[Vaun]

I want to start a publishing website, with minimal upfront cost, other than creating and publishing content. The goal is to build traffic, and prove the concept, then later invest in a proper site once the traffic has been established. Its just an informative website, that talks about a niche topic, in a large consumer industry. The goal is to consistently publish a blog to get traffic, and have this blog with traffic become my MVP, minimum viable product. I want to prove out the business case with consistent traffic, to then create a full fledged site and brand around the concept.

I want to get this publishing business off the ground with minimal up front cost, except for the time and minimal expense of content creation, to get the site off the ground and attract traffic. If possible I want to monetize the site with ads. But the drawback is that most major blog platforms prevent this.

My choices;
Tumblr
Wordpress
Blogger
Facebook - either as a main or ancillary platform

Any others I am missing?

Any suggestions would help, thanks.

[Seth_Rose]

If you're trying to build a serious, professional website then your only option is Wordpress.

It's $10 for a domain, and $10 a month or so for hosting.

[Vaun]

(08-20-2016 09:52 AM)Seth_Rose Wrote:  

If you're trying to build a serious, professional website then your only option is Wordpress.

It's $10 for a domain, and $10 a month or so for hosting.

thanks, I would like to try it without hosting first. Just start a blog and see if I can get traffic without any cost, then invest in a site later. Or is it better to start on one of these minimal hosted plans? WP Templates can be pricey too.

[zoom]

You want to go with a hosting option. Because if your site takes off then it's a hassle to change it over to hosted.

Hawkhost is a good company that offers shared web hosting for $3 a month.

[Vaun]

(08-20-2016 10:21 AM)zoom Wrote:  

You want to go with a hosting option. Because if your site takes off then it's a hassle to change it over to hosted.

Hawkhost is a good company that offers shared web hosting for $3 a month.

So if I host, wont I need to build a site?

[zoom]

Well yeah, but you can just get a free wordpress template and it will look good. And worpdress is easy to use.

I know you want an MVP but a hosted wordpress site is the best bet because most people don't take those other options as seriously (tumblr, blogger). When it comes to paid traffic so you want something that looks professional.

[Chemistry]

Wordpress.com allows you to create a free site on your own, but it will be Vaunsblog.wordpress.com ... then, if you like where your site is going, you can upgrade to the $6/month plan which allows you to connect it to Vaunsblog.com with no migration needed.

Weebly offers a free website (they host), and you can buy and add your own domain (so there's no ugly "yoursite.domainname.com"), and they show a footer "Powered by Weebly" unless you upgrade.
Advantages: They're free to start and seamless to upgrade; they do all the hosting; you can embed AdSense ads. Drag-and-drop interface makes site creation really easy.
Disadvantages: They are not as customizable as Wordpress. Wordpress allows you to install millions of plug-ins to customize the exact look of your site - Weebly is more what-you-see-is-what-you-get.

[dukecro]

Buy domain and hosting, all this free sites can shut your blog down for any stupid reason also it will look cheap and unprofessional.Once when you buy hosting it is easy to setup WordPress or some other CMS from control panel using wizards, it is just few clicks.

[Vaun]

(08-20-2016 10:56 AM)zoom Wrote:  

Well yeah, but you can just get a free wordpress template and it will look good. And worpdress is easy to use.

I know you want an MVP but a hosted wordpress site is the best bet because most people don't take those other options as seriously (tumblr, blogger). When it comes to paid traffic so you want something that looks professional.

Thats true, I just want to spend as little money as possible. Not because I am cheap, its because if I can prove the concept cheaply, I will invest more. Hosting is cheap, but in my experience, hosting a WP template seemed like a lot more work than it should be. I love working in the WP interface, its very easy to use and I have used it a lot. The other advantages of course is that a site will likely get better SEO than a blog platform. Not looking to monetize for a long time. Just want traffic first.

[Seth_Rose]

Quite honestly you'll get more traffic with a legit WP site. When I come across a '.wordpress' or '.blogger' site it just looks tacky. Investing money in your site conveys an aura of professionalism and that will go a long way in terms of traffic.

I can't say for sure because I don't know what your site is, but typically the above advice is applicable.

[Vaun]

(08-21-2016 09:27 AM)Seth_Rose Wrote:  

Quite honestly you'll get more traffic with a legit WP site. When I come across a '.wordpress' or '.blogger' site it just looks tacky. Investing money in your site conveys an aura of professionalism and that will go a long way in terms of traffic.

I can't say for sure because I don't know what your site is, but typically the above advice is applicable.

True, in theory I would agree with you. I was speaking with a friend of mine that was the core developer of what would become one of the highest trafficked consumer sites in the US. He now does consulting. He said the main mistake he sees these days is over-development in the early stages. He said that if someone can establish traffic with an MVP, for little to no money, that that is the the best indicator of future success. If you look at many of the leading top consumer sites today, thats how many of them started. Look at Roosh, MikeCF, Heartiste, etc.

I agree with you about SEO. So maybe its a WP site, with a free template, and plug ins.

I'm thinking the model looks like this;
Cheap/Free WP site>content>organic traffic>social accounts>consistent traffic>invest in a better site>fame and fortune

[WhatTheFuck]

I agree with all the other suggestions about going with a legit domain. It doesn't have to be expensive either.

