Internet Marketing Tycoon

**LeeD** · 08-21-2006, 04:03 PM

I'd like to ask what is a reasonable budget to launch a site on, and how soon you can expect to recoup investment? Furthermore, I'd love to see some budget templates.
To give some more detail on what I'm curious to know, I've picked up on two common pieces of advice:
1) Use PPC for traffic, before SEO.
2) Outsource (esp. design and content, as I understand things)

Now, what should a beginner prioritize in his spending? PPC? Buying original content? Some thing else?

I personally find myself in that position of the new entrepreneur, who's got to carry most of the load himself for lack of funds.

- Bookworm-SEO

**Nitin M** · 08-25-2006, 03:35 PM

Wow. I'd like to help provide solid answers, but these questions are so vague I don't see how anyone can provide a detailed reply.

IMO the question is as broad as "I want to start a business. How much will it cost and how soon will I make the money back?" And not to be an *** but I think if the question is that broad, the person asking it needs to get baseline knowledge so that they can get to the point that they can ask a more detailed question. They can get the baseline info by looking at forums, esp, for sale threads and threads where someone has asked for an appraisal and received replies ... read through hundreds of those types of threads and start to understand how sites are valued, what type of income they are making, how much advertising/effort would it take to replicate ... this is all basic research anyone that seriously wants to understand the business/financial side of things can do to get their feet wet and start building their foundation of knowledge.

If these questions were accompanied by a more detailed picture of where the person stands and what they want to achieve and what they can risk, then I think meaningful answers will be easier to come by.

For example ...

Quote:

I could help someone either 1) get to the point they can fill in the above, or 2) help them put together an action plan based on their profile above. But .... I can't see how it's possible to do both :glare:

I was flamed on DP once for putting something like this out there when some n00b asked a very general question ... but I still stand by it. IMO, if someone is serious and wants real advice, then they need to do more homework and prep before asking for help. Otherwise, we're just regurgitating the same old generic crap that is everywhere and not all that helpful to anyone because it's too generic.

I'll right so off my soapbox ... I'll try to take a stab at an actual answer focusing on these questions:

Quote:

what should a beginner prioritize in his spending? PPC? Buying original content? Some thing else?

You should make a realistic assessment of your strengths and weaknesses and how much money you can afford to invest.

I think your spending cap should be no more than 20% of your available funds on a site that you personally haven't proven the revenue model. Once a site is producing income, you can throw more at it.

In the beginning if you have the skills you should write/design everything yourself. You can buy professional templates for almost nothing, and you should be able to create your own content. When people here talk about "I wish I had outsourced sooner" I think they mean after they figured out how to make money and were turning their focus towards leveraging up.

PPC when done right can be wonderful ... but you can also lose your shirt and have no income to show for it... experimenting with PPC is a risky and expensive path to take.

**imported_sji2671** · 08-28-2006, 05:36 PM

That's a great post Nitin, it is often easier to offer advice when you know a bit more detail, general questions lead to general answers and that means nobody really gets the best out of it.

**Frito Pie** · 08-31-2006, 12:10 AM

It is hard to offer advice on a broad set of questions like this. Its like a professor has asked each student in a class of 50 to write a business proposal for a new website. No other instructions are given.

Can't imagine there being any consensus for details and specific among the 50 papers turned in.

Each will address the business aspect of the website business differently depending on the niche topic, intent of revenue (retail/resell, content advertising (google), subscription membership, etc).

In the real world, this works the same way. Two guys want to open up a restaurant. One has a budget of 100.00, the other has a budget of 500.00. They could both manage to open up a restaurant and show a decent profit at the end of the year. Each guy brings to the business some level of experience or ability to manage the tasks with or without the help (hired or friendly hands) of others.

To determine your own business model, take into consideration your own budget constraints. Determine what experience you can provide yourself.

And most importantly, know that whatever decisions you make for the use of spending for advertising vs content building vs website design, go ahead and plan it with your gut instincts. Know that at any time you can switch things up. Be flexible and willing to alter plans as you go.

My suggestion in order of importance:

First: Make sure your website looks professional and not like a talented 8 year old designed it for you. Make sure the grammar and spelling are exact. Spend time and money here.

PPC advertising. Yes. Experiment with keywords and get the best reach you can for your budget. Exchange links with like minded websites to help with your own incoming links. Set a budget and watch the stats daily to see if you are successful. Do not keep throwing money at keywords that are not working. Adjust and keep at it.

Content. Yes. Negotiate at places like freelance.com or by finding acceptable free copyright content to place on your site.

**LeeD** · 09-01-2006, 11:10 AM

Any time I start up a new project, I want to recoup my investment within a period of 6-12 months maximum. I do not do any PPC marketing, so I rely on a combination of paid advertisements, contests, offline marketing, and other associated expenses to getting the project online.

**LeeD** · 09-01-2006, 11:11 AM

Here is the 4th question with some good stuff from some of our top earners here at EF!

**Slevin** · 09-01-2006, 03:43 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nitin M

I think your spending cap should be no more than 20% of your available funds on a site that you personally haven't proven the revenue model. Once a site is producing income, you can throw more at it.

thats an interesting point.

Thanks all for replies

**Bookworm-SEO** · 09-01-2006, 07:34 PM

NITIN, excellent reply. You make a good point, and it's true the questions are vague. Thanks anyways for the helpful replies.

Frito, I also appreciate your useful insights. I appreciate the point about design in particular.

Anyways, to be a bit more specific, I'm especially interested in sites like own blogs (signature), where I either sell my own services, or monetize via ads. Answers specific to those types would be great. Also, the niche is specialized, but only moderately so.

