Turning Nothing Into Something :) A "How-To" Guide You Need To Read

Hi,

I have been wanting to start a new site for a while now, but something different. I have some great sites that are in progress, the problem being they are requiring funds - and lots of them. So, I got an idea!

I'm going to start off with nothing, and make money (hopefully!) This is something alot of people have been trying to do for a long time, so listen in.

This thread will be like a tutorial, you can watch me go and use the things I do right, and learn from the things I could have done better! I will valuable your input, feel free to make comments, give praise, give constructive criticism, offer help and guidance.

(I added this in as I was reviewing the entire thread - just a note that if you want a summary and not a thorough reading and understanding, skip to the bottom of this post where I have made one)

Okay so first, I needed a site, an idea, something which will be able to product revenue. I picked a craze - link bid directories. Some links on sites with PR5's and 6's have been going for around $150+.

First step: Analyse the market

Strengths:
- Making a lot of revenue
- Can advertise for free on forums

Weaknesses:
- Lots of them
- Might be de-valued by Google

Opportunities:
- Get a great design and stand out
- Make sure they know I care about the site, and it will be there for a long time and isn't a short term get rich quick scheme (very important!)

Threats:
- Other link sites, directories
- PR toolbar update soon, more competitors will get higher PR

It is important to do this, and I'll explain why. First, I know what I need to do:
- Stand out with a unique, catchy design
- Make sure the sites PR is pretty obvious
- Make it as quality and reputable as possible
- Obtain a lot of backlinks to ensure buyers get a good link
- Add some content! Get both more visitors, and make it more unique and quality

Here is the design I came up with [look] (incase the site isn't online)

Lets review the design, and the analysis we did earlier:
- Stand out? Yes
- PR viewable? Yes
- Quality? Added backlinks to show strength, uniqueness adds to quality, also going to add (though not on the design) "Founded 6th July 2007" because it will show its been around for a while in the future.
- Content? Erm, my bad I'll add an "articles" section to the menu and then write new articles every fortnight

To get money for a domain, I sold a wordpress theme design for $25. I sold another one aswell for $25, to get money for the script from www.phplinkbid.com

Paypal Account: $50

We're in business

I came up with a domain: www.shoutlinks.com. I also purchased www.shoutlinks.net, and www.shoutlinks.info (my first mistake? a waste of money?)

Why shoutlinks? Because I wanted it to be unique, and the domain "shouts out" at you, which I believe is also shown through the design. Uniqueness, and quality!

Paypal Account: $30

Bought the script from phplinkbid.com

Paypal Account: $0

Awww

Did 2 more designs (okay.. not everyone can design. Do whatever you can freelance. You should be able to make at least $20 a day, even if you have no "skills" as such and do basic work such as writing, uploading, posting)

Paypal Account: $50

Paid for coding: $45 for valid xhtml and css, tableless. Again, quality!

Paypal Account: $5

Okay, so racked up $95 already! Wow. I have though:
- Unique and cool design
- Very well coded
- Very good script
- 3 domain names, 2 of which will be redirected to the .com

So much for "nothing into something". Should have called it, $100 into something! You can do this aswell, I worked to get this money to start the site, I could have done it for less if I had done the coding myself, bought just the .com and used a free script (none of which I could find that didn't suck)

Again though, quality. Cheap designs + cheap coding + cheap script = tacky site which won't be viewed very well which means less profits!

I believe one of the fundamental keys to business is to make sure your product/service is of benefit to the customer. By making my site really good, I am giving them more benefit than alot of my competitors for a good price!

