Website businesses - need advice & can they be done cheaply?

[bubblerock]

I have an idea for a website business but obviously I don't know if it will take off before I create the site - but I don't want to spend a fortune on a website that isn't going to make money IYSWIM

Also it would be a site that would have registered users paying an annual fee and getting in touch with other members - but how would you get the ball rolling, people aren't going to want to join a site with only 1 other member but that's the way it will start and then hopefully it will build up.

Basically I would need a home page where people could see a certain amount but would have to register and pay the subscription to access more information and also a forum. I've looked at sites being sold on Ebay but I'm a bit wary of these. And also what if the site really took off but was unable to cope with demand??

I don't want to say what my idea is but it has nothing to do with anything on Mumsnet and would be of no interest to any Mumsnetter that I know of

Any advice would be great TIA

Your best bet would be to start it for free and then if you get lots of takers THEN start charging.

Make sure you look carefully at the data protection laws. Some of them are quite complex when it comes to websites and details.

I guess I could do free subscriptions for the first 50 to register. I can't see any other way of making money out of the site as it's not going to sell a product and I presume you can't sell advertising space until you have a good number of visitors - guess all sites had to start somewhere but where???

It wont be any personal data I'll be collecting it will be business data which will be widely available through yellow pages and businesses listings etc... although I will add it to my list of things to check!

Bubblerock, you can take ads like trade doubler where you get apid for click through...

Hi Lemonice

Does the site not have to generate a certain amount of traffic?

This is going to be my winter project at the end of the season. I just need to find a website/host with everything I need and as cheap as possible!

Build your own website. There is plenty of free software available from say www.nonags.com which will provide programs that will enable you to build a website quite seamlessly and at nil cost.

The only thing which you might have to pay for is a web address and 12 months hosting. Do not pay more that a tenner for each respectively. Any problems, drop me a line.

[email protected]

I'll go and take a look at those sites - thanks. I did do the Hotel website but I'm not that happy with it - I'll probably re jig it over the winter but anything more advanced than WYSIWYG and i'm totally out of my depth, the part I'm most worried about is the registration - only allowing registered members to access the whole site and also creating a searchable database of the information provided by the members????

Is there an equivalent UK site that you would recommend EJ?

bubblerock, make sure you really really have something that people will want to pay for. My dh has spent tens of thousands of pounds and almost two years of work for a (subscription) site that does not yet even make enough money to maintain itself. There are business support agencies out there that will give you advice, and I strongly encourage you to get as much advice as possible before you put any money, time or emotions into it. You may well have done this already and have a fantastic idea that will make you loads of money, and I really hope you do, but there is so much free stuff on the web, that people are very reluctant to pay money for anything.

Practically, you will need to buy a domain name, invest in a server, find a co-location site (this is for backup if your server goes down), buy some broadband (not sure what this is called as I'm not a teckie), get a business bank account, set yourself up as a company (Companies House will tell you how to do this), find an internet banker, and then set up the site. Simple sites are easy to do, otherwise you will have to either get some training, or pay someone else to do it for you. Once your site is ready you will need to advertise it to get some initial members. You will probably have to have a period of free membership, or some other selling point to get your initial membership.

None of this is unsurmountable, but it will take you both time and money.

Sorry for the long post, but we have had our fingers very severely burned!

Thanks Nooka, that's why I really don't want to invest a great deal, I'd really like to have a superb looking website but haven't got the funds to achieve this, and with the net you just can't tell if the service you are providing is going to take off or fall flat on its face.

I'm registered self employed anyway and have merchant banking and a business bank account that I could use if I actually ended up making any money. I did a mock free front page and showed DH - he thought it was a real website offering this particular service and though it was a good idea. I'm quite excited about it to be honest but also want to research a bit more so I'm really grateful for the advice being offered!

I'll look out some software for you to download and post the URL.

EJ

Thanks EJ - I used some freeware from bravenet before which was great but my auntie in Canada clicked on our site and went to a porn site which wasn't so great

www.evrsoft.com/download/

The first dozen or so websites I built used this software. I commend it to you.

