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Posted by Arccos on July 3, 2008, 2:05 pm
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> samadams_2006@yahoo.ca wrote:
>> Hello,
>>
>> I'm thinking about developing a web site about a vacation resort near
>> where I live, and will be offering advertising to businesses who
>> reside there. For example, at this particular resort there are
>> hotels, restaurants, etc. that might be interested in advertising on
>> this Web Site.
>>
>> I was thinking that for every business who wants to advertise, I would
>> create a separate Web page, and put links to this Web Page from my
>> main Web Page regarding the history of the resort, etc.
>>
>> Each of these Web Pages will advertise only one business, and will
>> have photos and descriptions and rates about this business.
>>
>> My question is, how much should I charge for this service? What do
>> other Web Sites charge for this service? Does anyone have any
>> advertising rates regarding something like this? Should you charge
>> $10 per year, or $50 per year, or $200 per year, or "what"?
>>
>> I want to make my rates competitive, but at the same time, don't want
>> to be doing a lot of work and getting nothing in return.
>>
>> Thanks so much...
>> Sam
>>
>
> It varies so widely - anywhere from $1-25/mo or more. Mostly it depends
> on the number of hits you get - the more hits, the more you can charge.
> But that also means marketing (NOT spamming) the site, and getting people
> to come to it.
>
> Few businesses are going to want to pay to advertise on a site with just a
> few hits a day. 10K hits/day and you'll have more interest. 1M hits/day
> and you'll get a lot of interest :-).
>
> But seriously - you might get a few companies to advertise on a low hit
> site. But better is to build your hits by posting information which is
> timely and changes often. Make people want to come to the site. Once
> you're getting a lot of hits per day, you can start approaching
> businesses, asking them to post their info.
>
Seconded. Nobody wants to buy advertising on websites without traffic, and
nobody wants to visit websites without information. So you're going to have
to go without advertising for awhile unless you can find a sucker, err,
client to buy in. To be honest, most business won't even spend the time to
mail you a brocure for FREE advertising if you're a new website. I wouldn't
even try to sucker someone into buying advertising. They're just going to
get burned, and you'll lose them as a client forever.
If you've never tried to make money from a website based on advertising
before, it's alot harder than you would think.
Here's my proceedure for evaluating a targeted advertising website
opportunity like yours.
Even before developing the site, you have to think about how many people
travel to that destination every year, and how many of them might look on
the web for information. Then check what kinda of website competition you
have. If you can't do something better or something significantly different
than an established site, you probably shouldn't start. But if there is NO
competition in terms of similar websites, double check to make sure what
you're thinking is even marketable.
Then check who and what is in the area that might want some targetted
advertising on your website. If there's nobody that would pay for web
advertising, you're probably SOL. You need targetted, relevant advertising
to make money. Many companies still aren't tech savy, and wouldn't know a
good web advertising investment if it bit them on the ass.
After you've done ALL that, think about what content most people would want
to see, and how you can tie that into future advertising. Then write. And
write. And write and write and write. Get content before you even begin
building the website. As you're writing, think about how you're going to set
up your website based on this content, and how it's going to tie into your
future advertising. Plan to write updates from news about the area. Timely
content is critical, but you'll need to balance that with relatively
timeless information (like reviews, articles, and history).
The next step is to build it. Get a relevant domain, hosting set up, and
figure out a way of displaying content. You will not want to do write every
page by hand, so get a Content Management System that fits into the types of
data you will be displaying. Don't just settle or set it up for what's good
enough "for now," think about your future growth and what you'll need then.
You don't want to switch CMS's down the line because it doesn't have a
feature you need.
Then build it and submit it to Google. Bootstrap up a link exchange. Meaning
start with smaller, related sites and exchange links. As your site grows,
offer exchanges to bigger and bigger sites. Find ways to promote your site
in the area that look professional. That'll help get a little bit more
traffic now, and get you name recognision for the future. Once you start
getting some steady traffic, if the businesses you've developed content
about have their own websites, offer a link exchange, and include some free
advertising in it. As long as you do a good job, they may end up buying some
ads once you start to charge. The best new clients are the ones you already
have.
Who knows, you may end up being successful. :-) But building a targetted
advertising based website is a whole different ball of wax from just a hobby
site and setting up some Google ads. You have to keep current and future
clients in mind at all times, and respect that your clients are paying you
directly and hold you responsible if something goes wrong. You can make
quite a bit of money if you do it correctly (and are lucky), but you could
end up making nothing and alienating all of your clients if you do it wrong.
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