mrsweet1991

Ahh I see so your website makes pennies but you rake in some good cash by creating websites for others, so thanks jamesosix thats my first rough financial estimate of a normal website. I know its going to vary from person to person, but I want to get estimates like this so I can see if there's a chance of a descent income or whether it literally does just mean you need to be a huge website to get a fairly descent income.
 
And yes I have taken some of the points you have bulleted into concideration, I have a few ideas however I really didn't understand SEO very much untill I read a thread on here with a lad stating he's actually got an SEO company . I thought it was literally that you pay to have it advertised, or you make a good quality website that earns its right to move up the list due to its rating.
 
Glad to hear you've got so many projects, going to look awsome on your portfolio!

I'm at the same level as you and for the 5-10 pages I offer clients £250 fixed rate. My highest rate is 400. Those are for design fees on their own.
 
What are your overheads like? What does it cost you to take your own time to do this for people? What about hosting and web domains? Think about how much you think you're worth and charge accordingly.

Hi All,
 
Just thought it would be good and "inspirational" for people to post up some of their successful websites that you have created, give some background information of what made you start, how it first went in terms of traffic or income and how long it has taken for you to finally say you have been successful in your personal goals.

Thank you mrsweet1991 Glad you find it useful.

This is really good and brings back all the memories of previously being told how to correctly do things while using a computer system, it's amazing how fast you pick up bad habits and forget about the consequences of doing things in the wrong way.

Give this a shot...

functions.php

Hi all,
 
I wasn't too sure what this should have been posted too (JavaScript or PHP) or even if its any of those. But anyway can anyone advise me on how I would create an automatic email from a form, the email would be a template but would require automatically inserting the users name etc.

I have a smexi Ford Focus Zetec S 12 plate and someone bumped into my back arch while parked at the train station, how I'd love to find that specimen I know it's hard to say but when I contacted the British Transport Police they asked me how much I think it would cost :S why they'd ask me that when I have no idea I don't know. But imagine a few scratches going from the back arch then scratches continue going down to the bumper and a small bump in the arch how much do you reckon it would cost?

When you do a tutorial, its a good idea to look at the date when it was published/released. Alot of online tutorials, whist very good were created years ago. The programming concepts and techniques will in many cases have moved on resulting in unexplained errors.
 
With some of these errors a quick google search will often highlight the cause of the error and offer solutions. stackoverflow is a good place to look for solutions and another option is to look up the function on php.net. You will learn alot by using these resources for debugging.

as of PHP 5.3.0 ereg_replace has been deprecated you need to use an alternative like preg_replace

Bummer. Well, I strongly suggest you cancel your hosting with them - they're not a great company to host with anyway. Myself and many members of this forum often recommend TSOHost. You can get 10% off by using code TENPERCENT.
 
You get cPanel, fantastic support, UK-based servers, and decent pricing (for the quality).
 
Edit: ...and of course, MySQL databases
 
Edit 2: If this is for Uni - do you need it to be hosted externally? Can't you just host it on your own desktop/laptop? Install XAMPP/WAMP, and away you go.

Never ever use mysql_*. It's deprecated. You're also trying to connect to a MSSQL database, not a MySQL database - it won't work.
 
Use PDO instead of mysql_*:
 
 
try{ $db = new PDO("mysql:host=$host;dbname=$dbname", $user, $pass, array(PDO::ATTR_ERRMODE => PDO::ERRMODE_EXCEPTION)); } catch (PDOException $e){ exit ("Could not connect to database: " . $e->getMessage()); } //... etc try{ $query = $db->query("SELECT * FROM blah"); } catch (PDOException $e){ exit ("Could not query database: " . $e->getMessage()); }  
Good tutorial here.

When 'stumbling' across www.Motherless.com I was blown over by their traffic they claimed on their homepage.
 
I'm on 3G ATM so can't get the figures but take a look yourself

Well there is a lot of competition in adult industry which makes up a large proportion of the entire internet so unless you believe that your website can stand out from the crowd or offer something unique then you're going to struggle. You also need to consider the legal implications.
 
As for content, it's best to make your own but you'd need investment because you're going to struggle to get a woman to perform on camera with only speculation that she will get paid so you'd have to pay up several women up front in order to generate enough content to make your website worth visiting.
 
The other approach is to licence the existing content of established adult websites (primarily subscription-based websites) and make your profit through advertisements but believe me, they don't licence for cheap and you may struggle to get them to licence for a delayed payment (after you've began profiting).
 
Either method you're going to need a lot of capital to invest as the barriers-to-entry are so dam high! I know this because I want to do it myself (and hopefully still will sometime and no better time to get "actors" whilst I'm at uni lol).
 
Nevertheless, good luck!

Always thought things like this were done from users uploads / agencies etc for the 'actors' uploading trailers and stuff.

Hi Chris,
 
Onsite there is quite a bit you can do, these are a few I spotted at a glance.
 