Okay, so I have the site up and running (well, its being coded at the moment but shall be online within a day of this post)

I need to market. I have vowed now to keep this as cheap as possible, meaning a lot of DIY. I've been reading through the threads on DP for some ideas, and here they are:
- Add to my signature
- Social Bookmark (will save for later.. best used on content, not on homepage as it won't product very good results for this kind of site)
- Directory submission (I have limited patience with repetitive tasks, so I am going to grab a few beers and submit to around 100 directories with good PR [4+]
- Links for .edu and .gov (I'm going to find some forums on .edu and .gov sites and build up around 100 quality posts. In about a months time, I'll add the site to my signature there)
- Become more active at other webmaster forums (10 forums = more chance of sales than just from 1 forum) Also, more sig links!
- Find some blogs which don't have nofollow on comments and leave a useful comment

I am not going to submit my site to any search engines, they will pick up on my site through my signature and other links I will get. Also, I am going to make sure all posts and comments I make are of quality, no spamming useless junk.

At this stage, I am 99% sure I have missed out on this pagerank update. This gives me time to build backlinks. I think for a low budget, that link baiting will be the way to go. I am going to think of some ideas tonight, and would appreciate any ideas other people have got (my skills are designing and seo, so something along those lines probably) Besides, it gives me a couple of to save incase I want to purchase any backlinks from PR 6 or 7 sites (around $30 a month nowadays)

Some people are probably going "oh your so cheap, why would I spend money buying a link on your site when you don't buy any?" Well! I have two main reasons:
- Paid links, and links from link baiting are the exact some, just ones cheaper
- I need to make sure my site is worthwhile in the eyes of SE, and buying links could damage that, so could spamming them, so I'm going to avoid both of the two.

This is post is very long, but hang in. You will learn so much

Okay, so we are getting somewhere!

I have now:
- Awesome Site
- A plan to build backlinks
- A plan on where to sell

These lead to:
- Quality site with good value to pass on through links
- Content which will get visitors, and therefore more backlinks and sales.

It is my goal to get around 5,000 backlinks and get a PR 5 by next PR toolbar update in about 3-4 months time. You should set a goal aswell, it will help you keep on track.

I still have $5 leftover, which I shall save for any emergencies.

In Summary:
What you should do to have the best chance of success:
1) Find an idea
2) Make sure its workable
3) Find a way to make money to buy designs/coding/scripts/content/links (freelance writing, designing etc is the easiest way)
4) Make a SWOT analysis (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats). Make sure you do everything in your power to eliminate the weaknesses, use the opportunities, and minimise the threats
5) Pick a domain. Short, easy to remember.
6) Create/find a quality design. Don't pay anymore than $50. If you want to know where to get some for less than $50, PM me and I can show you (also keep an eye out in the templates section)
7) Get it coded. Anywhere up to $50 is okay, anymore and you aren't getting ripped, but you aren't keeping costs down. Make use of H1, H2, meta tags etc
8) Buy an scripts if need be. Try searching www.hotscripts.com first to see if there are any free ones available you could use.
9) Get some hosting. I have a friend who has plans from $5 a year (I use his hosting, so it is quality), PM me and I can give you his contact details
10) Remember, make sure everything is quality! Don't cut corners, it will hurt you in the long run!
11) Build a backlink plan. Set an achievable goal. If you are planning to do SEO, make a list of keywords and use them as anchors in your links.
12) Add to your signature. Your site will be indexed soon, and you should get some clicks from interested forum browsers.
13) You should already have an idea of how you are going to make money. Now is the time to re-evaluate it and see if it is still the best option. It is good to look in the "sites for sale" section and see what people who are successful have done
14) Get some content, as unique as possible. Link baiting is a good idea! Update regularly to keep visitors and search engines happy
15) Work on the backlinks, the more, the merrier!
16) Analyse every week. How much time did you spend (very important! If you make 5 cents a work, will it improve soon? Is it worth your time to continue?), can you be more productive (get off DP lol. There is a lot to learn, but you need to actually spend time applying the knowledge!), how did sales go, which sales tactics worked, which didn't work, can you rework the ones that didn't work to make them better, should you put more content on... things like that which you can improve
17) Praise me for owning a successful site!


