Niche News Site / Forum
Recently I have become aware of a niche for a website and possible online community for something which I am involved in, know a lot about, and have many contacts within.
My plans are to create and market a website and forum for this.
But, I'm really not sure where to begin. There is a healthy community in real life for this in my country, and in most other western societies. There are several different options open to me I feel.
-I could start a forum and small news site which was targeted initially at people from my country (again, i have many contacts and I think this is very doable) and then expand to an international level.
-I could make the site and forum and market it worldwide. Although, most of my contacts are within my country, so a large portion of my visitors would likely be from here anyway.
-I could start just a news / blog site initially, then when enough traffic was generated, create and market a forum.
-I could start the forum initially, at national or international level, and then move onto the news site later.
I have other ideas for further expansion beyond a news site and forum, but I have to start somewhere. This is my first time setting up a site or forum, so I think starting at a national level and expanding may be better, although I don't want to get "stuck" at a national level with a forum full of people from my country that no one else from other countries would want to join. (Is this a reasoned concern, or would it make no difference?)
Lastly, I think it will be very hard to set up a forum, because in the beginning it requires some creative posts, and I would assume it's also very hard to get people to join at the start, because no one wants to join a forum that noone else is on. Although, maybe this means I should certainly start at national level because of the contacts I have and the large amount of people that I know personally in the community here. But again, I don't want to get "stuck" at national level (as I mentioned above).
My aim would be to generate profits through Adsense, and some affiliate selling programs.
This is a strong niche to attack I feel, however, I'm not sure if I should start at something more basic for a while (I know forums are hard things to get up and running). Any input on this would be cool too ... Adsense / affiliate selling blog?
-----------------------------------------
Above is a paste from a post I made on another forum, to which I got only one response, from a really helpful guy, who referred me to this forum.
Since posting, Ive done a bit more research and a bit more thinking and planning. I'm thinking the best way to go about this would be to start both a news site/blog(would also include articles) and a forum. But to market these at a national audience. For the news site, I would also include international news (why not?...) to attract what international viewers I could.
As for the forum, I'm thinking to start off with a limited number of sections would be best, then gradually expand. A few things I wanted to say about this though. I would plan to start small and expand, because I imagine it would give a bad impression of the forum for an early visitor to see a huge forum, with very little activity, as apposed to a small forum with concentrated activity on certain aspects.
The more research I do, the more ideas that flood my mind. This seems like a tough project, and there is some small competition sites out there, but they do not employ marketing techniques. I don't want to lose my idea, but I'm really thinking a smaller, simpler site may be better to go with as my first.
Comments, advice, anything, all appreciated, thanks,
Jason
My plans are to create and market a website and forum for this.
But, I'm really not sure where to begin. There is a healthy community in real life for this in my country, and in most other western societies. There are several different options open to me I feel.
-I could start a forum and small news site which was targeted initially at people from my country (again, i have many contacts and I think this is very doable) and then expand to an international level.
-I could make the site and forum and market it worldwide. Although, most of my contacts are within my country, so a large portion of my visitors would likely be from here anyway.
-I could start just a news / blog site initially, then when enough traffic was generated, create and market a forum.
-I could start the forum initially, at national or international level, and then move onto the news site later.
I have other ideas for further expansion beyond a news site and forum, but I have to start somewhere. This is my first time setting up a site or forum, so I think starting at a national level and expanding may be better, although I don't want to get "stuck" at a national level with a forum full of people from my country that no one else from other countries would want to join. (Is this a reasoned concern, or would it make no difference?)
Lastly, I think it will be very hard to set up a forum, because in the beginning it requires some creative posts, and I would assume it's also very hard to get people to join at the start, because no one wants to join a forum that noone else is on. Although, maybe this means I should certainly start at national level because of the contacts I have and the large amount of people that I know personally in the community here. But again, I don't want to get "stuck" at national level (as I mentioned above).
My aim would be to generate profits through Adsense, and some affiliate selling programs.
This is a strong niche to attack I feel, however, I'm not sure if I should start at something more basic for a while (I know forums are hard things to get up and running). Any input on this would be cool too ... Adsense / affiliate selling blog?
-----------------------------------------
Above is a paste from a post I made on another forum, to which I got only one response, from a really helpful guy, who referred me to this forum.
Since posting, Ive done a bit more research and a bit more thinking and planning. I'm thinking the best way to go about this would be to start both a news site/blog(would also include articles) and a forum. But to market these at a national audience. For the news site, I would also include international news (why not?...) to attract what international viewers I could.
As for the forum, I'm thinking to start off with a limited number of sections would be best, then gradually expand. A few things I wanted to say about this though. I would plan to start small and expand, because I imagine it would give a bad impression of the forum for an early visitor to see a huge forum, with very little activity, as apposed to a small forum with concentrated activity on certain aspects.
The more research I do, the more ideas that flood my mind. This seems like a tough project, and there is some small competition sites out there, but they do not employ marketing techniques. I don't want to lose my idea, but I'm really thinking a smaller, simpler site may be better to go with as my first.
Comments, advice, anything, all appreciated, thanks,
Jason
-
lieguy -
Thanks
{{ DiscussionBoard.errors[3360495].message }} -
-
Jasonsc -
Thanks
{{ DiscussionBoard.errors[3543171].message }} -