Make your structure uniform. At the moment hunger games is http://www.mustmerch.com/hunger-games but buffy is http://www.mustmerch.com/index.php?route=product/category&path=75. Site structure is soooooooo important across a site. For example with breadcrumbs your structure should be Home ( URL: / ) > Buffy the Vampire Slayer ( URL: /buffy-the-vampire slayer/ ) > Buffy the Vampire Slayer Claddagh Ring ( URL: /buffy-the-vampire slayer/buffy-ring-claddagh/. In addition in the serps under the page title you will get 'mustmerch.com > Buffy the Vampire Slayer' if say Google has understood the structure. Schema microdata itemprop breadcrumbs should help speed up the understanding plus users can see in the serps you have a full buffy category and this could just be one item from a full collection. Get canonical going. I'm not sure if http://www.mustmerch.com/index.php?route=product/category&path=75 appears as http://www.mustmerch.com/buffy or something elsewhere on your site. Don't forget if you move a page use 301 redirect to the new path! Get off the /index.php?yadayada paths. If index is also you home this could be seen as just different views of a single page in search engine eyes and not individual categories. Make sure all pages have a description. I noticed poor buffy does not have one. In addition bumf the introduction single line into a category introduction. What is Buffy? Make sure that the search engines know you refer to the series on tv and that you sell the products. Finally Schema! If you got time get stuck in. You can tell a search engine loads about your page behind the scenes, what a product is, if it's in stock, price, colour and more. Visit www.schema.org, well worth the effort. Just my thoughts, I hope this helps.

Unfortunately Flash is the only way to go with this right now.
 
(Chrome and Firefox did recently add the WebRTC API which means video chat is available in the latest chrome and firefox (might just be the nightly builds) with just web technology! Cool demo: http://www.webrtc.org/demo)

It's worth planning the revenue streams, and making sure they are relevant. Holiday blogs and trip guides affiliate with flights and hotels, parenting blog affiliate online baby shops etc. It's how it works on TV, the Zombie video games adverts between Walking Dead Season 3, the follow on milk powder between how clean is your house, claims direct and payday loans between Jeremy Kyle.

The first thing to note about websites is that there many different types for many different purposes and this makes it difficult to compare. Amazon for example is a website that generates its revenue by acting as online marketplace for their vast range of products and their website is their main gateway whereas another big company such as Apple use their website to promote their products and sell them but they also rely heavily on their retail stores and third-party sellers as well so in terms of comparison, Apple make a great deal more profit as a company but Amazon may make more profit solely from its website.
 
In addition to this, you must also consider how the company makes its profit... the two fore-mentioned companies sell products whereas many websites such as blogs make their money from affiliate marketing and advertising which is what I'm assuming you're most interested in doing. In this case, the website will need great SEO and quality content in order to attract visitors, make they stay and when they eventually leave, force them to return at some point. You also need a good layout and relevant content in order to get the visitors to click on your affiliate links or advertisements. It's a very competitive area and requires tonnes of commitment as mentioned in the replies above.
 
If you want to get a general idea of how much money will be made from x amount of traffic you can take a look at the advertising service BuySellAds as they index the websites they work with which can be seen on the website and you can also see how much money and advertisements earns per x amount of impressions/clicks etc.

It really does depend.
 
Three things will work for everybody.
1. Unique, high quality, ORIGINAL content.
2. Time and effort. Dont ever expect to make a penny, then when you do you can build on it.
3. Commitment by the bags load.
 
I dont make any money (bar a few pence here and there) with adsense and when I undertake a website for somebody I normally get around £100/300 depending on obviously how much work is involved. My clients always choose the template route as they are either new businsses or people with ideas that they want to start. Naturally, a bespoke job commands a much improved profit, but requires more work and if you cant do something then it can be outsourced obviously that cost is passed onto the client in the quote.
 
I also work on personal projects and have 4 at the moment which keep me very busy and dont bring in any money yet. Like anything, it takes a combination of pretty much everything from patience, to skill, to learning, to marketing and monitoring. The small amount of money I do earn normally gets spent on my projects one way or another.
 
Good luck

I know it sucks to hear this answer - and I hate it when I ask similar questions and get this response - but it really depends.
 
If you put in time, effort, and research, you might get a nice profitable blog or website going. What do I mean by profitable? I really don't know.
 
I think that there is always the potential to make $1000s of dollars from a blog or website, however I think the majority of people don't put in enough time and effort to make it to that point.

Very nice! Not sure I like the blue button hanging like that. Almost looks like it's broken, but maybe that's just me. Normally I would say the angled/hanging blocks are very creative, but from looking at the company, it seems more like a serious/professional/structured type feel to it. Also, feels like there needs to be more content on the home page. Some place to put some content telling more about the company. Maybe try a 3 column by making those maps smaller?

I wouldn't say Google are struggling, in fact Google + is growing at a huge rate. I don't see it competing with Facebook as the way it's evolving means it suits different people that use Facebook. I use it more than Facebook now and I really like it. The amount of interesting and intelligent conversations you come across are really good. IMO Facebook has become old and pretty boring. Its good for people using the chat function I suppose, but my wall is just littered with blooming suggested posts. When Facebook was listed and they had cash in the bank, they should have invested it in developing a variety of products that would make them regular money. If only Mark could come up with another idea, instead all he can see is Facebook. IF Google had stuck to being just a Search Engine, then yes they would still be big and make money. They have financed so many projects that are really useful, software and real life hardware.
 
You want to start a social network, go for I say. I don't buy into the whole, Facebook has is sewn up! We need people to challenge what is here already to ensure that the experience people have online grows through those not driven by just shareholders. A social network may need investment and cost good money to run, however always remember "Big things have small beginnings".

The logo is fine, but it doesn't really tell me what you do as a business. Try and
factor some design elements in to the logo that point your potential customers
in the right direction.