Anyone with web design and advertising expertise?

OutdoorTime

We have been working on an idea for a website that could potentially be a second income source. We have no experience with online business or web design. We would like to consult someone or company on the feasibility and development of the website. The basic type of website is an information resource community similar to, Trip Advisor. We are in the Galway area. Thanks.

Andy_Black

Hi OutdoorTime,

Well done with specifying that you would like to determine the feasibility of your business idea.

First and foremost is to make sure you keep your eye on your ultimate goal, which is to bring in a second source of income, and *not* to build a website.


It reminds me of the story about the Russians and Americans racing to be the first into space.

The Americans said that on their missions they would need a pen that could write upside down, so spent months and thousands to develop this fine pen whose ink would flow when there was no gravity.

The Russians said that on their missions they would need to be able to write upside down, so someone suggested they use a pencil.

At the end of the day, any website you develop is just the pen or pencil that can allow you to make money.


The single biggest mistake that I see people make when they create a website to make money is that they state that their aim is to create a website, and then try and work out how said website can make money. They consult with web developers and web designers and build a fantastic looking website with all the bells and whistles, launch it, and then nothing happens... no visitors, no sales leads, no sales, no money.


At the end of the day businesses profit by giving people what they want.

The goals of your feasibility study are therefore to:

1. Find out what people want.
2. Find out how to give it to them.
3. Find out if you can make a profit doing so.
4. Convert all this knowledge into money!

I wrote a post a while ago that might be of interest to you:
A quick and inexpensive way to find out if there is a market for your product/service.


The most important thing for any of us is to be absolutely sure about what we want to achieve, and why, and then ensure that we pick the right consultants who will help us achieve this.

When it comes to website design, there's something to be said for speaking to business or internet marketing consultants first, before dealing with web design or advertising consultants.


I hope that helps.

Andy

OutdoorTime

Andy,

That is sound advise, Thanks!
I checked out your past thread...also great tips for researching the current "need" and demand for the idea. I didn't know about the Google Ad search tool. We find the demand to already exist with people actively searching the web for the information.

Our idea is not to sell a product, we want provide a service, an information resource/community which will attract users to the website and ultimately follow Ad links (which is the potential income source). Realizing that a website requires enormous traffic to generate interest and feasibility for companies to advertise, we need to understand the feasibility of the idea. We are confident that there is not another website providing the specific interest area, but there are a few very suscessful model websites that are similar in nature.

You mentioned to develop a simple website for a start-up company, this idea unfortunately would require a complex website. Knowing very little about web design we also need consultation on the associated time, and expenses to actually start the project.

Your feedback is much appreciated. Thanks.

amen

instead of starting with a fully functional website with every feature present and working can you break your idea down into smaller problem domains and implement one or two of these smaller (and hopefully simpler) domains first to gauge your market?

This would allow you to determine if your idea is feasible and also get feedback on your website

Andy_Black

It's great that you already have examples of sites that are doing something similar, and successfully. You can reverse engineer their business model, sales funnels, and website.

+1 to amen's suggestion. When I hear complex I immediately think of black holes for time, money, and morale!

Consider working in an "agile" manner... with frequent, fast delivery, and plenty of market feedback. This will help you to deliver what the market actually wants, rather than what you hope it needs... and will help you keep your project cost and scope under control.

It sounds a lot like you will encounter the "Knowledge Acquisition Bottleneck" whereby you will need to spend a lot of time acquiring knowledge before you will be able to proceed. This will also be true of any consultants you bring in. There is a danger that you will spend a lot of time and money trying to precisely specify the requirements and costs for your complex website, to find that your requirements change as you learn more about making money online and your particular markets.

Again, working in an agile manner will help you get through this bottleneck. (Look up "agile methodologies" and the "waterfall method" and decide whether you want a series of small projects or you want a large project from the word go.)

You mention that monetisation would be by advertisements. Bearing in mind amen's advice (which is effectively to keep it short and simple - KISS), could you use Adsense for the Ads to start with? It might not give you the return that a direct deal would have, but you wouldn't need any minimum volumes of traffic for the Ads to appear on your site.

Whilst you might not get a +ve ROI from this exercise, you'll gain valuable market intelligence, and actual numbers. You can then determine from these numbers what you have to improve by to get into +ve ROI territory, and to justify your time and expense delivering this project. Bear in mind opportunity cost too... if it's going to fail, do so quickly and get on with something else.

I hope that helps!

Andy

OutdoorTime

Amen, breaking the website into smaller elements sounds like a good idea. But do we run the risk of having to manage and tweak 5 smaller domains rather than just one to start with..? The content is meant to be related and work together to offer the user a compete service in one website.
I could imagine starting the site with "placeholders" for some of the features to simplify the complexity. That way we can add on and expand the features when we are more prepared with some user stats.

Andy, I like agile and kiss ideas. I think the "waterfall method" is probably the best strategy for us... Requirements>Design>Implementation>Verification>Maintenance

How do we avoid the "knowledge bottleneck"?! What is the best way to get started? You mention a lot of potential time and cost wasted on trying to explain the Website requirements to consultants. Do we need a business plan? A graphic site map?

Second, +ve in scientific terms... positive charge, what does it mean in business?
Explain more on the territory comment. I would like to start local ROI while my partner say go all out and start multi-national? What are the pros and cons of one or the other?

Thanks for the input!

Andy_Black

Hmmm... sorry. "+ve ROI territory" just meant getting near to positive return on investment... i.e. profitable. Sorry I wasn't clear, too much lingo!

The way through that knowledge acquisition bottleneck is to NOT use the waterfall method, but to use Agile methodologies. Fast, frequent iterations with plenty of actual feedback.

This requires you start small (scope wise), and start fast. Akin to what amen was saying. You're testing the water as you go along, and you can come back and change things and stitch it all together later.