Discussion
I have what I think is a fantastic Idea for a website and one that is currently not been done anywhere.
What I would like to know now is what directions I should take next with the idea... anyone with past experience I would really appreciate some pointers...
Also is there anyway you can patent your idea or not?
What I would like to know now is what directions I should take next with the idea... anyone with past experience I would really appreciate some pointers...
Also is there anyway you can patent your idea or not?
My understanding is that it's essentially impossible to patent or protect an idea on its own - would be interested if I can be proven wrong on that!
Take the www.milliondollarhomepage.com - the second it went live - anyone would be free to copy the idea and run with it too.
Take the www.milliondollarhomepage.com - the second it went live - anyone would be free to copy the idea and run with it too.
An example of how the Internet Age has completely subverted standard business models and ways of making money.
Normally to sell advertising space you need a good site with loads of hit-rates and unique visitors, no...?
The kid wants a million dollars.
So he decide to set up a single homepage - name it thus - and sell advertising space on it - pixel-by-pixel. A dollar a pixel - making him a million dollars if they all sell. He'd sell blocks of 100 - and these would become links to the buyer's website.
It started off slow - but word-of-mouth meant it rocketed towards the end, by which point the last few pixels were selling on Ebay for silly money!
So - he thought of a novel way of selling advertising space, on a site that had precisely zero history!!
The punters obviously figured on betting on it taking off - which it did!
He was a millionaire a few times over within a year or so, I think.
Normally to sell advertising space you need a good site with loads of hit-rates and unique visitors, no...?
The kid wants a million dollars.
So he decide to set up a single homepage - name it thus - and sell advertising space on it - pixel-by-pixel. A dollar a pixel - making him a million dollars if they all sell. He'd sell blocks of 100 - and these would become links to the buyer's website.
It started off slow - but word-of-mouth meant it rocketed towards the end, by which point the last few pixels were selling on Ebay for silly money!
So - he thought of a novel way of selling advertising space, on a site that had precisely zero history!!
The punters obviously figured on betting on it taking off - which it did!
He was a millionaire a few times over within a year or so, I think.
Google 'sandboxes' websites for the first year, so you'll need to pay for adwords to actually appear on there for regular searches.
Other advertising routes obviously depend on what the website is doing/selling.
I can help with the site, feel free to email me through my profile.
Cheers,
Al.
Other advertising routes obviously depend on what the website is doing/selling.
I can help with the site, feel free to email me through my profile.
Cheers,
Al.
Without wanting to piss on your bonfire, you say your idea is "currently not been done anywhere", but yet you haven't heard of the MDHP, which was probably the biggest Web site of 2006. What I'm trying to say is that your idea almost definitely exists, you simply don't know about it.
Hi Matt..thx for your blunt response...
I can understand what you mean with your comment its noted and now discarded..
I have searched for days for something like mine and there is nothing..and if there is its not worth noting about and is not been done correctly.. But I am still yet to even find one not been done right, so as far as I am concerned its not been done...
I can understand what you mean with your comment its noted and now discarded..
I have searched for days for something like mine and there is nothing..and if there is its not worth noting about and is not been done correctly.. But I am still yet to even find one not been done right, so as far as I am concerned its not been done...
Altrezia said:
Google 'sandboxes' websites for the first year, so you'll need to pay for adwords to actually appear on there for regular searches.
What absolute tosh. Yes there is a 'sandbox', but if you design/promote your site effectively you shouldn't have any issues. I have at least three sites, less than 6 months old, that rank >3 on Google for their main (non-tail) keywords.sa_20v said:
Altrezia said:
Google 'sandboxes' websites for the first year, so you'll need to pay for adwords to actually appear on there for regular searches.
What absolute tosh. Yes there is a 'sandbox', but if you design/promote your site effectively you shouldn't have any issues. I have at least three sites, less than 6 months old, that rank >3 on Google for their main (non-tail) keywords.sa_20v said:
Altrezia said:
Google 'sandboxes' websites for the first year, so you'll need to pay for adwords to actually appear on there for regular searches.
What absolute tosh. Yes there is a 'sandbox', but if you design/promote your site effectively you shouldn't have any issues. I have at least three sites, less than 6 months old, that rank >3 on Google for their main (non-tail) keywords.sa_20v said:
Altrezia said:
Google 'sandboxes' websites for the first year, so you'll need to pay for adwords to actually appear on there for regular searches.
What absolute tosh. Yes there is a 'sandbox', but if you design/promote your site effectively you shouldn't have any issues. I have at least three sites, less than 6 months old, that rank >3 on Google for their main (non-tail) keywords.The 'sandbox' may not exist but Google defiantly penalises new websites. Google essentially ranks websites based on the number of relevant links and the anchor text used on links which point to your site. I believe what actually happens is that links to your website are given more value the longer they exist up to a maximum value per link after ~ 12 months. As a new website will have new links the effect is similar to that of a sandbox and it typically takes 6 - 12 months to rank well for competitive keywords. After this time the full value of the incoming links is taken into Googles equation of where to place your site in the search results.
You will defiantly need to budget for some Google adsense or similar advertising for the first 6 - 12 months until you can rank well in the organic search results. You will also need to budget for search engine optimisation (which is basically link building). The amount you will need to budget for this will depend on how competitive the terms you want to rank for are. Be very careful when selecting a company to do search engine optimisation for you, unfortunately there is an abundance of people in this industry who will promise you the earth and deliver next to nothing.
