I am currently considering a plan to develop on online website/service, and I am hopeful that fellow warriors might be able to provide me with some guidance and advice on whether or not they think it is pheasible. My domain is www.ewebreview.com (Cost of Domain $7 p.a) My hosting is $2.95 Month Now I plan to set up the site to focus on providing customers with quality and detailed reviews, along with advice and consultation regarding their website. Basically providing them with a review, and suggest improvements they could make to enhance their site and increase traffic. From a customer point of view, they will get a review of about 1500 words. The review will also be listed on my home page (Like a blog) acting like an article for their site. They also get a link on my homepage helping with backlinks and exposure. Anyway, I have created a mock up of exactly how I want the site to look and operate. I have recieved a cost estimate from a developer who i have developed an online relationship with, and I am just wanting to make sure that the cost estimate is reasonable, and that it is worth the investement. The site involves about 7 pages, includes development, design, Header design, the set up of PayPal button, the Set up of Google Adwords and basically tailored to my needs. The cost estimate has come out at around $500, and I will manage it through Wordpress. So i am in need of advice, whether people think the idea is worth the investment. I have listed some questions below. Does $500 for the development of my site sound reasonable for my service? Does the idea of my site sound workable, or is it one of those things that has been tried many times before and failed? What sort of money can one expect to make through Google Adsense? What would price range do you think customers would be willing to pay for such a review / consulting service? Any advice / thoughts would be appreciated. Cheers Jake
Save your money mate. Right now you have no "authority" so why would they come to you ? or are you going to them ? Do you have any past results that you could prove ? If you really gonna do it then perhaps build a site from scratch and market it too the top. Or find a website that you know you could improve, do it for free and then use testimonial as proof. Its very hard to get started unless you have an authority stamp.
G'day Michael Thank you for your response. My idea stemmed from last year, when on this forum, I was peforming numerous amounts of free website reviews for forum members. You can see the link here: http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showthread.php?t=428826&highlight=jake+howard There were over 230 posts on that thread, and over 2000 views. I believe that this was because I was offering a service that people thought was quite good. Anyway, I have decided to base my site on this, and I amn confident that I can provide people with reviews that they are after. Thanks heaps for your response. Cheers Jake
You should not invest $500 in this project. I learned this the hard way however I am happy because I have learned an invaluable lesson. You should set it up like a blog (WP) and code your own design and it is easy to set up a paypal button yourself. The main thing you should try to achieve is to get a PR. For my newest project I have said to myself that I am not going to pay for anything except domain costs and hosting costs, this way, I am forced to improve my coding, graphic and design skills and it is free. good luck with your project.