1) I was thinking of making a gaming site, giving cheats and tips of being better at it. Is it really a good choice? 2) Proxies, should I really get into it? Some of the people in here told me they have earned money through proxies, as they have like a hundred or even more proxies in their hands. 3) If I were to make a site about gaming, would it be a better choice for blog and a forum? 4) What are the general ways to gain visitors, emailing, spamming on forums? Thanks a lot.
Definatly a great idea... Video games have taken the entertainment industry by storm and there are a whole lot of people who tend have trouble in more than 1 game, so cheats, tips & tricks would definatly keep them comming back. Proxies are very popular because there are alot of school/collage students that visit social sites (out of boredom) and the campus servers filter such sites... The same exact situation goes for people at thier offices/workplaces who go to adult sites (either from boredom or habbit) and thier work servers filter those... A proxy would provide a very popular service for the majority of internet users, so definatly a killer idea. It would be better to have a blog instead of a forum, because forums require more maintainance and people need to go through a more extensive signup process, where as blogs are basically someone posting an article and people posting comments on them. In some cases, public blogs don't require signups (but they do record IP Addresses) which minimizes any inconvenience for the visitors. Emailing in general is considered spamming (rather it's ligit or not) and requires opt-in lists, which are very hard to get (in many cases expensive and illegal in some cases), so it's not very effective... Especially when you consider how many people just "Empty" thier bulk email folder. Spaming forums is risky, but can be effective if you follow the guidelines of the forum you are in. For example, I'm giving you (and many other people) advice in this forum while being discrete about advertising my own site, which is bookmarked on my signature. Viral marketing and word-of-mouth advertising are the most effective when you have a tight budget. Posting articles in Digg.com and viral marketing on social sites like Myspace and Facebook are suggested. You have great ideas my friend... All you need now is a plan to put it all together and bring this to life. Take my advice in the answers I posted to your questions and devise a plan for this. Good luck.
A blog is probably the better option until you get alittle bigger. Zaccaria's is right there would be alot of maintenance with a forum.
1) Great idea! You can buy a joomla database of cheats cheap here on DP. But keep in mind, marketing a gaming site is expensive and the eCPM is extremely low 2) Proxies, there's a winner! If you have a decent host, you can easily make $21-40/week with Adsense and then flip the proxy for $50. Meaning, you can make about $100/week with a single proxy. 3) A gaming blog might be easier if you're on a low budget. Make the blog interesting with pictures, videos, eye catching articles. 4) If you have a mailing list, you can get traffic for your proxies. For your blog, I suggest signature links on forums and some basic organic traffic and SEO can help you out.
Yeah make sure you look carefully into your proxy source. Some of them are highly illegal Russian botnets. Just a heads up.
That's not necessarily ture... What could make a proxy illegal isn't where it came from, but rather what content you place on it and who you market it to.
^ Terrible advice. If you make bad business decisions then I don't care how much you believe in yourself, you won't see a dime return to your pocket. However, you really need to have a passion for whatever it is you want to release. Also, you MUST bring something unique to the table. You can look at the vast majority of successful websites and see that they are bringing something unique and of high quality to their website visitors. If you can't do it, don't waste your time.
Tbh, gaming site is not really profitable but if you can make it big with lots of traffic, it's surely another gold mine. But rather than competing with gamespot and similar sites, I would suggest you to find a specific niche. But of course you can start a general gaming site if you have a new and unique idea, something different from your competitors (not just gaming review, cheats, walkthrough, etc.)
Wrong advice in the wrong forum my friends... People come in here to get suggestions on thier plans of action and for recommendations of services.