Normally I wouldn't suggest this but if your just looking to test the waters might as well just sign up with Godaddy for their basic Wordpress hosting. It's only $1/month when you sign up for a year + they'll throw in a free domain. So $12 dollar total for the year (normally you would spend this just to register a domain alone).

If your shit really starts taking off too it's easy to upgrade to their other plans that have more bandwidth/storage etc. After the first year special when the prices go back to normal rate just bail and switch hosting providers.

[Vaun]

(08-21-2016 09:54 AM)WhatTheFuck Wrote:  

I agree with all the other suggestions about going with a legit domain. It doesn't have to be expensive either.

Normally I wouldn't suggest this but if your just looking to test the waters might as well just sign up with Godaddy for their basic Wordpress hosting. It's only $1/month when you sign up for a year + they'll throw in a free domain. So $12 dollar total for the year (normally you would spend this just to register a domain alone).

If your shit really starts taking off too it's easy to upgrade to their other plans that have more bandwidth/storage etc. After the first year special when the prices go back to normal rate just bail and switch hosting providers.

thanks, all of my domains are with Go Daddy. What is the drawback with using them? Ive used Blue Host in the past. The only drawback I have seen with GoDaddy is the perception that they are a "sexist company." And that is entirely the result of working with female devs in the past.

[WhatTheFuck]

(08-21-2016 10:48 AM)Vaun Wrote:  

thanks, all of my domains are with Go Daddy. What is the drawback with using them? Ive used Blue Host in the past. The only drawback I have seen with GoDaddy is the perception that they are a "sexist company." And that is entirely the result of working with female devs in the past.

I don't have a lot of experience using other hosting sites myself to compare to as I am relatively new to web development so take what I'm saying with a grain of salt. I do know a lot of devs with similar opinion though. Godaddy has worked fine for me and my purposes over the last few years, which are similar to yours, but my thoughts are slowly changing.

If you are a new customer with a beginner site, they work great and their specials are awesome. If you ever get to any significant traffic volume though the performance is definitely lacking unless you drop some serious coin (I.E. if there are ever more than say 5+ people browsing your site at once you might start running into problems--page load times are very important) Also, after the first year their hosting starts to get really expensive for what you get IMO. I like to think of them as the Walmart of hosting providers, cheap but not necessarily the quality of service you want then in the long run you will lose out.

I've also personally had bad experiences with their customer support in the past, with their representatives giving me the run around about things.

[ovo]

GoDaddy and Bluehost are both crap in my opinion. I've used probably over 10 different hosting providers in the past 5 years and those providers are not worth the money you pay. I've written this post about hosting for Magento on my blog: http://codingbasics.net/top-5-reliable-magento-hosting/ but it can also be used for Wordpress. The hosting I use which you can see is site ground and it costs like $4 per month and gives you the best value for your money in terms of uptime and speed.

[Vaun]

(08-21-2016 03:13 PM)ovo Wrote:  

GoDaddy and Bluehost are both crap in my opinion. I've used probably over 10 different hosting providers in the past 5 years and those providers are not worth the money you pay. I've written this post about hosting for Magento on my blog: http://codingbasics.net/top-5-reliable-magento-hosting/ but it can also be used for Wordpress. The hosting I use which you can see is site ground and it costs like $4 per month and gives you the best value for your money in terms of uptime and speed.

thanks. Since you are an ecommerce guy, I have another question. Whats an ecommerce platform thats best to use for an MVP? Shopify, etc? Does Magento have a hosted lightweight version these days? I am interested in ecommerce as well, to create an MVP for.

[ovo]

(08-21-2016 03:41 PM)Vaun Wrote:  

(08-21-2016 03:13 PM)ovo Wrote:  

GoDaddy and Bluehost are both crap in my opinion. I've used probably over 10 different hosting providers in the past 5 years and those providers are not worth the money you pay. I've written this post about hosting for Magento on my blog: http://codingbasics.net/top-5-reliable-magento-hosting/ but it can also be used for Wordpress. The hosting I use which you can see is site ground and it costs like $4 per month and gives you the best value for your money in terms of uptime and speed.

thanks. Since you are an ecommerce guy, I have another question. Whats an ecommerce platform thats best to use for an MVP? Shopify, etc? Does Magento have a hosted lightweight version these days? I am interested in ecommerce as well, to create an MVP for.

It really depends on what you want to sell. For smaller stores (1-500 products) I would recommend WooCommerce (Integrates Ecommerce into Wordpress) or Shopify. For a larger store, I would go with Magento because it's the best platform for scalability. Big brands like Nike are using the platform with great success and it is truly the best Ecommerce software out there.

[TooFineAPoint]

If you truly want to invest no money and just test how much traffic you can get based on content alone, here is a way you could do it:

1. write your articles in Google docs and making the sharing setting "public"
2. start a Facebook page (and/or Twitter account)
3. do intro blurbs on social media that link to your Google docs page

The major downside to this is that it would be hard to track traffic to your final doc, though social media stats would show you how many clicks your links got.

There are many other downsides -- like missing out on the proper SEO you get from having a domain and proper urls for each article -- but it gives you your free option to test things.