Hi, ive narrowed down what im going to do I don’t want to do a bit from each as I want to go into a niche and stick at it. The whole aim to this is to put 3 months of solid work into a site, then when it comes to college I don’t have to put as much time into it as most of the seo will be done. I want to be earning around $5/$10 after the 3 months. I like the idea of running my own shop but sorting out a dropshipper is too much hassle in my opinion then there is the fact that if the customer doesn’t like what they get they send it back to me. I don’t really want the hassle... Affiliate So as a substitute to that im thinking of starting an affiliate site? After I finished 1 successful site I would start another etc etc. I see this as a good way of earning money after the 3 months are up. Blogging I already have photoshopskills.net which I could use for a Photoshop blog? I could also start other ones on top of this. My only worry here is, after my 3 months are up and I go to college I won’t have as much time to write content. Especially for a Photoshop blog where I will be posting tutorials on there everyday. Tutorial Site Pretty much the same principle as above except I wont use a blog to write content, ill hire a coder to make me a fully website with a CMS. YouTube Clone Site This would pretty much be a site like youtube but on a good niche which isn’t done very much. Out of those which would be the easiest method to earn $5-$10/day? For 3 months I have 6 hour days where I can work on it. When im at college maybe 2 hours a day. So it has to be manageable with the time I have. Your thoughts please? Thanks.
In my opinion, monetizing via affiliate offers would be the most profitable. Review sites are always a good bet as it helps to pre-sell the prospect. Out of the ideas you mentioned. That would be the quickest route to profit.
Affiliate - good odea, i havnt done this myself but it could be done with great succses. Blogging - best option Tutorial Site - this can rake in alot with good time and deication YouTube Clone Site - Maybe eats up a hell of alot of bandwith, although i have a script to bypass that. IMO i would do them in the following order. 1. Blog site. Get that earining about $30/mo shouldnt be to hard. 2.Youtube clone. I would do this next because this sort of project is quite fun, and can take of if done right. Market that for a bit and when its pulling in traffic you set 3.Tutorial site - do this next that will get you earning alot aswell 4. Afflate - Im not familr with these but i put it last because once you got your other sites getting 1k unquie a day to each of them, you could refur them to this afflate site.
Here are my 2 cents: 1. For the affiliate site, you should be careful. Affiliate sites/marketing are pretty much hit or miss, so you could invest your $300 on it and get no profits. Or you could. I would only recommend it if you have good experience on affiliate marketing. 2. The blog, photoshopskills.net. Yes, you could start a photoshop blog. This is what you could do: buy an unique template, and write tons of content to cover you for some time - not just the 3 months, but maybe a month or two afterwards. If you are planning on adding tutorials, submit them to many tutorial sites, interact/comment/contribute to other photoshop blogs. This should bring you some decent traffic and back links. Also, if you start a relationship with other photoshop bloggers, they will start writing about you, and linking back to you. This means: Traffic Recognition Backlinks For example, I used to own a PSP blog (yes, when I'm not working I enjoy a good game). It started out small, with barely any visitors. I started contributing extensively to PSPFanboy.com, one of the most high-traffic PSP blogs out there. I submitted news, tips, tricks, etc. but not from my blog. Then, when they posted the news, they would add [Thanks, ...] at the end of the article, and a link to my site on my name. I submitted tons of stuff, and I was well known amongst the other readers (I even got an offer to become one of the bloggers which made me happy - but I didn't do it). Then, I started submitting unique, never seen before stuff from my blog, and when I did it Andrew (the lead blogger) would do it without me requesting it. The result? Tons of traffic from PSPFanboy, and many other sites, because there are so many other blogs that post news from other blogs. Me and my site got mentioned at many sites and forums and the snowball got bigger, and bigger, and bigger. It got to a time where Askimet would catch over 3,000 spam comments A DAY . But then, I got involved in other niches, and slowly got away from the scene . My point is (wow, I do write a lot), blogs work well, if you know which way to go. Oh, and if you run out of content, and don't have time to write more once your 3 months are over, consider outsourcing your content. 3. The tutorial site is a good idea, but don't waste time/money on a custom script, CMS, or whatever. Get a good article directory script, make it beautiful, write as many unique tutorials as you can so they rank well, submit those tutorials to other tutorial sites/blogs, and pretty much repeat the whole blog process (make relationships, etc.). Eventually, people and bloggers will start posting their tutorials for the same reason you would if you started a blog, and afterwards, content pretty much writes itself, and that's good. If you're going to sell, people will love sites like this. I strongly recommend Article Live from interspire as a platform. It's expensive, yes, but it's worth it since it's so easy to use and design, it has good templates (plus free downloadable templates) that even someone with little design experience can create an unique website. It costs $289 for a single use license, or you could their payment plan, which is $109/month for three months, which turns into $327. But, if you manage to make at least $100 a month (which is fairly easy to do, if done by the right person), you'll break even. 4. And finally, the Youtube clone. Stay away. A niche videosharing site is great, because promotion is easy (related forums, social networks, blogs that post the clips on your site, etc...), but there are two big problems you probably didn't take into consideration. Cost Bandwidth Legal issues With $300, it's nearly impossible to start such a site. It might be enough for some time, but less-than-appropriate dedicated servers start at at least $100/month, plus script, plus promotion (other than viral methods, as described above). Then, the biggest problem is making your investment back, if you intend to keep the site. I mean, there is a reason no one wanted to buy YouTube when it was on sale, and it was until recently that they started serving more ads. (but that may be because Youtube is general, and your site would be targeted, so maybe it would be easier) The bandwidth is the second issue. Viral means people will start talking about your site like crazy, and unless you have a. Lots of spare money to pay the bandwidth costs (which you don't) b. Your own servers You won't be able to handle it. You might be asking yourself "what if my site doesn't become so big?". Then, you won't make back your investment. Sure, you'll make your $300 back, but count in all the mentioned costs and see what happens. Well this is it for now. Damn, I write too much. Is that annoying? Hope it helps =)
Thanks alot dude - helped me alot! I think im going to go with a blog and if it gets popular i'l start a proper tutorial site about it. _______ I just have more more question, as i do the photoshop blog i will obviously be learning more and more about photoshop each day but i know only basic html/css. Should i use part of my 3 months to learn to code? Or just concentrate on my blog? Thanks!