Our site writes reviews for businesses and on products that are used in America and Canada. We are thinking of branching into other areas in other not to concentrate our eggs in our basket. Our current model is to use Google ads to monetize the site from next month once we load it up with new content.
Questions:
1.) Should we wait a bit longer before testing new revenue models?
2.) How can we make the site more attractive for new businesses especially the bric and mortar businesses?
3.) How can we create a community around what we currently do?
4.) Any other suggestions would be welcomed.
Here is the link to the site - www.reviewdots.com
Thanks guys,
Who writes the review? Staff or passers by? The most obvious way to create a community would be to seek input from the audience – especially for a review site. Ordinary consumers write the content for you for free, and they naturally feel attached to the site where they've contributed.
For now, your site seems rather thin on content. And I didn't see anything describing who you are, what you offer, or why your site exists. To build a community, you ought to build an identity first.
I'm not smitten with your brand name / domain. That's my professional focus, in case you have any questions in that area. A more authoritative and memorable name would serve you better with your twofold audience of readers and businesses.
This is a great question, and a situation that believe it or not many entrepreneurs find themselves in very often.
To answer your first question without going into so much detail, the answer is no. Don't wait long before testing other revenue models, if you wait too long you can drain resources while keeping current one alive instead of testing and identifying new better sources and investing in those.
I tried visiting your website, but it wouldn't load.
also, creating a community is about sharing your story with others who can relate to your efforts, your value proposition and are welcoming of your value creation. Create value with them before asking for monetary returns. Community building takes time and money, consider this:
Elon Musk used hundreds of millions of dollars (from what he got from PayPal) to fund research, testing facilities, buying testing islands, fund rocket fuel and rocket exploration and establish a business for SpaceX while another PayPal co-found used his millions of dollars to create a community for Yelp.com - this does not mean that you need millions but it means that it takes time and that the public cannot be generally tricked into believing what they don't already. So instead of convincing, find the ones that best suit your goals, your mindset and go after a phase in their buying stage... don't go after general demographics instead follow their moments and engage in the right ones.
The easy answer is to find an independent contractor on fiverr.com and partner with him to fulfill the areas that you want to test.
You will be able to control your cost and become scale-able.
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