Absolute beginner advice anyone?

[slowhost]

Hello all

I have dabbled with websites in the past but never actually concentrated on one to make money from.

Anyway work has been quite for a few weeks (self employed) and i`m looking into doing anything i can to stop me from watching Wheeler Dealers or Judge Rinder all day.

I have a degree in media so the technical side of things I can do but they only really taught us to create a site and any content could be pinched from previous sites as they were for college grades only, I am just struggling where to start with things and am looking for examples or DO`s and DONT`s really.

Obviously I need a website with traffic, but I will be starting from scratch (either an unregistered domain or with little to no traffic).

I would prefer to create a site I know something about so I can add my own content instead of paying for it all.

I`m sure there isnt a sure fire way of making even £1 a week never mind £100+ a week, although I would love to see any website that makes this amount.

Anyway any advice would be grateful

 

[martin-s]

You can't make anything without traffic. Read this guy's blog and you'll be on the right path: http://backlinko.com/

 

[Admin]

You've answered your own question. You don't have funds to pay for content creation so you need to start in a niche you are knowledgable and / or passionate about.

 

[slowhost]

I have funds to pay for anything within reason, that isn`t the issue. Thing is I would prefer to do the basics myself as far as design, and other time consuming things.

My query is more how to set things out, I would prefer to see a good money making site, not to pinch an idea as in a niche but more to see how things work if you know what I mean?

My current business is not web related, I`ve just gone really quiet, I have money to buy another business but don`t want to waste it on a dead horse. I prefer to be doing something during the day as sitting around makes me go nuts.

 

[mat]

Few tips from my experience...


- Pick something you have a strong interest in. Have an idea of where you want the site to be, stick to it even when you see no traffic or income. Gone are the days of your website ranking in Google after 2 weeks. You need to know that it can take 6 months just to start gradually emerging through the rankings.

- Build content, make your site valuable, don't make it obvious that it is an affiliate site. Don't pull in automated content. Do everything you can to make everything unique and mask affiliate links etc.

- It will be impossible at first to rank for the main searches in your niche. Build content and pages based around other things people search for related to the product. A site selling Sofas... Build pages about red leather sofas, brown corner sofas, children’s sofa beds etc. Just keep hammering away at the long tail, you will start to see traffic and it will help for your main keywords in the long run.

- If you see the idea is working, get traffic in any way you can. Don't rely solely on search traffic. Social Media can be an amazing tool, but do it right and you could make more from your social traffic than you search engine traffic.

- Find a product which is worthwhile, there is no point creating a site which sells 99p water bottles and getting 5% commission, but there would be a point in creating a site which promotes office water coolers for hundreds of pounds.

- If possible find a product which people always need, consumables etc. Create a site of value and hopefully the people will come back to your site every time they need said items. Think of a great price comparison site for this example.

Obviously there is endless amounts of advice, but hopefully that should give you somthing to think about.

 

[DomainManage]

Sounds like you'd be better off buying something that someone has already done some leg work, and has potential for you to build on - something that you might have knowledge in that is being a bit neglected or not monetized to its full potential.

Starting from scratch, although entry is cheap, its pretty tough out there - especially if your hearts not 100% in it.

 

[slowhost]

Few tips from my experience...


- Pick something you have a strong interest in. Have an idea of where you want the site to be, stick to it even when you see no traffic or income. Gone are the days of your website ranking in Google after 2 weeks. You need to know that it can take 6 months just to start gradually emerging through the rankings.

- Build content, make your site valuable, don't make it obvious that it is an affiliate site. Don't pull in automated content. Do everything you can to make everything unique and mask affiliate links etc.

- It will be impossible at first to rank for the main searches in your niche. Build content and pages based around other things people search for related to the product. A site selling Sofas... Build pages about red leather sofas, brown corner sofas, children’s sofa beds etc. Just keep hammering away at the long tail, you will start to see traffic and it will help for your main keywords in the long run.

- If you see the idea is working, get traffic in any way you can. Don't rely solely on search traffic. Social Media can be an amazing tool, but do it right and you could make more from your social traffic than you search engine traffic.

- Find a product which is worthwhile, there is no point creating a site which sells 99p water bottles and getting 5% commission, but there would be a point in creating a site which promotes office water coolers for hundreds of pounds.

- If possible find a product which people always need, consumables etc. Create a site of value and hopefully the people will come back to your site every time they need said items. Think of a great price comparison site for this example.

Obviously there is endless amounts of advice, but hopefully that should give you somthing to think about.

Hi Mat

Thank you for the reply, I really appreciate your help.

I know people are shy about showing there profitable websites off. I would really like to see one that is making £100 a week and what sort of traffic I need to hit those numbers? obviously different niche means different earnings ect but I want to see what is accomplish ableif you know what i mean?

 

[slowhost]

Sounds like you'd be better off buying something that someone has already done some leg work, and has potential for you to build on - something that you might have knowledge in that is being a bit neglected or not monetized to its full potential.

Starting from scratch, although entry is cheap, its pretty tough out there - especially if your hearts not 100% in it.

Sounds like a plan, although i`m sure they arn`t freely avalable

 

[Murray]

I would really like to see one that is making £100 a week and what sort of traffic I need to hit those numbers? obviously different niche means different earnings ect but I want to see what is accomplish ableif you know what i mean?

