ideas for a new site

I'd really like to start up another website, but I'm struggling with ideas as to what to do.

My first love is the NFL and the Washington Redskins, so naturally I started up a fan site dedicated to the Redskins a few years ago and it's been great! I love running the site and the site pays for itself with ads and google adsense.

I'd like to start up a site where I can make some money, but also something I enjoy.

What do you take into account when starting up a site, do you do it strictly for money, interests, a combo of both?

I brainstormed a list of ideas today, but nothing is jumping out at me.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

 

Interest is important, or else you won't have the ability to stick with it and keep making it better. I always start with my interest, and then determine if it might be profitable as well. Sometimes, the first idea doesn't seem profitable, but a different twist on the same idea might be.

 

Matty I find myself in your shoes time to time. But inspiration hits anywhere. I've found that I can't force myself to get that spark -- it just happens.

When I got into web development, I started my site around my interests. I figured that I should do what I know -- but that isn't the best strategy.

I now treat every new website like a business. How are the readers going to be? How much money is in the topic? Who is my competition? What are the growth potential for the topic? How much of my time will be needed for updating the website? Who will design and code? Where can I get new information on the niche? What are my keywords? What affiliate products will I be able to use?

Those are just a quarter of the questions that I ask myself.

Planning is the most important part and I usually try to look at the big money picture (how much money is this going to generate per hour of my time?).

 

One big issue I see now is finding good sites that consumers can go to to complain or file complaints against companies they have had bad dealings with. These sites are important to consumers and a good site IMHO would not only be a good service but also a money maker. IMHO

 

thanks for the advice!

 

Maybe you could list a bunch of stuff that interests you, and we could all pitch in and make recommendations around those interests..? I know I work better when I have a little something to work with - so get us started - post some of your interests and we'll have a go at brainstorming some site ideas - who knows, someone may even have a great domain name or content to get your stated.

 

People will tell you to stick with what you're interested in.
If you're doing the site as a hobby, then that's not bad advise.

If you're going to run the site as a business, then build it to make money. It's amazing what you can become interested in if you're making money at it .
Start writing out ideas, develop business plans, project income, project expenditure required to generate said income, and then if it's worth the effort start building the sites.

Again, the process all depends on why you want to make the sites. Are you aiming to make a living from them or just some extra spending money ?

 

It all depends on your motivation. I go just for money right now, but I will do something strictly for pleasure in the future. If your goal is money then you have to come up with idea and plan by yourself.

 

Ok here's my plan for now, feel free to shoot it down or offer up some advice. I want to start up an amazon affiliate site where I review CD's, books, movies, video games, etc. I'm a gadget buff and I think I'm reasonably knowledgeable in the area.

I'm not looking to replace my day job (even though that would be nice don't get me wrong), I'm just looking for a way to help supplement my income a bit and have some fun in the process.

My Redskins site is great but I'm just looking to branch out a bit and try something new.

I'd definitely welcome any suggestions for a domain name!

 

Hi Matty

Good for you trying something new. However, I can see two problems:

1) Amamzon pays a fairly low commission rate.
2) Your reviews will be competing head-on in the SERPs with .... Amazon's own reviews. With their PR, you know who is going to win. (Amazon pages have such high PR they pop up even in a lot of pretty unrelated searches.)

Sorry to be negative, but these are two things that sprang to mind.

 

Is there any way you could monetize your Redskins site more?

 

yeah good points, I was thinking the same things the more I looked into it.

Oh well, back to the drawing board!

 

I've posted on this topic before, but what the hey-

My first site was a book review site (SFReader.com), still up and drawing 500+ uniques a day. I sell around 30-50 books a month off it, but guess what? Average book goes for $8, avegerage comission on that is 40 cents. You have to sell a BOAT LOAD of books to make any money. Same applies for DVDs. Average price is higher - $15 - $20, that means - .75 cents to $1 commission (at 5%). Ug. Plus there are a TON of book and movie review sites out there, so the competition is pretty tough.

In any case, think of it like this. If someone is looking for a book, they are prepared to spend $8 to buy a book. Likewise, if someone is looking to buy a DVD player, they are willing to spend $100+ to buy a dvd player.

Book comission: 40 cents
DVD player commission: $5+

So if you're going to build a site to sell something, give serious though to what you want to sell.

Far better, I think, to explore ways to merchandise your current site. New sites can take a while to get going now and Sports stuff is always big. There's plenty of decent merchandise you can populate your site with. Search engines are developing a bias towards affiliate sites that are nothing more than regurgitations of products already available from a 'real' store. Adding you own reviews will certainly help in the content area, but you'll be spending, say, 45 minutes to write a movie review to sell a DVD that will make you (maybe) a dollar each time it sells. Over time, it has potential, but it will take a lot of effort to get it rolling.

My suggestion for a start is to add a 'sports movies' section to your existing site and do reviews of sports movies and books: Field of Dreams, Mr. Baseball, Any Given Sunday, etc. Give them the Amazon click through to buy and see how it goes.

 

Also consider something you would like to learn about, not just stuff you already know. that can give you a reason to do some research and reading before you build the site.

It's great way to expand your horizons

 

It could work if you grouped 5 or so products on the same page under one keyword phrase for Each Page and ranked them according to which ones you liked best. You could also make a forum (to complement the site) and have others post their Product Recommendations and you could make money off Adsense without having to work to post up links.

 

I agree with most of the comments above...give us some more of your interests and we'll help find something.

 

Good idea about the forum and Adsense, Smeagol.

 

You might try adding some sports betting affiliates on your redskins site. You could also setup a "league" of sorts on your forum where people can talk about good bets they've made or good odds for upcoming games.