How much would it cost to make a successful website like cars.com?

i asked this question before on other websites but people that dont know anything seemed to answer it and had answers like "free, 100 bucks, millions, etc..."

Assuming i want to compete with cars.com and autotrader.com with a similar website, how much would it cost me to make and see great results?

what would it cost to build the website? design, graphics, database, etc...?

What would proffesional SEO cost? Im talking on-page seo, on-site seo?

What would it cost for link building? "target = 5-7 PR within 2 years. Initial cost?

And, what would the equipment cost? Servers, etc...

Guys, please dont include monthly costs... I just want to know the initial price for such a project...

Price approx not including domain, internet cost, staff, advetising...

Could i have a proffesional estimation? thanks

 

a site like auto trader would cost you round about 30 thousand us dollars...
and in 6 months will take you to beat auttrader...and thats included cost in design, graphics, database, seo, cars...everything..

 

so your saying if i pay 30,000 USD i will have something like autotrader? thats all? seems a little low....

 

you will have one empty site All content you need to create yourself also auto trader is well known today which will be not the case with new site ...you need huge money to spent in marketing.

 

I don't think you ca beat Autotrader unless you do offline marketing,remember,Autotradter has good offline marketing like weekly magazines and TV ads,thats how they get good results.

I would say it'll only take $10000 USD to get a site like cars.com and autotrader.

 

You mean just to get the site or the marketing as well?

The key to success is in the marketing effort not the site. You could have the best website in the world but it doesnt mean it will be a success.

 

60k-120k ? maybe?

They are really successful, you could hire all the people build it and promote it but there would be no guarantee you would make it successful.

 

Hehe Anyone here saying they can do it for under $200k I will hire. I'll pay you $200k to make a site that competes, within 5 years, with cars.com. Don't be crazy folks; it'll cost you a few million to try to pull that off. There are big companies planning that kind of 'take-over' but they have the cash to sustain and if it fails they don't go broke.

 

I think it's not that hard to beat cars.com and autotrader.com
There are thousands of thinks you can do to beat them, I have run accross questions like this before and did my little research.
I think you will need from 100K to 200K since you are talking about servers and so and so.
But I were you, I will first start by hosting my site somewhere else, then when the site starts growing, I will try to move it to my own servers.
It could take as low as 6 months to be as competitive as cars.com and autotrader.com but you need to understand something else these two website will continue growing until they rich a phase where it will be harder and harder for them to grow, in other words you will go thru the same thing yourself, the good thing for you is that you already have two models you can follow.
Learn first to avoid as many mistakes as possible in the beginning, then work hard to take care of your image.
There are the basic few things you can start:
* customers reviews
* bookmark the site
* tell a friend
* follow us on twitter
* add to facebook and myspace
* rate such and such section
* viewers suggestions and comments
....


If you know how to explore your viewers, you could make your website succeed. What you need to do is give them initiatives to push them to come back. Prizes, sweepstakes, online quizez, online trophies, gift certificates and so and so.

One of the main things you need to invest in is your logo, make sure it's eye catching, something easy to remember...

Over all, all you need is about $500 to start, building the website shouldn't be that hard at first.

If for any reason you need my help, I would be more than happy to show you many other things you can do.

 

If not hard, do you have any sites you made really big like these? http://www.cubestat.com/www.cars.com => alexa 1500, quant 400, compete 400? And everyone knows it, very good serps and great content?

You have any examples in which you show that this is 'not that hard'? Because if what you say is true, you are certainly a millionaire running some huge sites and not; http://www.cubestat.com/www.checkthisup.com ?

If you can do what you say (which seems unlikely), let's team up and make a few of them, we'll easily sell them for over $1 million per site. What'd you think ?

Thanks

 

Lets team up and do it... lol

For example, proffesionals estimate that it would cost about 50,000 dollars to make a website like facebook, that includes everything but the servers and the price is hiring people off shore. Facebook didnt advertise and they became really successful now making around 300 million in revenue a year.

So if i was to make a good cars.com type of website that offers people good tools, free ads maybe, etc, people will come and use it..... Thats why i only wanted to know the price of the website itself. I have a domain for it allready and a PR of 2. Just gotta get the money and the right people to do it.

 

To be honest, money isn't the main thing in online success.
You gotta know your audience first in order to be successful.

