When i was reading through the forum I had an Idea I wonder if it would be an idea to setup a mentorship program so that the more expierenced guys could guide someone who is developing their first website.. If all the correspondance was via a thread then all of us could benefit. There would obviously need to be a benefit for the mentor a cut of the profits or links etc... If it is possible to do it maybe we would have a mentor for affiliate programs one for adsense etc.
the mentorship program sounds like a good idea to me. it would be good to have a mentor, an experienced person, to guide you through your first online business.
It's a nice idea, but I'm not sure how easily implemented it could be in terms of Mentors being able to profit from it too.
Well with luck it will enhance their karma and they will come back as a Las vegas show girl's g-string in the next life. (bet that has offended someone...sorry)
i also have my doubts over whether a mentor can actually profit from it....but mentoring's a good thing to do and as tommo said maybe it'll enhance their karma so anyone out here wiiling to guide newbies - become a voluntary mentor to ppl starting or struggling to establish their online businesses
I guess it is a crazily difficult thing to implement, but there are cases in which it could work. Here is one that I would like. I am coming up with a specialized website. The domain name is good, the content is all good and original. If someone could handhold me through the SEO, traffic generation, rankings phase, I would be happy to give them all the AdSense generated on the site for the first N months. The value of N would depend on the roles that the person and I are playing. I would want one of the big rollers in AdSense to help me through this.
Why does anyone need a 'mentor' to do well with a website, there's plenty of material freely available here in this forum to get you up to where you want to be.
I think tommo has a good Idea but maybe not complete newbies, I bet some people would hate to mentor somebody tru the basics (html css, ftp,etc).
I would love it if there was a thread which showed all the steps on marketing and SEO . Tommo good idea! ( i'm off to give you rep )
SOmetimes there's nothing better than to learn from a master or pro. Not all knowledge is free on a forum, and a lot of information out there is misinformation. I personally would love to learn directly from a high profile SEO,SEM. There's nothing wrong with a mutually beneficial relationship. Some people might be able to prove themselves and get a job.
Dunno about the mutually beneficial part. The "mentor" would certainly find it more beneficial to himself if he spent that time building himself a new website and not hand-holding a newbie. In fact, the only thing I could see in this for the mentor is an ego boost.
And what makes a mentor a mentor, just because someone is very succesful in their field they : 1/ May not have the skills or knowledge in your genre. 2/ Would not offer help if you were in the competition in the same genre. What works for one site/audience may not work for another, there are a plethora of skills needed to be a webmaster and many may be very knowledgable in what they do but in a more specific genre as regards what does and doesn't work, imo. All the general guidelines/help for starting a site can be found for free on forums like this.
Amen... I guess that's why I would be hesitant. With SEO, it's not really an issue. I have clients that I used to know nothing about, now they rank well for the terms they should be there for.
We all have the world at our fingertips. The number of tutorials available online abound. Why reinvent the wheel? Post your questions and you will find they are freely answered. Shannon
I actually did once try a formal mentoring thing, through my small business forum. I arranged a small group of people, and was going to lead them through the whole process of building a successful website. They expected me to do everything for them, and when they realized I'd expect them to do the work themselves the thing fizzled out through lack of interest on their part. The reasoning I had for trying that project was to see what I could learn out of it. What I learned is that it doesn't really matter how much you teach to people, they have to motivate themselves. Everyone likes the idea of making money, but very few people are going to actually get off their asses and do it. The kind of people who feel they need to have a mentor aren't going to be the ones who are motivated to succeed on their own.
Not everyone its like that. I have seen some people starting around here and other forums and you can easily tell who just want easymoney and who wants to wrok their A** off for a better or diffrent kind of living. I started in february and have worked very hard to learn all the related stuff. I learned HTML,CSS, Learned webmastering basics, Working on learning php and webgraphics, learned basic SEO. I am very proud of my 7-9 bucks a day. Would I enjoy some nice teaching from a high profile SEO,SEM: Yes, some others around here might like that too.
Getting your site doing well for certain search terms is only a small part of being a successful webmaster, learning how to run a site, server, deal with visitors, monetize visitors, add value, products, deal with transactions, analyse stats, legal issues, expand and survive would not necessarily be available from one mentor. If the question was purely SEO then perhaps.