If we're just talking about adsense, really depends on the site topic, what size ads you have and where, what device most people visit on

Probably hope for at least 10k visitors per week to make £100

 

[slowhost]

wow, 10k per week, to be honest i`ve never had anywhere close to a 1000 visitors a month to any of my sites.

I`ve just noticed a couple of affiliate sites that I had forgotten about probably making a £1 or 2 a month but I haven't touched them for a year +!!! and others that are just plain garbage and dont make anything or get any traffic.

I have around 50 domains and have been deleting content and getting them back to a base today (yes I deleted the content but it was all copied from when I was at uni so useless)

seems like people make more money and need less visitors using affiliates, although with the ones I have they dont get traffic at all maybe 10-20 a month??

 

[martin-s]

One option to generate traffic would be to use dropped domains with existing links. Eg. a hotel that has closed down, but has links from accommodation websites.

Build a site with suggestions of alternative places to stay. Make it look authoritative.

You could easily do £100 a month off a single site if you can find the right domain. Hotel bookings will generally pay a minimum of £3-6 in affiliate earnings.

Use DomainView to find domains with the right metrics and then check the inbound links using Majestic to make sure they're likely to be traffic generating.

 

[Murray]

wow, 10k per week, to be honest i`ve never had anywhere close to a 1000 visitors a month to any of my sites.

Well I wouldn't take that as gospel, just roughly my experience with general information sites not related to high CPC topics and only monetized with adsense

You could review semi-expensive products, add affiliate links, have a high conversion so only need 200 visitors a week to make that, who knows

 

[spiderspider]

One option to generate traffic would be to use dropped domains with existing links. Eg. a hotel that has closed down, but has links from accommodation websites

I do something very similar. Research good sites that are dropping. Domain name not that important in terms of keywords etc. Also use it for the PBN and for other local trades, similar to ours, who go OOB.

Buy dropped domain.

Scrap site from Wayback Machine (PM me if you need this doing)

Change contact and other links.

You then get an existing site, with unique content, that gets traffic, that Google has previously indexed.

 

[Edwin]

I do something very similar. Research good sites that are dropping. Domain name not that important in terms of keywords etc. Also use it for the PBN and for other local trades, similar to ours, who go OOB.

Buy dropped domain.

Scrap site from Wayback Machine (PM me if you need this doing)

Change contact and other links.

You then get an existing site, with unique content, that gets traffic, that Google has previously indexed.

Pretty dangerous advice! Copyright on content doesn't magically expire just because it's taken off the web, so if you scrape Wayback for content you're stealing somebody else's hard work. Even if you want to argue they're unlikely to come after you, that doesn't make it any more legal - or any more right. The measure of the legality of something has never been "can I get away with it?"!

What you can learn from the archived site, on the other hand, is the site structure, eg this page at this URL was about "pink unicorns". So there would be benefits to keeping the URL the same and writing 100% original content about pink unicorns, or redirecting that URL to a new URL with 100% original content about pink unicorns. Best way to make sure your content is original is to not even look at the old page, but just at its title and URL.

 

[spiderspider]

Pretty dangerous advice! Copyright on content doesn't magically expire just because it's taken off the web, so if you scrape Wayback for content you're stealing somebody else's hard work. Even if you want to argue they're unlikely to come after you, that doesn't make it any more legal - or any more right. The measure of the legality of something has never been "can I get away with it?"!

Is that an expert legal opinion, or just 'your opinion'?

NOTE: You should have learnt in the EU thread, I will pull your posts apart if needed, and prove my point. Unless you want to loose face again, you may wish to edit that.

 

[martin-s]

Is that an expert legal opinion, or just 'your opinion'?

It's not opinion tbh, it's fact. The writer retains copyright.

However, some content will be more likely than other content to be policed. And it will depend whether the business genuinely stopped trading, or just changed their web address.

Plus, the worst that will happen in most cases is they get in touch asking you to take the content down, and you oblige.

 

[martin-s]

Best way to make sure your content is original is to not even look at the old page, but just at its title and URL.

I think that approach is overkill. Substantially unique is a reasonable yardstick.

 

[bonusmedia]

Is that an expert legal opinion, or just 'your opinion'?

NOTE: You should have learnt in the EU thread, I will pull your posts apart if needed, and prove my point. Unless you want to loose face again, you may wish to edit that.

Stop this shit

 

[Edwin]

Is that an expert legal opinion, or just 'your opinion'?

NOTE: You should have learnt in the EU thread, I will pull your posts apart if needed, and prove my point. Unless you want to loose face again, you may wish to edit that.

It's fact.

See https://www.gov.uk/copyright/overview and https://www.copyrightservice.co.uk/copyright/copyright_myths

 

[spiderspider]

It's fact.

Its your opinion. And that of a few people on here. But that isn't what this thread is about, so well done for turning it.

Now my opinion on the whole 'you shouldn't do it!! its illegal!!' thing, is that it comes down to morality, and not criminality. That's my opinion, and from all I have seen and read, I believe I am correct, and have done nothing wrong.

https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/379040/c-notice-201402.pdf

Scroll down to top of page 3, Automatic Assignment.

This bits important - Can anyone , link me to a case, any case, in England or Wales (heck, lets throw Scotland and Northern Ireland in there as well), where the Crown has taken anyone to court, for copyright infringement in this situation? No, because their isn't any. No test cases, nothing!