My friend and I are thinking about starting up a website. The topic we have in mind is camping in New Hampshire. He has more experience with it than I do. We would probably give information and reviews about camp sites, attractions, and tips for camping in New Hampshire. The market in New Hampshire is relatively small as it is a small state, but per capita there are definitely a lot of people interested in camping here. If the site became successful we would consider expanding to other states.
Now my question is this: I’m looking at this from a business perspective. Our target market is pretty small compared to other websites, but we expect people from other New England states who vacation in New Hampshire would also visit our site. What I want to know is how much could we expect to make in advertising money per month. How much would we make when we’re just starting our, and how much when we’re established and have a good user base? I’m new to the internet business, and I’m also wondering do sites like this ever recieve offers from other companies or individuals to sell? If so how much would a site like this sell for once it is established? I understand the value of both advertising and the site are subject to about a million factors, but a rough estimate would be nice. Unfortunately I can’t really give you an estimate of the number of users we would have to base your numbers off of. Thanks.
The income from advertising is highly tied into the amount of traffic you have.
In my opinion you are skipping some steps.
The initial design sounds good. Go ahead and create an "advertise with us" link but dont expect much from it right away. I would plan on making your own money for abit before you can bring in major advertisers.
Open a CafePress shop (feel free to credit OddThotz for a referral) and create some pamphlets, tshirts, mugs, maybe a CD of scenic images
Open an Amazon Affiliate account (feel free to mention anyonecannet-20 as referral). Create links on your site to reviews and ratings you do of books, CDs, camping equipment, etc so that anyone clicking the link to buy will provide you some money for it
Check out other things in the New Hampshire area where you can get referral credit for sending people there. You dont have to sell-out your honor. Dont link to things you dont believe are good. But you might as well look for things that you CAN recommend and they give back for it.
That way you can generate income from the site while you are building up some search-engine recognition and some traffic. When you can say "we have xxx people every day specifically interested in NH camping" then you approach businesses to see if they would like to advertise with you.
It’s going to be very difficult to answer your question because, as you said, there are a million different factors here.
The main things that will determine if you make money is the amount of qualified traffic visiting your site, what you’re advertising, and making your site user friendly.
I personally would recommend have a very prominent sign up box on your site. Offer a free guide to camping in New Hampshire (or something along that line), to make people want to sign up to your list.
This way you are building a list of people that you can market to through email. That way you’re not only dependent on new visitors to your site.
As far as the money you can make from a website like this. It depends greatly. I think it could make some pretty decent money but getting started and tweaking things along the way is the only way you’ll know for sure.
And yes, if you have a profitable site, people would be willing to buy it.
I hope that helps a bit. It would take hours to discuss the ins and outs of all your questions but hopefully this might give you some ideas.
All the best,
Jason
http://www.mrarticlemarketer.com
References :
http://www.mrarticlemarketer.com
The income from advertising is highly tied into the amount of traffic you have.
In my opinion you are skipping some steps.
The initial design sounds good. Go ahead and create an "advertise with us" link but dont expect much from it right away. I would plan on making your own money for abit before you can bring in major advertisers.
Open a CafePress shop (feel free to credit OddThotz for a referral) and create some pamphlets, tshirts, mugs, maybe a CD of scenic images
Open an Amazon Affiliate account (feel free to mention anyonecannet-20 as referral). Create links on your site to reviews and ratings you do of books, CDs, camping equipment, etc so that anyone clicking the link to buy will provide you some money for it
Check out other things in the New Hampshire area where you can get referral credit for sending people there. You dont have to sell-out your honor. Dont link to things you dont believe are good. But you might as well look for things that you CAN recommend and they give back for it.
That way you can generate income from the site while you are building up some search-engine recognition and some traffic. When you can say "we have xxx people every day specifically interested in NH camping" then you approach businesses to see if they would like to advertise with you.
References :