First online venture, guidance requested!
My new (and first) Dot Com is due to launch later this month. Though I cannot disclose the full list of features publicly before launch, it is slightly an out of the box concept. The closest site to it is Yelp, yet it is still far from it. It is a company that will actually require hours of daily maintenance to provide a service for free to the public. Expenses have already surpassed 10k by a few hundred, and I have a few questions.
Before I say anything else, let me clarify that my first goal is not to make money. That all comes later; my first goal is to build a community of return visitors, and genuinely provide them with perks and features useful in daily lives. However, the monthly cost could well be close to a thousand dollars (eventually, when the site goes viral) and I honestly don't have that kind of cash to throw around.
Let me rephrase that question with a bit more information. I do not want to compromise the simplicity of the user interface by throwing in a bunch of random ads that are irrelevant to the context. Although, once I do have a good amount of traffic flowing in (let's say a million hits a month), I would want to start looking for ways to earn money, at least enough to compensate for the expenses of running the site.
I have very little information on "traffic"; is there a rough breakdown that actually provides how much traffic could payout through other ad companies? I understand this is an extremely broad question, but I am sure one of you warriors could pinpoint this newbie to the right direction! For example, 1m pays X or 10m pays X?
Thank you folks for your time, any input is appreciated!
Cheers
Before I say anything else, let me clarify that my first goal is not to make money. That all comes later; my first goal is to build a community of return visitors, and genuinely provide them with perks and features useful in daily lives. However, the monthly cost could well be close to a thousand dollars (eventually, when the site goes viral) and I honestly don't have that kind of cash to throw around.
- Each city that we will cover will have its own page, so if there are ten cities, then there are ten pages. On that page, there are two banner spaces that will rotate among three businesses. They be allotted to local businesses from that city for a rather small weekly amount. The banners are currently flushed with the layout, so it does not at all look obnoxious to the eyes. I have even given the users an option to "hide" the banners for better viewing. Ideally, the more cities we can build on, the merrier. This is not an overnight get-rich scheme, but rather a marathon I am willing to run. I still must be aware though, would there be a better way to earn money from the traffic coming in?
Let me rephrase that question with a bit more information. I do not want to compromise the simplicity of the user interface by throwing in a bunch of random ads that are irrelevant to the context. Although, once I do have a good amount of traffic flowing in (let's say a million hits a month), I would want to start looking for ways to earn money, at least enough to compensate for the expenses of running the site.
I have very little information on "traffic"; is there a rough breakdown that actually provides how much traffic could payout through other ad companies? I understand this is an extremely broad question, but I am sure one of you warriors could pinpoint this newbie to the right direction! For example, 1m pays X or 10m pays X?
Thank you folks for your time, any input is appreciated!
Cheers
“An expert is a person who has made all the mistakes that can be made in a very narrow field†Niels Bohr