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Investing 2 million USD in starting a lead generation business – please advice

Discussion in 'General Business' started by Domainsguy, Oct 11, 2008.

  1. Dreads

    Dreads Well-Known Member

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    #21
    If you have $2million, with this current crisis?

    i would actually wait a bit, but if you are really into starting it, then i would only invest a max of 5000 because thats all you will need.

    Server? 150 a month at start
    the site with skin and flash? 100?
    domain ? 10?
    i mean other then that i would use 4000 and buy websites and domains.

    Buy 10 very popular websites (400 each) and then place adsense and get a return + you your link in the footer.

    I personally beleive you can go far in the internet world with 2million 0o
     
    Dreads, Oct 12, 2008 IP
  2. kozyavka

    kozyavka Active Member

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    #22
    I hope you are not gonna invest 2 million USD in order to earn 2 million. Spending 500,000 in order to earn another 2 million seems reasonable tough. I would personally invest only 50K and find an investor for 200K in case I have a very good business idea. I mean a really good one. But it seems that you don't have one yet.


     
    kozyavka, Oct 12, 2008 IP
  3. Ikaruga

    Ikaruga Active Member

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    #23
    This is so Adsense linkbait, lol.

    Why the hell would you be asking us about handling 2 million when you could be talking to a real CPA consultant/professional for quality advice? Nevermind...the whole premise is stupid. If you're stuck trying to figure out "what kind of domain would be worth $20,000" instead of learning the meat and bones of the CPA business, you can go eat lightbulb shards.
     
    Ikaruga, Oct 12, 2008 IP
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  4. DigiPick

    DigiPick Peon

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    #24
    I wouldn't spend that money, I would be better on bank interest.

    You really don't need that much money, its rather more about skills then simply investing.

    And if you have the skills and you need this much, there is no problem at all, go ahead, I would myself get a loan if I have the skills and I'm sure to make profits, but if you are doing for the first time, you don't need that much.
     
    DigiPick, Oct 12, 2008 IP
  5. Domainsguy

    Domainsguy Peon

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    #25
    Thank you all for your answers. Of course I am not relying on advice from a forum to make this investment; I was just interested in hearing what the general opinion here was. Unfortunately some of you don’t seem to understand that these top placements are very competitive. Let’s take the segment credit cards for example:

    If you do a Google search for credit cards you’re going to find that creditcardguide.com is the top ranking site for this segment. Now, let’s do some basic crunching of the numbers. According to adwords there are approx. 3 million searches for credit cards per month. Say that 50 % of these visitors wind up on creditcardguide.com. That means that they have 1.500.000 visitors per month from Google alone. Say that 0.5 % of the visitors actually apply for a credit card (7.500 applications) and that creditcardguide.com receives a commission of $30 (properly higher in reality). That means that the site makes 225.000 dollars per month just from its Google traffic. (And I bet you this is not even half of what they actually make). Of course there are costs involved in this business as well but still they are making good money.

    Now, since I’m a firm believer in markets I don’t think it would be possible to reach a top 5, or even top 10, ranking on the search word “credit cards” with as small an investment as 50.000 dollars because basically, there is just too much money in it for that to be possible.

    Of course there are going to be costs to uphold a good site that provide a real value to visitors, so part of the 2 million will go for that. We will probably have to hire at least 2 people who work full time with content writing and do general maintenance of the site.

    I’m still very interested in hearing your thoughts on this so if we put the question like this instead. If you had 2 million dollars, how would you work with SEO and marketing to have it reach a top rank in Google for the keyword “credit cards”? (And note, the money does not have to be spent all at once). I've gotten some comments regarding diversification and I intend to do this for up to 5 segments, but I want to start slow and learn from one before making a larger commitment.
     
    Domainsguy, Oct 13, 2008 IP
  6. Sem-Advance

    Sem-Advance Notable Member

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    #26
    See and some people thought you were stupid.

    Actually the problem lies in the fact that there are not 3 millions searches a month for the term "credit cards".

    Heres why

    you did a search and had no intention to applying for a credit card you simply wanted to see who was # 1.

    Now imagine 100,000 SEOs do 5 searches a month for the term.. see the problem???

    So that 3 millions is probably 1 million.

    Next of those 1 million most will be "research" mind consumers looking for information but not actually applying for a credit card. Not sure SEO is all that great a foray considering ROI potential.

    What one should do is investigate the competition,

    Stats For: creditcardguide.com view site >>

    Daily
    Ad Budget: $373.71 - $7.26k
    ($1,273.89) (-25.03 %) Avg.
    Ad Position: 8.1
    +0.17 (2.19 %)

    Total
    Clicks/Day: 508 - 858
    -1375 (-66.82 %) Avg.
    Ad Competitors: 19.9
    -0.1 (-0.52 %)

    Avg.
    Cost/Click: $0.42 - $9.98
    ($0.01) (-1.80 %) Avg.
    Ad Percentile: 59.26 %
    -0.01 (-1.79 %)

    Avg.
    Clicks/Day: 1.97 - 4.11
    -6.0 (-64.53 %)

    What we can learn is the paid ads drive targeted "application filling" traffic.

