Your website startup story...

[Gangster]

Hi all,

I was just wondering if people could share background of their website. Keeping it confidential, but perhaps talking about; How they managed to get traffic to it (in the early days), how you measure traffic now (I say this as my Google Analytics has nothing but Referral weird looking URLs and gives unreliable data), etc.

I have tried a few websites, but had no success myself really. I had setup Instagram and Twitter but apart from a click or 2, nothing really. Do you *have* to put out adverts (to get some form of initial pull).

I know people will say SEO, let Google draw in the views but can we be completely honest. Who wants to write an article, wait 6 months, to see if it pulls in any traffic. Lets be honest, the best article/tip in the world is wasted if it is hidden. So unless you are very lucky and someone on twitter with 1mill followers tweets it... its going to be buried, isn't it?

Any stories to share would be interesting to read, if you're willing to of course.

 

[radderfire]

What have you tried so far? What is your aim?

If you are looking to make money from a website, then firstly you need to be operating in a niche where profit is available and you have a valid business model. Secondly, you need to be able to create engaging content in that niche that is going to get people to your website and keep them coming back.

 

[AHarvey]

You don't just write an article and wait. You also don't mention exactly what your aim is? Are you pushing an actual business or are you simply looking at generating traffic to make money from ad revenue?

If it's the latter, I wouldn't bother, you're wasting time in a market saturated with wannabe's

If it's the first (or based around a hobby) then it's easier to do. You control your website (SEO, PPC) and your email list. Everything outside of that is basically out of your control, Facebook, Twitter etc can change rules in an instant that makes all your hardwork pointless. That doesn't mean you should forget about them, but realise, they are a simple tool to lead traffic to your website/email list.

Build a good website, with good content, good SEO and if possible some PPC and then start pushing things online.

My company did it themselves, the website is pretty meh and I don't have control over it but I did have control over the blogs and PPC. My director was getting around 6-7000 hit a month on the site, he then handed PPC over to Yell and it dropped by 50%. After a month they handed it to me and my first month hit 7000, second month 9000 where it sat pretty constant. Of that we were getting 400-600 conversions a month, it would have been higher IF i'd had more control over landing page design, split testing etc.

Before I took over I knew a little bit, but I watched hours of videos, read a **** load and just jumped in. If you aren't willing to put the work in, you won't get anything back.

 

[Gangster]

What have you tried so far? What is your aim?

If you are looking to make money from a website, then firstly you need to be operating in a niche where profit is available and you have a valid business model. Secondly, you need to be able to create engaging content in that niche that is going to get people to your website and keep them coming back.

You don't just write an article and wait. You also don't mention exactly what your aim is? Are you pushing an actual business or are you simply looking at generating traffic to make money from ad revenue?

If it's the latter, I wouldn't bother, you're wasting time in a market saturated with wannabe's

If it's the first (or based around a hobby) then it's easier to do. You control your website (SEO, PPC) and your email list. Everything outside of that is basically out of your control, Facebook, Twitter etc can change rules in an instant that makes all your hardwork pointless. That doesn't mean you should forget about them, but realise, they are a simple tool to lead traffic to your website/email list.

Build a good website, with good content, good SEO and if possible some PPC and then start pushing things online.

My company did it themselves, the website is pretty meh and I don't have control over it but I did have control over the blogs and PPC. My director was getting around 6-7000 hit a month on the site, he then handed PPC over to Yell and it dropped by 50%. After a month they handed it to me and my first month hit 7000, second month 9000 where it sat pretty constant. Of that we were getting 400-600 conversions a month, it would have been higher IF i'd had more control over landing page design, split testing etc.

Before I took over I knew a little bit, but I watched hours of videos, read a **** load and just jumped in. If you aren't willing to put the work in, you won't get anything back.

I'd like to get a site up and running, to update it often and if it could make something then I'd be quite happy. My main drive isn't to make money from it, to me that'd be a nice bonus if it could. I would like the numbers to at least slowly 'creep' up... its just the getting started bit I am stuck with.

The websites have been around hobbies, things I like to write about / make videos on and of course if at some point the numbers are high enough in terms of people visiting my site, being able to monetise would be nice.

I am having trouble pulling in the numbers from the get-go. One issue I have is with Google Analytics being filled with nonsense, i.e. "V I AL y rules" or equivalent and random .se 'referral links'. I can't actually see clearly the unique visits. I can't imagine it is many though.

You mention PPC, thats advertising right? So you're saying write all of the good content etc and then do some form of PPC to draw people to the site at least - and then from there do mailing list etc?


Harvey, from what I had read I was under the impression writing a good article was enough and hopefully it would be found. To me that seemed a bit bizzare that it would 'get found'. I obviously put it on Twitter/Instagram etc but again didn't yield much traction.

I'm willing to put the work in, its just where do I direct this energy for most effectiveness.

Thanks

 

[AHarvey]

Great content is KING as the saying goes, but that alone isn't enough, and I know some people that really don't care about content but spam rubbish and throw money at it.

When it comes to websites you've got to make it something a visitor wants. If you're writing about things you like, videos you like and about your hobbies you have to think "how can I make this about the visitors?" Would you enjoy going out for drinks with a mate and they just spoke about themselves all night? nope. Same with websites.

You need to get a pad and a pen and design from scratch with the user experience in mind.

You've not specified what your hobbies are, some are going to be easier than others, I would think model trains is a quiter market than gaming for instance. But say it was model trains.

Look at competitors and popular sites, what are they doing or offering?
How can you improve?
Have you spoken to the people you want to attract?
Have you started making contacts within the field? other hobbyists? social media pages etc?
try to focus on a USP, a niche that you've found.
Start designing your site, email lists, social media. Everything you do should be to drive that traffic to your site.
Make constant updates, they need a reason to come back. Doesn't have to be daily, but 2/3 times a week, every week, no matter what.

Once you've got something worth pushing, then look at pay per click advertising. I was burning through £3500 a month out of a £7k budget which I just could spend. You're look at getting ad's in 2nd or 3rd, everyone pushes for top but I've found it expensive and no better in terms of results. Then you're in the realm of writing adverts, keywords, keyword quality, conversions etc. And don't forget Bing advertising either.

 

[Tax Evader]

RE: Google Analytics - you can filter out all the crap. Use filters. Have a filter that only includes your hostname. EG - if your site is www.example.com then create a predefined filter that includes only hostname=www.example.com
Create custom filters to sift out the rest. EG - exclude custom field 'Campaign Source' and pattern=whatever the domain is.

 

[radderfire]

If your main drive isn't to make money, then just start something and see what happens, and learn by doing.

If you want the potential of making money, then just post the topics you are considering here, and I will let you know what I think has most potential.