5 replies
I am poor, and want to know what I could do to make some income online.
Also, I have an idea for a website: a restaurant directory in a specific city with 2 search options: by name, and by cuisine. I am brand new to all this, and don't know anything about putting together a website. I did purchase a domain name for my website, and signed up with Fat Cow to design the website and the mobile site. Here are my questions:

Is a restaurant directory a good idea for a website?
Do I have to get permission to list the restaurants name address, phone, website and type of cuisine on my website?
Can I post ads on the website to try to make a little money?
Should I create the mobile site first or the regular website?
If a restaurant website is not a good idea to make money, what do you recommend if I am poor?
Also, should I spend time with free training on these 2 websites:
Watch Us Put Clickbank Checks In Mom's Mailbox (From Start To Finish)
Bum Marketing Method - Free Traffic Tips
Thank You.
#advice #needed
  • Profile picture of the author Makemoneylol
    There are a lot of good quality WSO's where you can get high quality info for very small investment.

    There are many methods how to make money online

    For the start I would suggest you to work on Amazon Affiliate sites then - you can get in into CPA networks and promote some offers.

    It will not be a very fast way - cause you will need a lot to learn. Keyword research / Getting right domain name / good hosting plan / Wordpress installing / wordpress plugins / google analytics / tracking affiliate links and so on.

    But if you are serious about making $$$$ - you will get there eventually
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  • Profile picture of the author Andre Slater
    Making some income online is just not some quick, fast, button combination that will make you rich online.

    It takes work, it is a business... You have to treat it as such because if your looking for fast money chances are it wont come. This is something you build and build momentum before you can see results.

    Your topic that you chose Restaurant directory my question is how much do you know about your local restaurant market or the restaurant industry or how much do you know about foods and dishes?

    Online is all about providing value.

    Think about the sites you visit when your online why do you visit them? What value do they provide for you?

    The best route is to

    1. Pick a topic that you know about
    2. Build a blog about that topic
    3, Promote your blog to people who are interested in that topic.
    4. Capture peoples emails by offering something that will solve a problem in that topic.
    5. Market to your people through your site and through email...

    You need a Blog, Autoresponder, and Capture page...

    Keep at it... Don't over-complicate this...
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  • Profile picture of the author ellison
    Hi Oldfogy,
    If you are building a website I would always recommend using Wordpress to build your site with as it is extremely flexible with so many options for to use, I suspect Fat Cow allow you to use wordpress? With Wordpress you can choose a free template that is mobile responsive too.
    Having your own website is always the best long term option to make money online, with restaurants if you built up a directory and got well ranked with lots of visitors it may be possible to charge the restaurants a small monthly fee to be included in your directory but that`s for further down the line. Using ads and affiliate links to make money from your website initially is a possibility and building an email list to promote products to is essential as you proceed.
    There is unfortunately no get rich quick way of succeeding online, but if you treat it as a proper business and put your heart into it you can succeed.
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    • Profile picture of the author Bigpanda
      It sounds like your audience is kind of small, if you're just targeting local, unless your in a fairly big city.

      My best advice is to write a few short 30 page cookbooks / recipe books and put them on your website for free. This will help for building a mailing list and bringing you traffic. You can convert them into PDF's with free online converters.

      Also, I recommend spending $5 - $10 on Fiverr on each eBook cover, or 3d cover as it adds the illusion of value to your digital goods.

      Now lets focus on traffic...write 10+, 400 - 500 word articles and distribute them to places like EzineArticles to start generating traffic to your website. Use commonly searched keywords in your titles and tags, such as top 2015 weight loss recipes, low glycemic index recipes, ten minute recipes, family budget recipes etc. Try to use long-tail keywords such as "low glycemic slow cooker recipes".

      Add 2 - 4 cooking videos onto YouTube and mention your website at the beginning and end of each video.

      Write two short recipe eBooks and put them on Amazon, also put the eBooks on SmashWords for free, so Amazon does a price match and now your free eBook will have a link to your landing page at the very end, and you will get free traffic and capture even more emails.

      Also, make sure to use Twitter, Pinterest, and FaceBook to build a social platform. These are easy to grow when giving away freebies, as everyone loves free stuff.

      Now its time to monetize your website, I suggest using a mixture of Google Adsense and hand picking popular items that are selling on Amazon in the cooking niche.

      The main thing you want to do, as this is key to being successful in any niche, you must find your unique sales position. Like is all your recipes kid friendly organic, or all of your meals under ten minutes, or diabetic friendly meals etc.

      You must determine what your audiences demands and fill that need.

      But, you must also remember to keep your Amazon Affiliate offers inline with meeting this demand as well. Keep consumer trends in mind, if you can identify a consumer trend, you can easily make money off of it.

      Also, since you're just starting out and on a tight budget you could checkout a simple site designer such as Weebly that offers responsive website templates, so you don't have to create multiple templates for different devices such as tablets, desktops, and cellphone.

      Good luck,
      -BigPanda
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  • Profile picture of the author kk075
    Since the first two people completely ignored your questions, I'll try to help. I've actually been thinking of doing a local restaurant directory site for some time now as well, so here's what I would do.

    First, list every high end restaurant in your area- the more exclusive, the better. You don't need their permission to talk about their business, but it would be helpful if you went there and got your own images. In fact, if you go to the restaurant, tell them you're a food critic and you need a few pics of the place for your blog, you'll be amazed how well the staff will treat you. Don't be surprised when the owner comes out to talk as well- it happens often since you're giving them free exposure.

    Once you get home, you'll want to write a 1,000 word review on the restaurant. Details matter- this is how you rank and how you gain a following. So talk about what the restaurant looked like (is it clean, was it easy to find), how professional the staff was (were they in uniform, were they nice, were they knowledgeable), how quick food arrived to your table and the overall quality of the food. Also, the more original pictures you can provide, the better.

    Do this for every major restaurant in your area and give honest reviews, listing both the good and the bad. Then as soon as you post the review online, email the restaurant for them to see it.

    Your goal is simple- eventually you'll want to have every restaurant in your town and the surrounding areas listed. Also let users enter their experiences and give their own ratings, and give them an incentive for leaving reviews as well (an instant savings at local restaurants, notifications of new area specials or new restaurants, etc.).

    To monetize, you'll want to try and get one of each restaurant type (Mexican, burgers, wings, steak, seafood, Japanese, etc.) as a featured partner and charge them $300-500 a month for featured listings on your site. Also, let them offer online coupons (which actually helps you get subscribers), gift certificates to be given away in contests and then do 2 email blasts for them each month. Then you blast this stuff out on social media, get followers on Facebook and get them to subscribe to enter your contests. Once you rank well, people can also access the coupons by entering their email address so the site builds new subscribers 24/7.

    With about 12 restaurant categories, that can be insanely profitable for a food blogger if they do everything right. You'll also eat free meals just about every day of your life as people ask you to come back and update your rating of their restaurant, so it's a sweet little side gig that can turn into fairly serious money. Over time, the site will also be on auto-pilot (except for adding new restaurants), and there are few industries where this works so nicely.

    To answer your other questions really fast-

    1) Yes, it's a great idea.
    2) You don't need permission
    3) You can post ads
    4) Make a responsive site- then you're good mobile and desktop
    5) Restaurant theme is a good idea
    6) Those site links aren't that great. Just do what I mentioned above and you're all set.

    Again, I've planned on doing this myself now for a few years now, I just haven't found the time over other projects. I think it's a fantastic idea though.
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