Thats right – Rike Media now has another site under its belt!
I’m happy to announce that we acquired FotoRazor.com – a free image host making a nice little income! I’ve not done any major work on the site yet. I plan to redesign it from scratch and include extra options such as registration, user galleries etc.
The Rike Media empire has begun!
On another note, we’ve seen quite an increase in traffic over at WebmasterStash. Although our forums still remain rather inactive.
Well over the last few days, I’ve been trying to come up with some ideas to improve WebmasterStash. Myself and Mike were discussing ideas to get the large numbers of visitors onto the forums as currently they are all looking at tutorials, then leaving.
So, we are now trialling a few bits to give people an incentive to join. Since the site is integrated into vBulletin we can call vBulletin user variables very easily. We’ve now made it so that if a person is not logged in, they see the standard 468×60 Adsense banner, which has been on the site since we opened, plus another 468×60 banner that promotes the forums. Under these two adverts we have the text “(If you were logged in you wouldn’t be seeing these adverts. Login or Register Now!)”. We’ve also added a yellow “Alert” bar across the top of the page for guests, much like the default Internet Explorer information bar.
Since doing this, we’ve had a few more registrations on the forums however not a hugely satisfactory amount.
To help improve registration rates, I’ve been looking into vbSEO as its now a very popular product. After looking through it, its probably worth us purchasing it for WebmasterStash as it will improve the SEO currently in our forums.
To ensure I have a conststency as to how I work, I’ve decided to set myself some goals to reach over 2008. Now depending on what happens over the year and how successful I am, these goals may change around slightly, however I do aim to keep to them as best as possible.
1. Earn mid $xxx to low $x,xxx a month in advertising and sales of websites
I feel this is a fairly easy target to meet so I will hopefully be increasing this goal in a few months time. I’ve set this goal fairly low as I’ve currently got a limited budget to spend on marketing and purchasing websites, however once I’ve gained a small income from some smaller sites I’ll have no problems here.
2. Improve my blogging ability’s
As you may have noticed from my past blog, I tend to lack in the updates department. I am aiming to update this blog at least once a week, although hope for it to be every 3-5 days.
3. Improve my general design skills
I currently do all our design work and I’ve found that because I learnt Photoshop over 4 years ago, my skills are becoming a bit dated. I need to learn some of the newer techniques to improve my skills.
4. Own at least 6 profitable websites
This is something I’ll be concentraiting on most (along with goal #1) as this is really the foundations to my success. I don’t want to have one site making profit from one source. I want to ensure my income is stable by having multiple websites (in different niches) generating revenue from more than once source.
So, these are my goals for 2008. My first task of 2008 is to find a website that is generating an income that I feel I could increase. I’ll be doing this, along with continuing to work on our WebmasterStash project.
Well as of today, RickyMills.com is no longer a place to show my skills and portfolio. Over the last year or so, I’ve become increasingly interested in becoming an entrepreneur. More specifically, a web entrepreneur. Now I hear you cry “But theres no such thing as a web entrepreneur”, and your right, officially there is no place for this job title. However its more of a generic term used to describe what one does. Let me explain.
A web entrepreneur is involved in creating, buying and investing in websites. These websites draw profit from various methods such as advertisements and user subscriptions. What many people dont understand is that there is more money in websites than in most “regular” jobs. I’ve decided that by the end of 2008 I want to be earning enough money to live off. I’ll explain my plans in my next post which outlines my 2008 goals.
So, RickyMills.com is now where I will be blogging about how I’m getting along as a self-employed entrepreneur. Myself and my business partner, Mike Barlow recently opened RikeMedia, which is our brand name which we operate our sites under. All our sites are listed on the RikeMedia website so be sure to take a look!
