Is This Something You Might Be Interested In?

Snooze

SallyUK wrote: »

Hello Folks

I have Martin's permission to post this first of all! lol

I'll try and keep it as simple as I can. I have a website (which I'm not allowed to post, I know) that focuses on getting adverts from local businesses, local tradesmen, people starting their own business, classified, dating ads etc. The idea is to keep it as simple as possible, so instead of having a search engine, I have a page of Regions. All you do is find the area where you live and if it's highlighted, this means that there are already adverts in that area for you to view. If your area isn't highlighted, it means I've not received any adverts for there yet. - hope you're following this so far! lol. Then I have a page of categories, ie hairdressers, butchers, cars for sale, property for sale, rent etc, everything that I can think of really!

Now for the good part. I plan to donate 70% of each advert to charity, 20% to people who help me promote the site and get the adverts for it, and 10% will be used for the upkeep and maintenance, advertising, all the things that go with running a website. The people who pay to place the adverts can nominate the charity if they so wish.

The people who would be helping me promote the website would be self employed. They could either email businesses, or phone them or pop in and have a face to face chat while they're out shopping. Or perhaps they might have friends and relative who have their own businesses and who would maybe place adverts?

I thought it would be good for Mums or pensioners or anyone really who enjoyed chatting to people and who wanted to try and make themselves some extra money.

Now I've given you the basics, would you please let me have some feedback, positive and negative!

Thankyou

Sally

Without wishing to put a damper on your ideas, I think you are grossly underestimating the current market already for this kind of thing and if you'd done any research you'd have already realised this.

You've got to look at it from a punter's point of view. If you wanted a decorator or mechanic (and didn't know anyone who could recommend one), where would you look? Would it be a case of pulling out the Thomson Local or Yellow Pages or would you go to some website that you've never heard of?

The same applies to physical items too : you're not going to waste time looking on some random website when you've got Ebay at your fingertips and to a lesser extent, Adtrader, Loot, etc.

If you'd been the first to do this when the internet first arrived then you'd be laughing now, but the market is already saturated with this kind of thing. Businesses aren't going to pay to advertise if you can't show them you've got big traffic levels (which you won't be able to if you're only just starting out at this). If you've little to no traffic then there's no point in advertising because no-one will see it. It's a catch 22 situation I'm afraid.

For this to work (ie. make you money) you're going to need to invest a shedload of cash into marketing it to get you noticed at all - never mind get you noticed amongst the thousands of other players already doing this - and things like Adwords and SEO (search engine optimisation) don't come cheap (and I know because this is my line of work).

Rob

Snooze

In fact, I have just found your website by doing a search on your IP.

Half a dozen ads for the entire UK isn't particularly confidence-inspiring for people to part with their cash is it?

Considering the above, your fees are laughable :

Classifieds Dating £2.00
Dating (With Photograph) £3.00
Items Under £49 Free
Items £50 - £99.00 £0.50
Items £100 - £499.00 £1.00
Items £500 - £999.00 £1.50
Items Over £999.00 £2.00

Motoring Ads (Until sold) £ 5.00
Property Ads (Until sold) £20.00
Home Business (Work from home) £10.00 for 6 months
Local Tradesmen £12.00 for 6 months
Small Shops and Businesses £15.00 for 6 months
Larger Shops and Businesses £30.00 for 6 months
Charities Free
Non Profit Making Organisations Free
Personal Webpage Listing £35.00 for six months
Own Website - Maximum 5 pages £140.00

:rotfl:

Sorry but if you want to get people coming through your site you're going to need to have something for them to read and 6 ads is not quite enough . On the other side of the coin, as mentioned in my previous post, businesses aren't going to advertise in a place where no-one goes. I really can't see this working, sorry.

Rob

save-a-lot

Snooze wrote: »

In fact, I have just found your website by doing a search on your IP.

Half a dozen ads for the entire UK isn't particularly confidence-inspiring for people to part with their cash is it?

Considering the above, your fees are laughable :

Classifieds Dating £2.00
Dating (With Photograph) £3.00
Items Under £49 Free
Items £50 - £99.00 £0.50
Items £100 - £499.00 £1.00
Items £500 - £999.00 £1.50
Items Over £999.00 £2.00

Motoring Ads (Until sold) £ 5.00
Property Ads (Until sold) £20.00
Home Business (Work from home) £10.00 for 6 months
Local Tradesmen £12.00 for 6 months
Small Shops and Businesses £15.00 for 6 months
Larger Shops and Businesses £30.00 for 6 months
Charities Free
Non Profit Making Organisations Free
Personal Webpage Listing £35.00 for six months
Own Website - Maximum 5 pages £140.00

:rotfl:

Sorry but if you want to get people coming through your site you're going to need to have something for them to read and 6 ads is not quite enough . On the other side of the coin, as mentioned in my previous post, businesses aren't going to advertise in a place where no-one goes. I really can't see this working, sorry.

Rob

The above is true as harsh as it sounds.

SallyUK

Thanks for your comments.

However, we all have to start somewhere, which is what I'm setting out to do.

Sally
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SallyUK

Hi Becky and Proliant

PMs are on their way to you, thanks.

Sally
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Jay08

Sally i would also be interested. Also i sent you a PM : )

teedy23

Your certainly attracting the attention of a load of brand new newbies. Good luck.

SallyUK

Hi Jay,

Thanks, you have a PM.

Thanks to you too, Teedy.

Sally
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NikkiP_2

I think its a great idea, but you will need to get the 'name' known.
Might be worth offering a 'free' period for advertisers, would get the ads filled up. I'll pm you.
best of luck.

SallyUK

Hi Nikki

Thanks for that suggestion, I've already started offering that so fingers crossed the adverts will start coming in soon! lol

Take care,

Sally
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