Running a successful website

[jbergey22]

I was just wondering if anyone on this board has experience running a successful website? Its seems like a nice and easy way of generating additional income. I have been searching some domain names to do with mortgages and fixing bad credit and there seem to be some decent names available. Can anyone with experience let me know if this is worth the time. Thanks in advance.

[Joe]

depends how much you expect to make, but I've found it to be anything but easy.

[BrianD]

In general, any easy way you find of generating income will have already been discovered by enough people to make it no longer easy to generate income.

Websites themselves don't generate income, only the products sold via the website can generate income. You would need to find a product (which could include information) which is cheaper, or of higher quality to get from you...and you need to get people to realize that product should be bought from you. In other words...lots of work for little return.

[Fidatelo]

teh interwebs is guaranteed cizash!

[Greyroofoo]

just find a couple of local girls looking for a way to pay their way through college.

[MikeVic]

everyfunnylink.com was a successful website fun by an FOFC member I think.

[Vinatieri for Prez]

Originally Posted by Greyroofoo

just find a couple of local girls looking for a way to pay their way through college.

Yes, for some reason, this product is very high in demand.

[flere-imsaho]

Well, I haven't made any money from WiP, in case you're interested.

[DanGarion]

Originally Posted by Greyroofoo

just find a couple of local girls looking for a way to pay their way through college.

I'd buy that for a dollar!

[vtbub]

Originally Posted by jbergey22

I was just wondering if anyone on this board has experience running a successful website? Its seems like a nice and easy way of generating additional income. I have been searching some domain names to do with mortgages and fixing bad credit and there seem to be some decent names available. Can anyone with experience let me know if this is worth the time. Thanks in advance.

Don't expect to get rich off web sites. I ran a web store for a year with dropshipped goods and barely broke even. I run a web store for a local store and he doesn't break even. I've blogged before and it's great for coffee money one a year. Even the most successful blog creation I've been in, inthebleachers.net, only generates enough revenue to pay for the server space.

Nice and easy and generating income are like oil and water. They don't mix.

[Icy]

Well if owning a network of websites with 400,000 visitors daily is successful for you, i own one and make a good living from it, but can't post links or will get banned from the forum

Sadly the only way to make good money running websites is either porn or casinos/poker, unless you can find an idea never developed and be the first to do it (see youtube for example) or you can invest a ton of money having a good team of employees working full time in your office and expending a lot on advertisement. Even porn and casinos are not profitable anymore with the huge competence and every country trying to regulate it to get a big piece of the cake through taxes.

Have on mind that this isn't the early 90's anymore, the competence is fierce, big companies own most of the traffic while in the past every kid could own a website and make some money from it. You need to think big to start right now, it means investing a good amount of money without knowing if you will get it back.

I started in the late 90's, a bit too late, but still managed to grow enough to live exclusively from it. It's great to work from home, without boss, without schedulle, etc but... you end becoming a workaholic, working more hours than anybody in a standard job. I had to slowdown a couple of years ago as i was burning myself, I was so bored, without any motivation and working over 14 hours per day weekends included etc. It was affecting my health, my social life and even my marriage. Now i work enough to have a good living, but also enjoy more free time with my family, friends and on my own hobbies (playing games, running, watching sports, etc). Sometimes i think i could make way more money if working as in the past, but money is not everything as life taught me when we lost our daughter 1.5 years ago, so i changed my mind and decided to enjoy more my life.

Without good money to invest and good internet knowledge (and specially contacts in the webmasters community) i wouldn't start right now unless you just want it just as a hobby. If you decide to go for it, my first advice is to create a website about something you enjoy, that way it will become your hobby instead of your work, and maybe one day, you will find yourself making decent money from it, else you will burn yourself so fast.

I don't enjoy working on the websites i own, i do it just for the money and it's really boring so i'm always looking for new projects to have some fun. Sometimes i have even thought on selling my whole network of sites and then looking for a job in an internet company that works on websites more related to my hobbies (sports and/or games mainly). That way i would enjoy my job again and would have a fixed 35 hours per week schedule, without being always afraid of a server going down or a new big change that could ruin my business.

I guess my position right now is exactly like the people living from poker that i know. They make good money and that is why they keep doing it, but they hate poker now when they loved it at first.

[Farrah Whitworth-Rahn]

Um...Icy runs a porn website? Who knew.

[Cringer]

Originally Posted by Icy

I don't enjoy working on the websites i own, i do it just for the money and it's really boring so i'm always looking for new projects to have some fun. Sometimes i have even thought on selling my whole network of sites and then looking for a job in an internet company that works on websites more related to my hobbies (sports and/or games mainly).

I like naked girls. Give me your websites and you can have my truck.

Call me what you will, but I would love to run a porn website or own a strip club. Even the wife wouldn't mind owning a strip club, but I doubt that one will happen.

[stevew]

Originally Posted by Farrah Whitworth-Rahn

Um...Icy runs a porn website? Who knew.

Everyone but you?

[Icy]

Originally Posted by Cringer

I like naked girls. Give me your websites and you can have my truck.