If it was me, I would first research the market very thoroughly.

Then most likely with a budget of $60-$100K would be on my way to compete with AutoTrader after about a year.
Once again, that's IF you know the market well.

I strongly suggest you don't get into that niche however.
With sites like craigslist and Kijiji, I doubt people will still use sites like that.

If you do end doing it. Best of luck, and there are virtually hundreds if not thousands of ways to market it.
The very first step is you should make posting free and moderate and validate your submissions.
This way there are lots of content and quality ads.

Once the site is popular enough. Start charging money.
That's just the simple way of doing it. But you must have a developer to help you modify the site and upgrade it at anytime.

 

Wow there's so much BS information in this thread.

First off learn a thing about Cars.com and AutoTrader.com. They aren't simply websites. They are actual companies with many employees. They make millions and they spend millions on advertising. These websites have been around for well over 10 years. They have an already established presence and are considered a house hold name.

While it may only cost a few thousand dollars to build a similar website it would take a LOT MORE money to compete with them.

I work for a large franchise dealer in New Jersey. I've built a New Jersey based website for dealers in nj. I pull their inventory from XML feeds built by other companies that list their inventory online. We have a $10,000/month budget we use to pull traffic from Adwords and Yahoo. From that source alone we receive about 8,000-12,000 relevant visitors a month. We also have a print budget where we market in several publications... Major local presses and Auto Shopper magazine. From those sources we spend about a couple thousand dollars a month and receive about an extra 1,000 visitors a month. We also use signs and even have a "commercial" displayed on the super market TVs in the deli departments through out NJ. With a budget of over $150,000/year and an online presence of 2+ years WE DO NOT COMPETE WITH CARS.COM AND AUTOTRADER.COM. However, since we chose NJ as our niche...we do quite well there.

You can't compete with those giants unless you have several million to invest and a few years of time.

Edit: And to add... we don't even break even financially when customers sign up and pay to list a car for sale. We make our money through dealers. AutoTrader.com could shut advertising down today and still receive a million visitors. If we shut down advertising we'd probably receive a thousand visitors for the next year.

 

What would drive the car dealerships to advertise on your website? How will you get the word out about your new website? You're talking thousands of dollars in advertising.

 

So much, that it's impossible not to reply to it.

What's your marketing plan (objectives/strategies/tactics)? Are you going to be different, or simply make a photocopy of cars.com with slightly better SEO? Did you do a strategic analysis? Revenue forecast? How long will it take you to break even? Will you have to pay licensing costs? Do you have a competitive analysis of your competition that includes their annual ad spend, number of viewers & revenue? Do you have a premium domain name? What is your advertising budget, can it compare or outdo that of your competitor (of whom has enough budget money to advertise during the SUPERBOWL), and what is your link building strategy? Can you afford to spend $200/article & press release for a professional link building/article writing firm (as opposed to an amateur from some message board) to build links for you? Do you have a venture capital firm supporting you? How about a staff of developers, designers, and a marketing team?

Without all of this clearly defined and ready to go, and without the support of a venture capital firm, this is a huge waste of time and effort.

 

In regards to a AutoTrader -Most of you all forgot where they started- Being sold as a "magazine" in delis, bookstores etc... They still have that distribution today. AutoTrader is synonymous with finding used (mainly) vehicles... They have a long road still for the new car market.
-=Chipmunk=-

 

I would say it depends. You can grow big. If you can do e.g. webdesign or link building yourself, then that's a big plus for you.

 

I just want to say it is not impossible to beat cars.com .
but for u to beat them u dont need alot of money,, but u need something unique ,, something u can offer ur clients that other websites dont ,, if u cant then dont waste your money
because if you just gunna copy some other website then there would be no reason for people to visit ur site ,, personally i would go with big more trust worthy websites ,, unless u will offer a deal that cant be refused
google was small but offered something unique ,, facebook ,, twitter, , all these websites did something that was already done ,, but they did it in unique way
u gota provide a service that is better than the competition at price lower than the competition (american gangster)

 

i completely agree with view33... all you gotta have is unique concept or same concept in unique style..... after that you don't worry about the site cost....it will be much less than what you been expecting if you have unique concept that no one has yet offered then trust me i will drag u on top......

regards,
raj

 

No one can tell you the exact cost you've to spend for it.