Hello I'm new to this forum but from what I've seen so far I am very impressed with the quality of the replies here. Well done!! I have been saving some money for a project that I have been thinking about for some time now. The idea is a website with a lot of articles about living life and "how to" sections. The site would have a members section (free initially) where readers could interact with each other, share ideas and comments and perhaps even trade things eventually. But what would be the best way to go about this? Should I pay someone to build it from shratch, add content a start spending a lot of time marketing it? Or should I start looking around for a similar site and then try to buy it? If so what would a site with around 5000 visitors(low, if any revenue) a day set me back and would it be worth concidering?
Definately buy a ready made one. It might cost you a bit more, but if it's already got a lot of users then that's the hard part over. A load of new social networking sites fail at the first hurdle because they can't get users, so buying a ready made site will ensure that you jump this hurdle
As the others have said - if it's building a business you're into rather than wanting to learn how to code etc then buy a ready-made site... be careful tho; make sure that you investigate the sites and get proof of how much traffic they're getting... It all depends on how much money you've got to spend of course...
I was wondering: Does anyone have any experience with buying a website with members and then integrate it into another website?
Hello I am an experienced expert web programmer & designer. I can design & develop your site for more information please contact me or give me your msn IM for chat.
If your going to buy a social media site with members, get ready to ask yourself some questions. 1. Does it make any revenue 2. What type of model is it running and why is the revenue growing / declining 3. How active are the members / daily / weekly / monthly etc... 4. How much of an investment is it / what type of plan do "I" have to make a profit and by when 5. Is my model different for revenue or is it the same but I can promote in a better fashion 6. Am I going to do it myself or hire out someone to manage it. 7. What kind of dev costs am I going to have in case "I" need to add features 8. Will I merge the members into a different site vs. upgrade the site. 9. What type of member loss can I expect when I chose option A on #8 10. How much traffic does it currently get / organic / paid / referrer links 11. How good is the niche vs the market 12. What type of revenue can I expect after 3 / 6 / 12 / 18 / 24 months. Take those simple questions and then you can find a simple answer for yourself. From my point of view though, it's easier to buy a ready made site with less features and see if you can push members to it, then invest in all the bell's and whistle's and get zero members and lose a larger initial investment. You can find plenty of ready made sites for well under $1000.00.
You can find a web site you are looking for under $1000 with no revenue but fully coded and ready to go, then it is up to you to optimize and monetize it.
Well if it has income then times the monthly income by like 10 and that should give you an estimate. If you wanna code yourself then.. that will take a fair bit =P. If you wanna pay a freelancer be prepared to pay a fair amount, especially for a unique code. If ANY of this is of any use tehn im glad to have helped =D. -Aidan.
buy one already make would be easy and expensive but what if the member are no-active members or have crapy traffic... (but still a good way to go) my personal recommendation is pay some one to code it from scratch, if you can program would be better remember that starting it from scratch let you personalize it and make it original... the problem would be get traffic and user... then buy adsense ads (but many expensive) adbrite ads... pay some DP members to sign up and use your site (http://forums.digitalpoint.com/forumdisplay.php?f=105) to make seem your site like if there is many active user (people goes where is more people... i think)
That really depend on how much budget you have for the site. If you have huge budget then you should hire a coder to code a unique site for you. The revenue from ads is depend on what kind of traffic you getting,if majority is US then it should be around $5/day