Hello,
To say that I know very very little about eCommerce and affiliate marketing would be a gross understatement, however, I am smart enough to know that I need help, so please, fire away!
My business plan is pretty straight forward, and seems rather simple, so simple that it must be flawed, but I don't know where, that being said, here it is.
Every successful site has 3 very broad things going for it, the right people, the right domain, and a well thought out, content rich site that offers the visitor something unique. Take away any one of the three elements and ya got nothing. That being said, each of these attributes when standing on its own does not contain a great deal of value unless the other 2 stand with it... Am I right so far?
Well, taking this into consideration, each of the above attributes can be had (when standing alone) pretty damn cheep, why not purchase each individually, put them together and see what happens. So over the last week or two this is what I have been doing, to date, this is what I have:
The domain
I realized that I needed a kick-ass domain, preferably with existing PR, well aged and hopefully with some lingering traffic. I checked all of the known domain sites (namejet.com, snapnames.com, pool.com. etc...) with no luck, then came across freshdrop.com, tons of data, combines all known auctions into one site, but its bucks! 100/mo. I signed up but cancelled within the 2 day trial period (im a cheep skate i guess). Freshdrop led me to Godaddy auctions, which to my surprise, only shares about 10% of their listings with freshdrop. After looking I found a great domain "stayinchicago.com" 190 bucks, 13 years old and claimed to have 40000+ unique visitors/mo (this has got to be bullshit I called 3 separate times to Godaddy and they swore up and down that the info was accurate, how was it confirmed? "by an independent 3rd party" I ran the name through siteanalytics.compete.com and sure enough 400/mo, no PR, still for 190 bucks, some traffic and 13 years old, its not bad).
The Website
I wanted to buy a inexpensive, operating, hotel affiliate website. No jacking around with trying to build it myself or even having it built for me. I found Flippa.com, tons of exsisting sites ranging in price from a few bucks to $500,000. I found what I needed and bought it, its called "thecheephotel.org" the affiliate is set up through hotelscombined.com and works on a pay per click basis, I use there template based program, send them customers, and I earn 1 to 2 bucks / click. Plus I can place adsence on it, so two different ways to monetize with this one site. I bought it for $147.00. Total cost so far $337.00.
People
I am no computer expert, my knowledge takes an abrupt halt at programming the GPS in my car, but more importantly, I don't want to be in on this business at the programming level. Time and scalability are two beautiful things about online sales. I don't need to be there to talk to the customer, answer question, or even post content on a site like this. Organic search results in the online hotel business is going to be a bitch, however... I have a great domain, but I still need great people... Elance.com is a fantastic resource of knowledgeable well educated and dare I say, cheep labor. The saying you get what you pay for is so damn true, but I posted my ad and in 24 hours had more then 20 requests to do the work I requested, all from very qualified companies. What I need done is simple, the home page looks really bad, it needs to be totally redone with an emphasis on Chicago (obviously), the domain needs to change from the cheaphotel.com to stayinchicago.com. and I need a aggressive SEO/marketing campaign. The winning bidder was Orchid Web Services $4.38 an hour with almost 350 jobs completed and 4.9 out of 5 stars for each review. The SEO and marketing will be ongoing, still not more then 400 bucks, and that's for 90 hours of work!
Now I have what I believe will be a winning combination and my total cost is about 750 USD. I just hired Orchid, so I do not have any additional info, but I would love to hear what you guys think! Will it work? or did I just throw away 750 dollars. Thanks in advance, I am the first to admit that I am out of my league in terms of programming/SEO/marketing etc.. Which is why your feedback is so valuable!
WCC
To say that I know very very little about eCommerce and affiliate marketing would be a gross understatement, however, I am smart enough to know that I need help, so please, fire away!
My business plan is pretty straight forward, and seems rather simple, so simple that it must be flawed, but I don't know where, that being said, here it is.
Every successful site has 3 very broad things going for it, the right people, the right domain, and a well thought out, content rich site that offers the visitor something unique. Take away any one of the three elements and ya got nothing. That being said, each of these attributes when standing on its own does not contain a great deal of value unless the other 2 stand with it... Am I right so far?
Well, taking this into consideration, each of the above attributes can be had (when standing alone) pretty damn cheep, why not purchase each individually, put them together and see what happens. So over the last week or two this is what I have been doing, to date, this is what I have:
The domain
I realized that I needed a kick-ass domain, preferably with existing PR, well aged and hopefully with some lingering traffic. I checked all of the known domain sites (namejet.com, snapnames.com, pool.com. etc...) with no luck, then came across freshdrop.com, tons of data, combines all known auctions into one site, but its bucks! 100/mo. I signed up but cancelled within the 2 day trial period (im a cheep skate i guess). Freshdrop led me to Godaddy auctions, which to my surprise, only shares about 10% of their listings with freshdrop. After looking I found a great domain "stayinchicago.com" 190 bucks, 13 years old and claimed to have 40000+ unique visitors/mo (this has got to be bullshit I called 3 separate times to Godaddy and they swore up and down that the info was accurate, how was it confirmed? "by an independent 3rd party" I ran the name through siteanalytics.compete.com and sure enough 400/mo, no PR, still for 190 bucks, some traffic and 13 years old, its not bad).
The Website
I wanted to buy a inexpensive, operating, hotel affiliate website. No jacking around with trying to build it myself or even having it built for me. I found Flippa.com, tons of exsisting sites ranging in price from a few bucks to $500,000. I found what I needed and bought it, its called "thecheephotel.org" the affiliate is set up through hotelscombined.com and works on a pay per click basis, I use there template based program, send them customers, and I earn 1 to 2 bucks / click. Plus I can place adsence on it, so two different ways to monetize with this one site. I bought it for $147.00. Total cost so far $337.00.
People
I am no computer expert, my knowledge takes an abrupt halt at programming the GPS in my car, but more importantly, I don't want to be in on this business at the programming level. Time and scalability are two beautiful things about online sales. I don't need to be there to talk to the customer, answer question, or even post content on a site like this. Organic search results in the online hotel business is going to be a bitch, however... I have a great domain, but I still need great people... Elance.com is a fantastic resource of knowledgeable well educated and dare I say, cheep labor. The saying you get what you pay for is so damn true, but I posted my ad and in 24 hours had more then 20 requests to do the work I requested, all from very qualified companies. What I need done is simple, the home page looks really bad, it needs to be totally redone with an emphasis on Chicago (obviously), the domain needs to change from the cheaphotel.com to stayinchicago.com. and I need a aggressive SEO/marketing campaign. The winning bidder was Orchid Web Services $4.38 an hour with almost 350 jobs completed and 4.9 out of 5 stars for each review. The SEO and marketing will be ongoing, still not more then 400 bucks, and that's for 90 hours of work!
Now I have what I believe will be a winning combination and my total cost is about 750 USD. I just hired Orchid, so I do not have any additional info, but I would love to hear what you guys think! Will it work? or did I just throw away 750 dollars. Thanks in advance, I am the first to admit that I am out of my league in terms of programming/SEO/marketing etc.. Which is why your feedback is so valuable!
WCC
