for $725, I like his previous work so I'm waiting on him to finish a concept sketch to see if I like it. Funny thing is he's literally the ONLY person in the <$2000 range that I actually like. If ya'll can recommend me some good designers I'd appreciate it, I'm looking for something at the same level of quality as theappleblog.com, aialex.com, and hollisterbay.com.

Thanks for all the suggestions!