I have experience of launching new websites in several different markets. Please feel free to drop me an email if you would like any advice. Depending on the idea I may also be interested in investing.
peterh2 said:
sa_20v said:
Altrezia said:
Google 'sandboxes' websites for the first year, so you'll need to pay for adwords to actually appear on there for regular searches.
What absolute tosh. Yes there is a 'sandbox', but if you design/promote your site effectively you shouldn't have any issues. I have at least three sites, less than 6 months old, that rank >3 on Google for their main (non-tail) keywords.peterh2 said:
The 'sandbox' may not exist but Google defiantly penalises new websites. Google essentially ranks websites based on the number of relevant links and the anchor text used on links which point to your site.
The sandbox is a theory, in fact I believe Google may have actually said it doesn't exist in the past. Also be careful not to fall into the trap that believing relevant inbound links and anchor text is the way to best promote your own site, Google can actually penalise on the basis of too many new inbound links (more theory there).This is an interesting example, perhaps one of the best SEO sites on the net:
http://www.seomoz.org/blog/how-seomoz-built-one-mi...
The article describes how it attracted over 1 million inbound links, and despite the relevance, value, design etc:
"we fell from ranking #7 for SEO at Google, to ranking #15 (losing our spot to a site that looks like it was designed in 1998, has only 3,300 links and links out to "sexy lingerie" in the footer)"
peterh2 said:
I believe what actually happens is that links to your website are given more value the longer they exist up to a maximum value per link after ~ 12 months. As a new website will have new links the effect is similar to that of a sandbox and it typically takes 6 - 12 months to rank well for competitive keywords. After this time the full value of the incoming links is taken into Googles equation of where to place your site in the search results.
Some of this is true, however there are ways around this using simple SEO practices, unpaid promotion etc.peterh2 said:
You will defiantly need to budget for some Google adsense or similar advertising for the first 6 - 12 months until you can rank well in the organic search results.
You mean Adwords, also try using MSN Adcenter and Yahoo! Search Marketing - users from the latter tend to be more engaged, and if in the US, older, less web-savvy and monied users.peterh2 said:
You will also need to budget for search engine optimisation (which is basically link building).
NO! Never assume that SEO is only about this. There are a huge number of factors, from page design (even using DIV over nested tables can improve your sites value), along with meta-tags, keyword targetting with content...I assure you its a very long list.peterh2 said:
The amount you will need to budget for this will depend on how competitive the terms you want to rank for are. Be very careful when selecting a company to do search engine optimisation for you, unfortunately there is an abundance of people in this industry who will promise you the earth and deliver next to nothing.
Two things, firstly, whether your website is MoneySupermarket or only monetises 'the tail', SEO should be conducted to its fullest. Although, I agree that larger sites will command a higher fee. Secondly, there are an abundance of people who promise the earth, instead go for someone who has a track record, can identify opportunities for your site and understands that sometimes even the best SEO won't improve a sites rank within search engines (but SEO shouldn't just be about search engines).peterh2 said:
I have experience of launching new websites in several different markets. Please feel free to drop me an email if you would like any advice. Depending on the idea I may also be interested in investing.
Good luck to you both. 
May I recommend to the OP that he writes up a business plan (nothing too detailed), gets a NDA drawn up (I can provide one if you need) and runs the idea past an established internet based company with a portfolio of sites. If you go with a single individual, you may get funding, but the whole thing is likely to either come to nothing or be beaten to market by someone else.If you need any free advice, drop me a PM but due to commitments working with another major start-up, I will be unable to invest at this time.
Edited by sa_20v on Wednesday 1st August 22:45
This post is not meant to come across as argumentative or for you to think that I am in any way questioning your SEO ability so please do not take it that way. I have read through your post and it does contain a lot of information which I agree with. This has obviously worked for you in the past and this post is only about things which have worked for ME, they may not work for other people. This post also relates solely to Google SEO I appreciate other search engines put a lot more weighting into on site optimisation when deciding what positions sites should rank. A lot of SEO is based on guess work as we don't know the exact algorithms Google use. The reason I am specifically writing about Google SEO is that if done correctly in 99% of industries in the UK it will get you significantly more traffic than all the rest of the search engines put together.
Content is also very important. If you have great content people will naturally link to it. Google also loves regularly updated, fresh content.
sa_20v said:
The sandbox is a theory, in fact I believe Google may have actually said it doesn't exist in the past. Also be careful not to fall into the trap that believing relevant inbound links and anchor text is the way to best promote your own site, Google can actually penalise on the basis of too many new inbound links (more theory there).
Agree 100% about the sandbox. Google (via Matt Cutts) have however said several times in the past that nothing your competitors can do will harm your ranking. This means that whilst 'spammy' links will most probably have no positive effect they will NOT have a negative impact on your ranking. If this was the case you could simply go and buy loads of links from dodgy sites and point them at your competitors site to knock them off the top positions. Linking FROM your site to dodgy sites however can defiantly result in a penalty. peterh2 said:
You will also need to budget for search engine optimisation (which is basically link building).
Google recently seems to have devalued a lot of the on page factors. I still think title, h1, and h2 tags as well as simple, good design with good internal link structure, avoiding orphan pages etc. is important BUT on site optimisation to rank well in Google is not as important as is is for other search engines. Off site factors i.e. quality, natural, relevant links are very important for ranking well in Google.sa_20v said:
NO! Never assume that SEO is only about this. There are a huge number of factors, from page design (even using DIV over nested tables can improve your sites value), along with meta-tags, keyword targetting with content...I assure you its a very long list.
Content is also very important. If you have great content people will naturally link to it. Google also loves regularly updated, fresh content.
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