As to budget templates, i appreciate the suggestion of not putting more thsn 20% of a site that hasn't proven the revenue model. But if you were going to launch, say, a competing service to vbulletin, selling software, how would you break down spending?
Eg, From 0-500 budget, with an content/ad site, I would allot x% to PPC, y % to content, z% to design, a% to the CMS, b% to other ideas here, and have a reserve of c%.
From 500-1500 with content/ads, I would allot ...
From 0-500, with a 'selling my consulting services site', i would allot x to ppc, y to content...

Also, any tips to speeding up ROI would be nice, again with the types of site mentioned above.

**sabmthwsn** · 09-20-2006, 11:59 AM

Lee this is a good question, I just launch my website as well, and I was not expecting the expenses that I have incurred so far. However, I do realize that I have to set a budget, because it is so easy to over spend. I love the 20% rule!

**MonkeyBiz** · 09-20-2006, 12:43 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bookworm-SEO

NITIN, excellent reply. You make a good point, and it's true the questions are vague. Thanks anyways for the helpful replies.

Frito, I also appreciate your useful insights. I appreciate the point about design in particular.

Anyways, to be a bit more specific, I'm especially interested in sites like own blogs (signature), where I either sell my own services, or monetize via ads. Answers specific to those types would be great. Also, the niche is specialized, but only moderately so.

As to budget templates, i appreciate the suggestion of not putting more thsn 20% of a site that hasn't proven the revenue model. But if you were going to launch, say, a competing service to vbulletin, selling software, how would you break down spending?
Eg, From 0-500 budget, with an content/ad site, I would allot x% to PPC, y % to content, z% to design, a% to the CMS, b% to other ideas here, and have a reserve of c%.
From 500-1500 with content/ads, I would allot ...
From 0-500, with a 'selling my consulting services site', i would allot x to ppc, y to content...

Also, any tips to speeding up ROI would be nice, again with the types of site mentioned above.

HUh? Confusing

**MonkeyBiz** · 09-20-2006, 12:43 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bookworm-SEO

NITIN, excellent reply. You make a good point, and it's true the questions are vague. Thanks anyways for the helpful replies.

Frito, I also appreciate your useful insights. I appreciate the point about design in particular.

Anyways, to be a bit more specific, I'm especially interested in sites like own blogs (signature), where I either sell my own services, or monetize via ads. Answers specific to those types would be great. Also, the niche is specialized, but only moderately so.

As to budget templates, i appreciate the suggestion of not putting more thsn 20% of a site that hasn't proven the revenue model. But if you were going to launch, say, a competing service to vbulletin, selling software, how would you break down spending?
Eg, From 0-500 budget, with an content/ad site, I would allot x% to PPC, y % to content, z% to design, a% to the CMS, b% to other ideas here, and have a reserve of c%.
From 500-1500 with content/ads, I would allot ...
From 0-500, with a 'selling my consulting services site', i would allot x to ppc, y to content...

Also, any tips to speeding up ROI would be nice, again with the types of site mentioned above.

HUh? As Mr. T would say thats a bunch of jibber jabber

**imported_mattd** · 09-20-2006, 03:23 PM

Ok so I might not be a top earner but I am making a huge profit in percentage terms.

Budget for my websites:

Quote:

Hosting: £4.99/year
Domain name: £2.95/year
All design/content/coding: Zero because I do it myself.
Promotion: Zero because if your site is good, then search engines do it for you for free.

Total cost for running website per year: £7.94

Based on my current average earnings, each site is in profit after 4 days.

Fair enough I'm not going to be able to retire on this amount of money - but the truth is I dont want to! I just want enough to pay for a couple of bills each month!

**MonkeyBiz** · 09-20-2006, 03:25 PM

Nice job, mattd. keep it up

**jhuskisson** · 09-20-2006, 06:22 PM

Nice to see some of the top earners replying earlier in the thread - great advice

**Bookworm-SEO** · 10-13-2006, 06:44 PM

Appreciate the help from the big guys. The thing you didn't understand was the examples maybe? It was to say what percentage of budgets is allotted to different spending, depending on the type of site.

**jerome2900** · 10-13-2006, 07:03 PM

What about free methods ?
A proven method that is guaranteed to work, its free but laborious.

Find keywords on your product or service, write 3 unique articles on each keyword with appropriate keyword density, place a link to your product webpage in the article resource box submit these only to Ezine articles directory. Do this for 30 consecutive days. Then the next 30 days do this with searchwarp.com and you will not only reap high rankings with Google but a stable daily income for your efforts. Apparently Google likes to spider these 2 sites and they are extremely popular but suppose you dont like to write? then outsource and thats where it will cost you but it still aint much.

**shermanchoo** · 11-22-2006, 04:22 AM

Just $10 can launch a site.. it can be recouped in 1 week, with the right marketing system.

You can profit quickly by making an effort to source out PPC sites that have no competitors from your niche..

Do watch over your advertising campaign like a hawk... so you can pull the plug when necessary.

**jesterx** · 02-27-2007, 08:38 PM

I totally agree with that last statement....anyone can get a website together....but its how you market it that is gunna get you results.

I know someone that has launched a site with only $92 and made a whoping $27,000 on the first day and within the first week made just over $40,000 his not the most computer literate dude although he is a good marketer

He told me that his goals are to create and ebook on how he did this. I will keep you posted if anything new develops....it would be a top shelf item if he did create this....i use alot of his strategies and it brings buyers in like kids to candy.

**global results** · 04-18-2007, 07:12 PM

Good day,

You can get set up for about $150 but people have to understand are they running a business or a hobby.

If you can seperate the two then what will happen is you will start thinking like a business person and be concerned to spend $50 if your ROI will be greater.

Talk to any offline business person and they will probably laugh or think your nuts if you say I am concerned about spending $50 on a add.

I have run many businesses and online businesses are dirt cheap compared to the brick and mortar business.