Advice please!

[iamastar]

I was thinking about starting a forum dedicated to students looking for jobs.

A place were student can give one another advice/post up vacanicies etc

what do you think?

[Gary Barzel]

It sounds like a nice idea, but your probably better off going down to a local college in your area, and asking students what their thoughts on this would be. See what kind of response you get, if students are open to this idea then chances are there is a need for this.

[melissamatara]

As a college student, I'd check it out to see what you had to offer. Anything that'll give me an edge over big generic sites like monster.com or careerbuilder.

[borisfowler]

It's a great idea! Do you have much experience with driving people to websites? One thing I am struggling with in my business is traffic to my site.

You might want to take a look at this article though.

Five Elements of a Credible Startup Marketing Plan | Hot Sauce!

[iamastar]

thanks for your responses,

i have spoken to a number of people already and the response seems good.

But how would i go about making some revenue off of this aswell?

/

facebook and twitter will definatley be used for marketing also advertising in colleges etc

[melissamatara]

as far as income, you could put ads on it to start with using google adsense.

you can also advertise using google adsense--might be a good place to start.

[borisfowler]

Well, to make money you need to be bringing at least 1000 unique visitors to the site a month. You can charge business to use your site. You cant charge people because they likely would not want to pay with several other services out there like this.

You should be able to articulate value for each "client"

1- What value do job hunters (students) get from this?
2- What can companies gain from advertising on your site?
3- If I subscribe my business to your site, what is in it for me?

You should be able to answer these in a way to makes people crave your site.

Remember, people will acknowledge a good idea when they hear one, but very few act upon them when presented with the opportunity. The only way you will know if your site will work is if they actually use it.

[MadDAVO]

Hi there,

You can profit from many different methods, first is affiliate marketing where you get to earn up to 75% commission. Anyone who purchased an ebook related to your field, you get the percentage of sale.

Second is CPA leads, where all people need to do is fill in a form for free, and you get paid usually between $0.50 - $7.00 per form.

Third is Adsense/other ad networks for publishers where you get paid per click. All you have to do is copy and paste some code on your website, and when someone clicks on those links you will be paid immediately. You will normally get between $0.05 - $0.50 per click. For this method you would need high traffic in order to make decent money.

All 3 methods I've made good money from, and I do talk about the creative methods I use on my blog, it's in my signature if you're interested. If you have any questions feel free to contact me at my site.

[iamastar]

Well, to make money you need to be bringing at least 1000 unique visitors to the site a month. You can charge business to use your site. You cant charge people because they likely would not want to pay with several other services out there like this.

You should be able to articulate value for each "client"

1- What value do job hunters (students) get from this?
2- What can companies gain from advertising on your site?
3- If I subscribe my business to your site, what is in it for me?

You should be able to answer these in a way to makes people crave your site.

Remember, people will acknowledge a good idea when they hear one, but very few act upon them when presented with the opportunity. The only way you will know if your site will work is if they actually use it.

thank you very much for that!

[dallus]

If your doing it for students why don't you add a page for students to sell thing like artwork and things like that and you could take a commission on each sale, It would also help to increase your traffic from non students as people find out about it

[virtualservice]

Hi,

This is wonderful idea. Unique visitor is always important for online business. Following the right peoples is always the key so for that Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter all have their special niches in the social media strategy or you can also join some local specific social networking sites to attract visitors. Good Luck

Thanks

[experimentjon]

I think the most important thing for this idea to work is to get good companies to participate. You also want to decide whether you want to focus in on your neighborhood or area, or open it up to a broader audience. The advantage of keeping it localized is that it will probably be easier for you to contact your big local companies and sell them on the advantages of your site.

As for monetization, it will be minimal through Adsense links. Your best shot would be to get a finders fee from the participating employers.

Good luck.

[iamastar]

thanks for all your responses!

Whereabouts do i go to actually make a forum? what is the best site to use?

hmm i need a catchy name aswell lol

[MadDAVO]

Hey iamastar, I'm currently using hostgator for hosting. It is cheap only $4.95/month for the lowest plan. And what's more if you order, you only pay 1 cent to try out. If you use the coupon code RICHSTUDENT in capital letters, you're able to get first month free. At hostgator.com

As for the catchy name, you can research the name on go daddy, to see if the domain name has been taken. If it is, they will recommend you to other similar domain names. Then once you found it, you can register the domain name at hostgator.com

Once you sign up for free, you can then login to your cpanel, where you choose under "fantastico deluxe"
you get to automatically install forum unto your site, it takes 1 minute.

If you have any questions feel free to ask.

Regards,

Rich Student

[iamastar]

I was wondering how come there isnt a version of linked in for young people/students?