    Noted in my analysis the site has used Paid Search Since July 2006

    Considering they spend $30.000+ per month on Adwords PPC, and for over two years, it is safe to come to the conclusion that paid search marketing works very well.

    Additional marketing spend may be better served using display ads on relevant sites.

    :D
     
    Sem-Advance, Oct 13, 2008 IP
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  7. metros

    metros Notable Member

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    #27
    To invest so much money for 1 niche.. that's pretty bad idea :)
     
    metros, Oct 13, 2008 IP
  8. cosminx2003

    cosminx2003 Active Member

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    #28
    I don't trust you that you have 2 milion $, someone who has 2 milion $ doesn't ask on a forum for advices :)
     
    cosminx2003, Oct 13, 2008 IP
  9. Domainsguy

    Domainsguy Peon

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    #29
    Of course the 3.000.000 searches will not all be quality searches. However, I dont think that 7.500 applications resulting from this no. 1 position is an exaggeration. Probably, it's even higher.

    As regard to your investigation, those numers are very interesting. Where did you get a hold of them? I guess PPC might work for this specific segment but I'm sure they are not raking in the dough. Probably, they are coming closer and closer to break even on the PPC for every day that competition increases. That is at least my experience.
     
    Domainsguy, Oct 13, 2008 IP
  10. KeywordsandCopy

    KeywordsandCopy Peon

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    #30
    As noted, I don't think you will need to go anywhere close to 2 million to get up and running. Reconsider your expenses, and then take things from there.
     
    KeywordsandCopy, Oct 13, 2008 IP
  11. Cruelio.com

    Cruelio.com Peon

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    #31
    He's certainly not relying on DP Info but testing hte waters. It still doesn't seem like you have your stuff planned too well though.
     
    Cruelio.com, Oct 13, 2008 IP
  12. tinimini

    tinimini Peon

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    #32
    2 Million isn't too much? a well promoted and branded campaign for a website shouldn't take more than $10,000.
    t least i believe on my skills i would do it easily with that much money.
     
    tinimini, Oct 13, 2008 IP
  13. whatevz

    whatevz Banned

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    #33
    I think it's a risky idea, but best of luck to you.
     
    whatevz, Oct 13, 2008 IP
  14. levampire

    levampire Active Member

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    #34
    Just Make Sure You Keep ENOUGH money to survive in the current crisis.
     
    levampire, Oct 13, 2008 IP
  15. fortify

    fortify Well-Known Member

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    #35
    To build something big I use $500 so maybe use $10,000 if you want something really big. The domain will be extra though
     
    fortify, Oct 13, 2008 IP
  16. BlueIce08

    BlueIce08 Member

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    #36
    If you have 2m I would suggest investing it in something that would make you a lot more money in the future.

    Like the others have said to invest in a lead generation company 2m is far too much.
     
    BlueIce08, Oct 14, 2008 IP
  17. SilkySmooth

    SilkySmooth Well-Known Member

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    #37
    According to the Google Keywords Tool the average search volume for that keyword is 2.7 million per month. Even when you take into account the fact that they are using PPC and what Sem-Advance said regarding SEO's searching the term, etc... I tend to agree with your numbers on a basic scale.

    It might be possible to get up to page 1-2 with that kind of investment, but as I said in my original post, you would need a quarter of your 2 million to seriously take on this niche and be able to sustain it until the site is making sufficient income to sustain itself.

    If I had 2 million dollars to invest, the way I would work with SEO and marketing would largely be very secretive so that I don't give out all of my tips and tricks for other people with 2 millions dollars to come along and knock me off my perch :D

    You already know the basics, unique content, article submission, etc. For more advanced stuff you will really need to hire someone or spend months and months learning like most others here do. Even though there are a great number of knowledgeable people on this forum, very few give out their best secrets.
     
    SilkySmooth, Oct 14, 2008 IP
  18. Fratal

    Fratal Banned

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    #38
    $2 million? Don't invest that much. That's over doing it. I would invest $100,000 at max.
     
    Fratal, Oct 14, 2008 IP
  19. AfterHim.com

    AfterHim.com Peon

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    #39
    If you're set on wasting money by asking a bunch of people in a forum, I'll send you my mailing address and you can send me a check. You'll get the same ROI.
     
    AfterHim.com, Oct 14, 2008 IP
  20. jerry12

    jerry12 Peon

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    #40
    I think you may invest in something better. A new search engine for example.
    There are plenty good ideas all around.
     
    jerry12, Oct 14, 2008 IP