If you use ANY search engine, type in "freeware" followed by "web editor" and any number of sites will come up. Don't worry if the language used within the software is "american". It is because the terminology in the programming language recognises only the US spellings of words. So colour becomes "color" for example.

Next it depends on what you want your website to do - if you want to take orders from the website and have a "shop", then you need to organise your shop so that there are pictures and from these, customers can add to a shopping basket.

Such a site becomes a little trickier and you might need to consider some external help. But the donkey work can be done by you to keep the costs to a minimum. Why eg pay a "professional" to scan your photographs when you can do these yourself? You are paying in themain for time.

Good luck

Thanks again EJ - I'll go and take a look at those! I was just looking through google at the cost of setting up a membership site - seems quite costly! It wouldn't be a shop, more of a forum and searchable database.

Check out Worldpay for subscriptions, as they take a much smaller cut than many other on line banks. Also have a real look at the competition - how many other sites are doing something similar? How many are pay, what do they offer, and what do they charge. Have a strong idea of your target market and what they might want. Think about a unique selling point, and make sure it's what they want and not just what you think they would like/what you would like. In a lot of ways it's pretty similar to the things that they say on property programmes.

There are some good sites out there that can give advice on this sort of stuff - I know that my dh has found some really useful advice out there (not sure where though!)

Thanks Nooka - just got totally buried by the software download!! It does look good but I can see it will take a bit of getting used to

I haven't found a website with the same idea as mine which is weird as it seems really simple. There would be a strong target market in the UK and abroad. It wouldn't cost the visitors to the site anything apart from the membership fee and they will benefit from the site - in my head it does seem a little too obvious ie - why hasn't it already been done??

Is your DH getting somewhere with it now? 2 years seems an awful long time to be creating something - I'm too impatient

Hi bubblerock

You can visit the tradedoubler site and see the potential advertisers and select those which would be appropriate for your site and then try to register with them, they then choose whether to partner with you.

I don't think there is a traffic minimum as they only pay you if they get click trough or depending on their set up orders.

I checked it out a while ago but it didn't sem appropriate for me at the time, but i might look into again...the draw back is that people might come to you and promptly leave via one of the ads!!

The other thing to do is approach business link, as there are EU grants available for website development up to 50% of costs and first year hosting.

trade Doubler Affiliates

The choice of hosting is important if you want your site always online and secure.

I used website designers and it wasn't as expensive as you would imagine (but not particularly quick)

Do email me if you like (and tell me what it is!!!)

Okay Lemonice - there is a Top Secret email on its way to you - it will self destruct in 10 minutes so beware !

Hi bubblerock, he has a lovely looking well designed site for a niche market (but not really my cup of tea). But after maybe a year of the site going up he still has only about 30 subscribers, and needs about 300 (to break even). People really don't like paying when there is a lot of free content out there. I'm just very cautious about e-commerce (in fact I am pretty cautious full stop!) However obviously there are many success stories too. I think you have to do a lot of careful planning, take as much advice and support (definitely find out about grants, tax breaks etc) as you can get, and be very sure how much you want to risk on it.

Good luck!

I am definately going to look into grants - I'm just a bit worried about who I talk with as they could easily go and do it themselves (not you Lemonice ) I mean someone in the relevant industry - did that worry your DH?

I'm not into risk taking, we only bought the Hotel because there were no risks involved at all - we will always have a roof over our heads whatever happens!

Once it's up and running it's always possible that someone will copy (eg lots of parenting sites, obviously that isn't what you're doing)so you have to get from the initial idea to and up and running fairly quickly but also consider that the first to market on the internet is now probably fairly by the board, just concentrate on getting it right and initially clear and simple.

Imagine you are the people to do it and go from there,

this is a grants siteHere

but I got mine through Business Link

and the other one I suggest are nice but I haven't got round to consulting them yet

National business to business centre

Thanks for those links Lemonice - I ended up on the UK Business forums - It's free to register and they were all really welcoming, I'd definately recommend introducing yourself on there if you haven't already!