SEO Dave
12-26-2004, 04:18 PM
On 14 Dec 2004 08:25:13 -0800, "footybet" <damian@bleachboys.com>
wrote:
>Thanks for the confidence boost Dave
I think you missed your smiley with your joke above.
>I have given myself 2 months actually, the term of my rent (8 weeks)
>with my landlord
>I have to find £120 by friday to pay my first week's rent, then 5 days
>at this rate, then £70 per week
Do you even have a business plan as the above is joke?
It sounds like you don't have the first £120 for rent. BTW that's
quite high for rent in your area, sounds like you either have a very
large space or they have taken advantage (the latter wouldn't surprise
me).
How many PCs do you have, what sort of internet connections?
>I am not allowed to borrow money, as I have signed a contract with
>Christians Against Poverty, who have worked out
>a budget, so that I pay all my debts off at a rate of £31 per week, I
>am 2 months into this contract and have kept up payments
Oh my!!
>if after 8 weeks, things aren't going well, I will close the cafe and
>get on with selling door to door
>if customers won't come to me, I will go to them - until they are
>prepared to come to a shop
Can I give you some honest advice as someone who has started three
successful businesses/ventures.
My first venture (which was on the side) is what got me started. I'll
not mention what it was since it's illegal (no not drugs or anything
really bad). I was taken to court over it though and fined £1500 :-)
Even though this was on the side and so didn't cost me much to setup
etc... it still took a lot of work and time to get from loss to
profit.
It started as a hobby, I'd recently left University on medical grounds
and as I'm unable to work a 9-5 desk type job due to a disability I
needed something to do. It didn't start seriously, but went very well
and within 6 months I was making a profit (not much at first) and I
could see the potential. I put a lot of effort into it and within a
year I had enough money to start planning a legitimate business (I
save over 75% of what I make) and planned to stop and move on to a
legal venture (we all have to start somewhere), but circumstances took
over :-))
After that I was derailed from my plans for a while (takes ages for
court cases and didn't know how much money I'd loose {£1500 fine was a
slap on the wrist since it was less than a fortnights takings, I was
expecting a lot worse}) so took a few years to get in a position to
start the Lingerie business (also had to research, learning new skills
<didn't know any HTML then>). I also wasted ~9 months with partners
who didn't have a clue what they were doing!
I set the Lingerie business up in a way that wouldn't need large
amounts of capital (I had plenty saved though), the initial costs was
well under £1000 and the majority of future costs would be covered by
orders (paid for itself). Even if everything went badly I only need a
few thousand a year to keep it running.
This way if it failed I had plenty saved to start again with something
else. I had a business plan that relied on PPC advertising while the
site became established (estimated two years to be in significant
profit), I then discovered SEO and from this information within the
first year it was in significant profit, made a lot of money, the
majority of which I've saved.
The Lingerie business had two problems, firstly Google penalised the
site loosing 2/3rds of traffic (minor problem I can easily get around)
and secondly I can't find a reliable supplier of stock!!! So it's
currently closed to orders (since March now!!). If I ever find a
supplier it will re open including new sites. Based on current traffic
I'm loosing a couple of hundred pounds in potential profit a week!!
That brings me to the SEO business. Now this one is about what I want
to do, I have no interest in Lingerie, it's a way to make money, but
SEO I enjoy a lot. Since it's a skills based service overheads are
very low and profits are very high. Within weeks of starting I was in
profit. It is limited by what I can offer, so in a way it's not as
good as selling Lingerie, but I enjoy it much more (also I can easily
do both, the Lingerie business takes very little time).
To my point.
The first venture was selling a product and took months and a lot of
work to turn a profit. Also the profits were limited to the amount of
product I could create. Fortunately the raw materials cost 20p-30p
each and the end product (which took 4 mins to create <not labour
intensive either, just push a button and wait>) sold for £2-50 (a lot
of people did this and the competition sold their for an average of
£4-00 each, so I got a lot of customers easily). The only other cost
was a small amount of hardware (under £1000) and a kind of template,
these cost 20p-30p each and I had over 5000 of those (all
confiscated!) the biggest competitor had over 10,000 templates, and I
was in the top 5 for what I could supply (I also supplied a very good
service).
I will say this although the product was illegal and so if a customer
ripped me off (cancelled a cheque say) there wasn't anything I could
do, even so I've never met a better bunch of customers in terms of
paying on time and reasonable expectations.
