Hi people! Im starting a Free Dating Site. This project will be target South America including Brazil. It will be in Spanish and Portuguese. Also, I have about 100, 200$ for my monthly Ad Budget (AdWords) What do you recomend me to do? What steps should I follow? Thankss!!
I do not know too much about the South American market in particular. How do the best regional sites do ? Normally, dating is a highly competitive niche and it needs quite some effort to get to the top.
Yeah I also think that that market is pretty competetive, and to stand out you're going to need a strong advertising campaign along with unique and original features. Maybe try and advertise through affiliates? Or a mix of both.. Good luck to you, -nMx
The problem is I don't see how to maintain the integrity of a dating site if it is free. This is the first issue you have to address. Rich
Firstly, it's very hard to starts a dating site. I always wanted to do it, but I knew it would take a couple of $1000 dollars to get it going. Now that you probably arn't going to listen to that, let me give a little advice. If you are going to start a dating site then you are going to have to dedicate your life to promoting it for a couple of months. You got the monthy adwords taken care of and that's good. Bringing people from all over south america is good. With that, you should submit to directories, do seo, do the social bookmarking thing, etc. What you think it's over? It's never over because you have dating site and a dating site without 800+ plus active users and a couple of thousand people who are registered it pretty much dead. So you are going to have to advertise local. I do hope you are actually living local to south america or you might as well give up or put in more than $200 a month. Here's how you do it if you live in the area. -Talk to as many as your friends -Make them talk to their divorced mothers, other friends, reletives, etc -Go to the mall with 500 little adveritsing sheets and place them on the windshields of cars (run away from security if they chase you) -Go to bulletin boards on your local city and post an ad about the site. -Send mass E-mails to everyone on your list -talk to local radio, newspaper, and anything like that and beg for support to have a spot for you. -Go down your phone number list and call everyone. Make them join. etc. Do this in only "ONE MONTH". If you take 6 months to do it then you've scattered the traffic too much and the site won't get hot. You want it to get hot because it'll get popular so fact that it will multiply when people mention to their friends how amazing the site is. (Just in case you didn't notice, I'm kind of an online business planner)
Advertise your site. Get referrals, directory submissions, the usual stuff. You've got to maximize your customer base.
if you dont have any user , people will not join your site. you must add some users before you start paying for the ads
thanks guys for all the ideas. Indeed it will be tough and I will have to work my ass off. I know it will requiere a LOT of work... I will have to fight against Gigants as Match, AdultFriendFinder and companies like that. I have some pro and cons. Pros: -I know many people with big businesses as Movie Theaters, Radio Stations, etc which will help me to advertise my website. -Im from South America (Paraguay) and I know the market -I can work with a huge Ad Agency from my country to design my campaing. -I have tons of Viral Marketing Ideas -I have tons of Business Exchange ideas such as Advertising Exchange, etc. -I can imagine/create many unique services for my website Cons. -I have a very short Budget -I have NO CODING SKILLS which means I have to hire a Coder. I think those 2 problems are very important because even though I have the rest without those 2 I cant go anywhere.
1) scrape members from competitors sites (morally right? hmm> 2) focus on cities and areas within 100km first and develop those out, then expand outward. 3) ppc and do STRONG ppc kw research..can u say longtail, and wordtracker? 4) be prepared for some work. 5) do your research on plentyoffish dating site, and read what shoemoney says about him...its pretty funny..AND informative. g'luck
The dating niche is very competitive. If I were you I wouldn't go into shark-infested waters (match.com, and all those multi-million $ companies) But I can tell you really want to make this work. And if you are, you're gonna have to change your attitude into one that is a CAN-DO. Even if you don't have money. And turn your ideas into concrete actionable steps. The worst (or best) thing that can happen is that you'll learn a lot.
Thank you guys for the help! I apreciate that. I know that Im going swiming in shark-infested waters...what so ever Im really convinced that I can take some part of the market, I just need a good business plan and a good website. Which I think its not too hard. I will start from the very buttom so... Now guys, what are the best way to generate money with a Dating Site? AdSense?
Also, do you think it will be better to create a partnership/alliance with a professional coder so he/she will help me up in the development of my project? Or should I pay one everytime I need one.
If I were you, I would put half of your budget into adwords, the other half into buying links and blog reviews about your service. Also, spread the word outside of the internet. I started a dating site over at OrGSync.us for a minimal startup fee and without any advertising, I already have members! I am willing to sell if you do not want to start from scratch! PM me for more details.
Thanks for the advice. Im hoping to do some Radio Advertising for free (I know the radio station´s owner) lol My other big concern is about the coder. What do you recomend? I dont really trust GetACoder and stuff like that. Also, what are the best way to generate money with a Dating Site? AdSense?
NOT adsense...do an affiliate program..heck, once you kick your site off, start your OWN aff program for YOUR site...
If your site is not built yet, you can try some of the open source dating scripts. This way you can save money on the script as well, or maybe even get a free script. It's just one more way to cut corners.
Hello, Maybe gift product affiliate programs, or flowers affiliate programs, etc.. My 2 cents, Jakomo