Call me what you will, but I would love to run a porn website or own a strip club. Even the wife wouldn't mind owning a strip club, but I doubt that one will happen.

The weird thing is that i have never been a porn consumer myself outside the usual curiosity, and it's even worse now after years of watching it daily for hours as a job. I haven't either ever put my foot in a real casino, nor played a single $ in an online one. I know the products enough to market them, but i don't enjoy them at all. I have been offered a few times to enter in the production side of the porn business but i have always said no as i have zero interest on it outside online advertisement.

It's like if i tell you that i would like to drive a truck, but it doesn't mean i would like to do it for a living as i bet it's very boring. Probably all us envy the life of a pro poker player, but the ones i know are pretty bored about that life (i think we have some poker pros here in FOFC that agree with me). If i work with porn/casinos is because the money, not because i like it (yeah you can call me hypocrite but it's the true). I would love to run a games, music or sports website that could bring me half of the profit that porn/casinos do, but until that chance comes or until someday i have the next "youtube" original idea, i'll have to stick to working with this.

[rkmsuf]

complimentary passwords for FOFC?

[Cringer]

Originally Posted by Icy

If i work with porn/casinos is because the money, not because i like it (yeah you can call me hypocrite but it's the true). .

I don't think it makes you a hypocrite at all. Most people do their jobs "just for the money" aspect of it. I love and hate driving at the same time. Boring sometimes, great others. At one point I never thought I would be getting out of it, but as it stands now I currently am trying to find a way out of trucking and keeps me home. That just seems more important to me. So I understand.

Originally Posted by Icy

It's like if i tell you that i would like to drive a truck, but it doesn't mean i would like to do it for a living as i bet it's very boring..

Does this mean you won't trade me some websites for my truck?

[Kodos]

I make on lot of money on my Bony-Baby website.

[Farrah Whitworth-Rahn]

Originally Posted by stevew

Everyone but you?

I guess so.

[MikeVic]

I hear Zubabaz or whatever are coming back. Make a site to sell them, quick!

[Icy]

Originally Posted by Farrah Whitworth-Rahn

I guess so.

I have said it a couple of times here probably on related threads, not that i feel specially proud of it, but not needed to hide it either

[Farrah Whitworth-Rahn]

Originally Posted by Icy

I have said it a couple of times here probably on related threads, not that i feel specially proud of it, but not needed to hide it either

I'm curious - why? Why aren't you specially proud of it?

[MikeVic]

Don't follow turfwar.com either!

[Icy]

Originally Posted by Farrah Whitworth-Rahn

I'm curious - why? Why aren't you specially proud of it?

Because while i see porn and casinos as some kind of entertainment for most of persons, for a few of them it could become an addition and/or a real problem and i don't like to be who pushes that problem. You can't imagine the sick emails i get from time to time from surfers thinking that i'm one of the models or have physical contact with them (i have even reported some sick ones to the authorities).

The problem is that i can't filter who enters in my websites, if a healthy man or woman looking for some entertainment or a sick pedo, a kid doing it hiding from their parents etc. I have no problem with mental healthy men/women enjoying porn, but i have with kids or persons with mental issues. Same about casinos, i have seen guys to lose up to $30,000 in a few hours, i guess if they expended it is because they can afford it but... who knows if they are ruining their families, so i have always mixed feelings when i get my % of their loses, happy about the money for my family, sad about the guy who lost it. 99% of the people in my business don't ever think or care about that and even get offended when i reject their good business offers because my moral even being 100% legal, i'm in a tough situation

I'm maybe to sensible to run this kind of business, let's say i love to do online marketing, but not the products that i advertise right now. The problem is that not a lot of mainstream companies can pay what porn/casinos ones do for online marketing.

Right now i have my income and probably my family future covered, that is why i'm looking into other online business chances (like the possible online game i could develop some day), if not for the money, at least for the fun of doing it for a change.

[spleen1015]

Originally Posted by rkmsuf

complimentary passwords for FOFC?

Dude? Hook us up. For real.

[BrianD]

Originally Posted by spleen1015

Dude? Hook us up. For real.

Wouldn't giving out free porn passwords to FOFC eliminate most of their business?

[Fidatelo]

Wait, people still pay for pron? It's hard just to avoid the stuff, I can't see a need for passwords...

[RomaGoth]

Originally Posted by Icy

Sometimes i think i could make way more money if working as in the past, but money is not everything as life taught me when we lost our daughter 1.5 years ago, so i changed my mind and decided to enjoy more my life.

Sorry to hear about your daughter, as a father of 3 children I feel your pain. You are correct that money is not everything. It is important to live a decent life, but you cannot bring it with you when you are gone, so we need to enjoy what we have a little more and worry about what we don't have a little less.

[RomaGoth]

Originally Posted by Fidatelo

Wait, people still pay for pron? It's hard just to avoid the stuff, I can't see a need for passwords...

Very true. Just try searching for the whitehouse on the internet sometime.

[Radii]

Reason #109 why Icy is totally awesome.