The Lingerie business sells a product as well and took months and a
lot of hard work to turn a profit (some of the customers are a pain in
the arse {I expect no crude jokes}). The profits were only limited by
the amount ordered, Lingerie/Sex Toys is high profit (which is why I
chose it) with some items available at trade for 50p selling at retail
for over £5 (most about 80% markup though). So potential profits are
almost unlimited since you don't make the product. If you can sell
£1000 retail worth of stock a week you make about £400-£500 profit
depending on what you sell and your overheads (mine are very low). I
was selling over £2000 retail most weeks, but it didn't happen over
night like you think will happen with your cafe.
You are going to provide a service/product that takes time for people
to find and trust. Do you honestly expect to open the doors and have
enough people enter to make it worthwhile in just eight weeks!
I've considered doing a lot of things and everything I've planned I've
worked on the assumption I'll be taking a loss for at least one year
and planned for two years.
You've been selling bleach for over 6 months now yet you don't make
enough money to pay off your debts. Almost anyone on this NG could of
told you this a year ago.
Nothing wrong with selling things at the door, as a teenager I used to
sell scratch cards door to door. They sold for 20p each and I got 3p
which was a pittance really and not worth the effort (lucky to sell
300 a week!). Anyway, but you have to sell the right product. Bleach
is available everywhere and at low cost, you might be able to make
significant profits per bottle, but you are never going to sell
thousands of bottles a week and so will never make enough money to
live from. At 5p profit per bottle you need to sell 200 bottles to
only make £100!!!!
There is nothing wrong with opening an internet cafe, but you are
highly unlikely to make enough money to even pay rent within 8 weeks.
If you don't have any money start small, find a niche product that you
can buy for very little and sell on for a lot more. Or offer a service
(that you can supply) that people want and are prepared to pay a lot
of money for. What you are doing is trying to go into sectors where
the margins are very small and to turn a profit you need to already
have money.
>if you want to have a look at my SE, it is at
>http://bleachboys.phpexpert.org/zoomboom/
>it only works when you search for bleach or lingerie at the moment
>I have not finished programming the accounting of the PPC SE
>if I decide to have other listings apart from sponsored one, ther will
>be a very simple efficient algorithm
This is another unrealistic business idea. Why the hell would any
website owner pay you for traffic that you can't possibly supply? You
would make more money creating a website that attracted a lot of
visitors and having Google Adwords and other ads on it (and that won't
make you much {might be enough to pay off your debts}).
I will now put the soap box away until the New Year :-))
David
--
http://www.search-engine-optimization-services.co.uk/
wrote:
>Thanks for the confidence boost Dave
I think you missed your smiley with your joke above.
>I have given myself 2 months actually, the term of my rent (8 weeks)
>with my landlord
>I have to find £120 by friday to pay my first week's rent, then 5 days
>at this rate, then £70 per week
Do you even have a business plan as the above is joke?
It sounds like you don't have the first £120 for rent. BTW that's
quite high for rent in your area, sounds like you either have a very
large space or they have taken advantage (the latter wouldn't surprise
me).
How many PCs do you have, what sort of internet connections?
>I am not allowed to borrow money, as I have signed a contract with
>Christians Against Poverty, who have worked out
>a budget, so that I pay all my debts off at a rate of £31 per week, I
>am 2 months into this contract and have kept up payments
Oh my!!
>if after 8 weeks, things aren't going well, I will close the cafe and
>get on with selling door to door
>if customers won't come to me, I will go to them - until they are
>prepared to come to a shop
Can I give you some honest advice as someone who has started three
successful businesses/ventures.
My first venture (which was on the side) is what got me started. I'll
not mention what it was since it's illegal (no not drugs or anything
really bad). I was taken to court over it though and fined £1500 :-)
Even though this was on the side and so didn't cost me much to setup
etc... it still took a lot of work and time to get from loss to
profit.
It started as a hobby, I'd recently left University on medical grounds
and as I'm unable to work a 9-5 desk type job due to a disability I
needed something to do. It didn't start seriously, but went very well
and within 6 months I was making a profit (not much at first) and I
could see the potential. I put a lot of effort into it and within a
year I had enough money to start planning a legitimate business (I
save over 75% of what I make) and planned to stop and move on to a
legal venture (we all have to start somewhere), but circumstances took
over :-))
After that I was derailed from my plans for a while (takes ages for
court cases and didn't know how much money I'd loose {£1500 fine was a
slap on the wrist since it was less than a fortnights takings, I was
expecting a lot worse}) so took a few years to get in a position to
start the Lingerie business (also had to research, learning new skills
<didn't know any HTML then>). I also wasted ~9 months with partners
who didn't have a clue what they were doing!
