What would you do with $5k?

[FlamePKR]

Hey guys,

The question is simple. What would you do now with a budget of $5k if you would have to start over. (given the experience you have today.)

[kushmoney]

Buy a site already making around $200-$400 per month and invest the rest to improve the site.

[Notspot]

Good question. For me the answer would be very different from what I would have said a year ago. How much personal time would you be able to spend on the site, would you be working on the site full time yourself? Or would the $5k have to cover everything?

[FlamePKR]

Well, I just raised this as a hypothetical question, but in the end, yeah, it's also to get advice and tips for myself.

Yes, I could do this on a full time basis (probably outsource designing only - which would be cheap anyway). Once you start something you need to devote your full power to it, that's no problem.

[Mr-AJ]

I'd buy one site that already generates like $ 100 - 400 and one solid domain that you can build long term.

[pokerprop]

2-team teaser Falcons -2.5 and Jets -2.5 imo

[FlamePKR]

2-team teaser Falcons -2.5 and Jets -2.5 imo

Am I just not getting this, or?

[MJ]

It's easy to say "just go buy an established earner" but the reality is that sites that are truly earning a few hundred bucks from player signups and not link sales or other crap are somewhat rare and hard to find - scan the PAL marketplace, see any?

If you are extremely patient you might find an earner to buy in that range, and it def would be the best course (assuming you had means to improve the site after your 5k budget becomes zero post-sale).

Another route would be to invest the 5k with a real plan of attack on a new site - maybe poke around and see what $500 can buy you domain wise (don't jump on the first you find and like!) and plan on spending 3k on extremely high quality content (forget using most PAL writers, they all suck these days) and 1500 on links (however, don't build these links fast - maybe plan your $1500 link budget to be drawn out over the course of several months).

Remember nothing happens fast, most people quit way too early too succeed - above all else you have to want to succeed more than the next guy.

[ak]

I happen to think a few writers from PAL do a great job and if you shop around you can find a few websites for sale that earn $200 to $400 a month in commission.. Choose wisely although MJ is right not many people willing to sell $400 a month earners for cheap.

[Notspot]

I asked 'cos it really does depend on how much time you can spend yourself on SEO and content. Also depends on the skills of the person setting up the site - research, writing strategy, news, maintaining a vibrant forum?

I personally wouldn't buy a site making low hundreds per month as my first site unless there was massive potential or it was being sold for 2-3 months rev. Mostly 'cos anyone can make that kind of money by SEO blasting a new site but that site is very likely to drop out of the serp's at some point. A moderately successful site really should be making more than that. Why is the seller selling it? Usually 'cos they feel they've taken the site as far as it will go or it isn't performing as well as they would like. The low amount it is earning would concern me - unless the site has been abandoned or has not been worked on for a couple of years, in that case it may be worth taking on.

Also, and maybe most important, it can take just as long, or longer, to fix someone else's mistakes as it can to start afresh.

I would target a niche / sector, research keywords & competition, then create a site that offers more than the current sites in that niche. I'd set it up with future expansion into other areas in mind (G news, other niches, UGC). Taking great care to set it up for optimum SEO (no alternative to personal research here).

$1k - design, conversion to WP (cheap option - buy a WP theme like dealer as a start and beef up the design and code to suit your site)
$3K - high quality content (or buy cheap content as a basis and improve it yourself before you publish)
$1k - SEO, presuming you have time to work on getting links for free

Ta daa