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Any tips on which autoresponders are best and any general info for a newbie? I posted originally in the Google Adsense section because I was going to sign up as soon as I get my website together and start getting traffic. I was also wanting to check out other peoples websites. I'm not a html wiz but I'm working on it, lol I see there is a board for it and I will be checking it out.
I've been working with computers for some time now (took 4 years elective in HS - but honestly 80% of what was taught was useless. Half of it I could have easily figured out myself and not much training in what really matters.) Been online now for 6 years. Last 4 making an income.
At one point I was clearing 3-4 thousand selling on online auctions but it was so much work and didn't enjoy it that much. We cut it back to part time after we'd pretty much used the biz as a stepping stone to investing in racing greyhounds. Currently doing it small part time and wanting to start my own site as I would enjoy putting the same crazy hours into it as I did when I sold online full time (nothing to put in 12-14 hour days 7 days a week, that was the usual.) Right now I'm just researching and learning.
Ideally I would love a site with several different areas of interest - was wondering should I have a different website for each area of interest, or is it okay to combine them into one site? Didn't know about that.
Any advice welcome. Thanks!
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[edited by: tedster at 4:46 am (utc) on Nov. 29, 2004]
Best advice: dig in!
Participate...you'll find everything here, open the forums, read, study, ask questions. There are tons of folks here, me included, who got better by the day, enjoy what they do and make some good money now because of this place.
You'll have a ball, I promise. But you gotta know one thing: read, read, read!
General Help:
There is so much stuff on our plate, in our work, it would be too much to even start and unfair to the logical and valuable structure of this web site and to everyone else who's got to figure out what they need.
Also: this is not how it works as to show yourselves (which is greatly appreciated) and cry out ENTRTAIN ME.
Just get comfortable, you live here now, again: welcome! Read, Read, Read.
Specifics you asked:
If your areas of interest are clearly defined and half way popular with the public domain, split them up into logical fields, that provides good density and a topic focus that your users might like.
Hosting - we don't encourage sales pitches around here and do not name names, please understand. You will find clues though by using site search with the term hosting.
Oh, and did I mention you gotta READ a lot?
[edited by: adfree at 10:59 pm (utc) on Nov. 28, 2004]
I think that as this forum is for Adsense, the reply to the html questions might be slightly off topic. But as I live in the UK, the answers I would give may not be of use for wherever you are!
> I posted here in the Google Adsense section because I was going to sign up as soon as I get my website together and start getting traffic.
In my personal experience, having a site with good content means that Adsense can target the ads pretty well. If visitors actually click on them is a whole other question! My site was online for 2-3 years before Adsense came about, and I found that I didn't need to alter the site to get the best out of adsense. You don't say if you have in mind a theme for your site. One of the common themes here is that making sites specifically for Adsense is not the best way to get maximum earnings from Adsense, and might even be against the TOS. Content is the main thing.
> At one point I was clearing 3-4 thousand selling on online auctions but it was so much work and didn't enjoy it that much. Currently doing it small part time and wanting to start my own site as I would enjoy putting the same crazy hours into it as I did when I sold online full time (nothing to put in 12-14 hour days 7 days a week, that was the usual.)
Well, some people do earn that sort of figure from Adsense (apparently) but my guess is that you need to have a well established site with lots of traffic.
Also, depending on your site content you might find that selling online works better than Adsense for you. In my case, I tried various affiliate schemes, but Adsense works better for me, as there aren't any articles I can sell that are relevant to my site content apart from books. tried that, and it didn't work for me.
> Ideally I would love a site with several different areas of interest - was wondering should I have a different website for each area of interest, or is it okay to combine them into one site? Didn't know about that.
As I understand it, once you are accepted for Adsense you can paste the banners onto multiple sites that you own, providing they comply with Adsense TOS of course. That means that you can have several websites of different themes, but one Adsense account.
You don't seem to have a specific theme for a website, and I was wondering if what you are thinking about is making a website simply to earn money from Adsense. Assuming that you make a website on a chosen topic, then sign up for Adsense on the basis of the content then that is OK, but the senior menbers of this board usually have something to say about sites made just to raise cash with no content.
I wish you well with whatever you decide to try.
I thought I could have different topics/interests as long as they were somehow connected with one another, but would have to have a separate site for topics/interests that obviously don't relate to each other, right? I've seen sites with so many different things jumbled together (some related to each other, some not) and I just wondered if that was actually any good to do that.