I have followed all the steps outlined above (except for the last ones, which I will do once the site is online later tonight)

What do you think about www.shoutlinks.com? What's good, what's bad? I'd encourage people to comment, and also post their site so others can comment and help you (this thread is about helping everyone, which makes us happier and also richer! win-win-win for everyone!)

I am going to put some free wordpress themes up to download aswell, some of which are really awesome, aswell as 5 free logos you can use, and anything else I can find/think of. Suggestions would be great! If it sounds good I'll make it for you and then release it for free for everyone to enjoy.

Thanks, and hope this was very helpful for you! I would love comments, thoughts, areas to improve/other strategies, and for people to post their sites so that myself and others can help you

PS. I usually use 1 smiley paragraph, it was really hard only use 4 this entire time, which is why there are so many exclamation marks instead!

 

I will try them. Thanks rochow. Reps added.

 

Great post.I like the name and the design.This post will help you:
http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showthread.php?t=358610
It's the best social bookmarking sites.
Good luck with your site.

 

Thanks for your comments

I'm compiling a list of things which will be useful aswell (directories, useful blogs, etc) to help out some more

It would be awesome if you guys could comment on my strategy (the big list of steps in the summary) and say what can be improved, added, removed

 

lol, just had a question on my test (uni) about the SWOT module. seems you put is to use here.
or am i completely wrong, in which case move along, nothing to see...?

 

Yep, learnt swot way back in business at the beginning of high school and used it throughout

It will be up in about 10 hours

The site design is here: http://www.themeoutlet.com/ShoutLinks2.jpg

I'm installing all the free wordpress demo's now, so that people can download themes when the site is up

 

Great Post. Rep added. I will really want to see how this goes

 

Ok guys, you can literally watch me work.

Here is the xhtml and css (few errors)
http://www.shoutlinks.com/index.html

Here is the intergration with the script I am working on right now, and will continue to until its finished
http://www.shoutlinks.com/index.php

Here is a subpage (looks nasty atm lol)
http://www.shoutlinks.com/automotive

I would love to get this launched tomorrow!

 

looks very nice, btw, the link to the subpage should be http://www.shoutlinks.com/automotive/ yours takes you to the main index

 

Thanks for pointing that out! I was just letting everyone see the error 404 page

I had to remove the yahoo badge, kept devalidating the code and messing up the layout - plus it didn't work. I'll try and add it in at a later date.

Some rep for you

 

Very nice post. I really love this kind of "how to". Good work, and rep+ for you.

 

Hey man amazing post. Rep added

 

Ok it's 2am, thats it for tonight. Had abour 4 hours sleep last night, and 5 the night before

It's pretty much finished. If you guys can give it a beating and find any errors, files which I haven't formatted yet or anything, it would be appreciated

 

The formatting of the FAQ page is screwed up in IE and the bookmark link doesn't work, other than that it looks great!

Congrats man

Btw, it says "buy a link from $1" but the minimum bid is $3

 

Bookmark is because I altered the code a bit, I'll switch it back and it'll be working again

There is an FAQ page? Oh yeah I completely forgot about it! I'll have to fix it up aswell.

 

is this open now then rochow?

 

Yep sure is

Homepage: http://www.shoutlinks.com
Freebies: http://www.shoutlinks.com/freebies.html

I am willing to make freebies! Wish, and it shall be granted!

I am also offering free hosting in exchange for using my avatar, packages start at 500MB of space and 1GB of bandwidth a month!

Check that out here:
http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showthread.php?t=394320

 

cool, gonna shoot you a PM

 

Update:

Site is now getting backlinks loading in yahoo, and about 10 pages have been indexed in google so far.

Alexa was at 40,000 at one point Marketing budget to get that, $0

You can see the rank here:
http://www.alexa.com/data/details/main?url=http://www.shoutlinks.com

Go "traffic details -> rank" and you can see the graph

 

great post, keep working.. your site looking good....