I set the Lingerie business up in a way that wouldn't need large
amounts of capital (I had plenty saved though), the initial costs was
well under £1000 and the majority of future costs would be covered by
orders (paid for itself). Even if everything went badly I only need a
few thousand a year to keep it running.
This way if it failed I had plenty saved to start again with something
else. I had a business plan that relied on PPC advertising while the
site became established (estimated two years to be in significant
profit), I then discovered SEO and from this information within the
first year it was in significant profit, made a lot of money, the
majority of which I've saved.
The Lingerie business had two problems, firstly Google penalised the
site loosing 2/3rds of traffic (minor problem I can easily get around)
and secondly I can't find a reliable supplier of stock!!! So it's
currently closed to orders (since March now!!). If I ever find a
supplier it will re open including new sites. Based on current traffic
I'm loosing a couple of hundred pounds in potential profit a week!!
That brings me to the SEO business. Now this one is about what I want
to do, I have no interest in Lingerie, it's a way to make money, but
SEO I enjoy a lot. Since it's a skills based service overheads are
very low and profits are very high. Within weeks of starting I was in
profit. It is limited by what I can offer, so in a way it's not as
good as selling Lingerie, but I enjoy it much more (also I can easily
do both, the Lingerie business takes very little time).
To my point.
The first venture was selling a product and took months and a lot of
work to turn a profit. Also the profits were limited to the amount of
product I could create. Fortunately the raw materials cost 20p-30p
each and the end product (which took 4 mins to create <not labour
intensive either, just push a button and wait>) sold for £2-50 (a lot
of people did this and the competition sold their for an average of
£4-00 each, so I got a lot of customers easily). The only other cost
was a small amount of hardware (under £1000) and a kind of template,
these cost 20p-30p each and I had over 5000 of those (all
confiscated!) the biggest competitor had over 10,000 templates, and I
was in the top 5 for what I could supply (I also supplied a very good
service).
I will say this although the product was illegal and so if a customer
ripped me off (cancelled a cheque say) there wasn't anything I could
do, even so I've never met a better bunch of customers in terms of
paying on time and reasonable expectations.
The Lingerie business sells a product as well and took months and a
lot of hard work to turn a profit (some of the customers are a pain in
the arse {I expect no crude jokes}). The profits were only limited by
the amount ordered, Lingerie/Sex Toys is high profit (which is why I
chose it) with some items available at trade for 50p selling at retail
for over £5 (most about 80% markup though). So potential profits are
almost unlimited since you don't make the product. If you can sell
£1000 retail worth of stock a week you make about £400-£500 profit
depending on what you sell and your overheads (mine are very low). I
was selling over £2000 retail most weeks, but it didn't happen over
night like you think will happen with your cafe.
You are going to provide a service/product that takes time for people
to find and trust. Do you honestly expect to open the doors and have
enough people enter to make it worthwhile in just eight weeks!
I've considered doing a lot of things and everything I've planned I've
worked on the assumption I'll be taking a loss for at least one year
and planned for two years.
You've been selling bleach for over 6 months now yet you don't make
enough money to pay off your debts. Almost anyone on this NG could of
told you this a year ago.
Nothing wrong with selling things at the door, as a teenager I used to
sell scratch cards door to door. They sold for 20p each and I got 3p
which was a pittance really and not worth the effort (lucky to sell
300 a week!). Anyway, but you have to sell the right product. Bleach
is available everywhere and at low cost, you might be able to make
significant profits per bottle, but you are never going to sell
thousands of bottles a week and so will never make enough money to
live from. At 5p profit per bottle you need to sell 200 bottles to
only make £100!!!!
There is nothing wrong with opening an internet cafe, but you are
highly unlikely to make enough money to even pay rent within 8 weeks.
If you don't have any money start small, find a niche product that you
can buy for very little and sell on for a lot more. Or offer a service
(that you can supply) that people want and are prepared to pay a lot
of money for. What you are doing is trying to go into sectors where
the margins are very small and to turn a profit you need to already
have money.
>if you want to have a look at my SE, it is at
>http://bleachboys.phpexpert.org/zoomboom/
>it only works when you search for bleach or lingerie at the moment
>I have not finished programming the accounting of the PPC SE
>if I decide to have other listings apart from sponsored one, ther will
>be a very simple efficient algorithm
This is another unrealistic business idea. Why the hell would any
website owner pay you for traffic that you can't possibly supply? You
would make more money creating a website that attracted a lot of
visitors and having Google Adwords and other ads on it (and that won't
make you much {might be enough to pay off your debts}).
I will now put the soap box away until the New Year :-))
David
--
http://www.search-engine-optimization-services.co.uk/