That will give you some ideas as to how much is too much or unrelated and what could be grouped together.
Sometimes it might be a good idea to run separate but cross link sites for areas of complimenting themes, topics.
I have wanted to get my own site for a while now and actually only found out about Adsense the other day, lol I didn't know it even existed and that's pretty sad considering Google is the search engine I use 100% of the time.
Not sure exactly what my site will be about. I have several different ideas for it but haven't decided which to try first.
I'm a mother of a 2 1/2 year old daughter, so obviously something related to young children would be good since that's something I obviously have some experience with.
I also have good knowledge on wholesale resources, I'm good at digging good wholesale sources up. But there's so many wholesale sites around - the market is saturated. So many people have been burned in that area so it'd probably be a lost cause to go down that route. But I had an idea to do wholesale brokering. Kind of a little different from the run of the mill wholesale sites. The basic idea was to advertise to get people wanting to buy wholesale to contact me and they would tell me what they are looking for, what qty, and at what price - then I would track it down for them. I would make money by, say a company is looking for 2,000 pairs of name brand shoes and was willing to pay $7.50 a pair - I would find a source at $7.25 a pair and then middle man the deal and make 25 cents a pair. Doesn't sound like much -25 cents a pair- but times $0.25 by 2,000 and it becomes $500 My overhead (asides from hosting, etc) would be incoming and outgoing bank wire fees, fees associated with accepting credit cards (if I chose to), and a 1-800 for clients. Not much overhead and I'd call $500 a pretty good ROI for a little bit of my time and a few phone calls to set the deals.
Informational products seem to be doing well, but the problem is getting content that hasn't been seen a million times. Best bet to create the information yourself - but that takes some time to do.
I have more ideas, but that's just a few. I was looking at Adsense as a way to diversify my income streams.
Will do some more looking tonight - right now I'm off to dine out for my b'day!
try out a few sites or ideas, don't bank everythng on one idea or one site.
You bet when the store gets going I'll be advertising my site there, lol Never hurts. A little ad at the bottom of the receipts on the video rentals. A little poster or simple flyer.
Speaking of advertising - who does offline advertising?
Yup :)
> I have wanted to get my own site for a while now and actually only found out about Adsense the other day, lol I didn't know it even existed and that's pretty sad considering Google is the search engine I use 100% of the time.
I was in the same position to be honest. I only joined Adsense last January, and the program had been going a couple of years by then! How I didn't notice it is beyond me. Can't even remember how I found out about it now. I originally joined hoping to cover the cost of my webhosting (it's a support group information site) but I usually cover the annual cost of hosting the site in 3-4 days now :) :)
> Not sure exactly what my site will be about. I have several different ideas for it but haven't decided which to try first.
As the other's have said, it's probably a better idea to have one site dedicated to one topic/niche. As a visitor it would irritate me that a site on the topic I searched for has a high content of stuff that irrelevant to my search keywords. You can always link them together (where appropriate) and send traffic scuttling back and forth between them. Also, Adsense will be able to target ads to the site better, and that should help your earnings.
As you are used to online selling, you can still sell via other sites such as Ebay and have Adsense banners on the same page.
> I'm a mother of a 2 1/2 year old daughter, so obviously something related to young children would be good since that's something I obviously have some experience with.
That's a challenge - looking after young children and trying to earn extra $$. Been there too - good luck!
The basic idea was to advertise to get people wanting to buy wholesale to contact me and they would tell me what they are looking for, what qty, and at what price - then I would track it down for them.
This sounds like a good idea for a service business, but not necessarily for an Adsense driven website. Remember that Adsense feeds off the content on your page, placing targeted ads that take visitors to other sites offering related services.
If you put up a site where YOU want to offer wholesale brokering, and slap Adsense on it, then you are leading people AWAY from your services and into the arms of others who offer the same or similar services.
This is not to say that a service site should not link (actually you're dead in the water if you don't), but the linking a service site needs is to related information, not competitive services.
A site like the one you mention would probably include a services page, an about page, a rates page, a contact page, then however much content you can generate to inform potential customers about your industry and keep Google interested in listing your site. Just bear in mind that there is a notable difference between the needs and best-practices for a service industry site and a content site (Adsense driven).
cEM
