Starting a business?

[jlwcashflow]

I have a portal in the making and wondered about payment. Should one get a personal or business account for cashflow when starting out? I am thinking a business makes much more sense; but, since I have never done this portal "thang" or owned a "business", is their anything official I need to do? Lawyers?

Since it’s a portal, to my knowledge, I can't find any legal issues if the bank account, server or my office is located in the US. Am I correct? I couldn't find anything to challenge this at http://www.startcasino.com/

Anyone here incorporated? At what point should one start thinking of this for tax benefits?

Thank you,

Jlwcashflow

[casinoglen]

The legalities depend entirely of where you are located, and what your local laws are.

For instance, I am running a business. I do other things besides the portals, but the portals came first.

I contacted my local courthouse, and explained to the licensing clerk my intentions, and it happens that since MY business is internet based, I did not need a county license, but I did have to register with the comptroller, in case of any sales from my other sites to residents of my state, then I would have to collect sales tax, but that was it.

Now, as I am a sole proprietor at present, I just run all income and outgoing payments through my personal bank account. When I reach the point of incorporating, then I will of course setup bank accounts for that.

The whole thing in a nutshell however, is that it all depends on what you plan to do, and the local laws of where you are...

Hope that helps.

[diceman]

is their anything official I need to do?

Officially kiss all your free time goodbye!

[jlwcashflow]

Please help me to understand this comment:


"Officially kiss all your free time goodbye!"

I just have not been able to grasp how my time will be eaten up as of yet. could someone bring me through a typical day? Thank you,

Jason

[VPJunkie]

Everyone's day is as unique as they are, but any self-employed person in any business will tell you that you have less free time than if you're working for someone else. Perhaps it's because you eat, sleep, walk, and breathe business when you're self-employed.

[jlwcashflow]

Trying not to sound too ignorant, I guess what I am trying to understand is the what exactly. Most pages seem static. Is the marketing the most time intensive? If so, I guess I don't even know that side of it well yet. I have searched and read on banner/link exchanges, pay per click, purchasing traffic, does all that really take much time? Are there other ways to promote? Damn, quite the bell curve...

Jason

[J]

There is a VAST array of different marketing that you need to consider. It's not just the purchase of the marketing that's the big thing, it's ensuring that your descriptions get sufficent click throughs of valid traffic, and how well that traffic is converting at casinos. Evaluating different promotions, etc.

Most of us have several different portals, and rest assured, they aren't static. I just spent alot of time updating mine, and am still not finished. (It's now more dynamic than static!)

Really, this business can consume as much or as little of your time as you want it to, just ask Casinoranking (He's a member). So, really, it's entirely up to you.

To start out, you need to create a portal, add casinos, add content, make sure it all works, then set out to buy advertising. (MAKE SURE YOUR LINKS ARE CORRECT BEFORE BUYING ANYTHING!!!) Then you have to analyze and find the most effective means of advertising your portal, and then pray.

Finding link partners and getting ranked high in free listings also consumes alot of time.

My 2 cents.

[diceman]

Good advice casino dudes!

[VPJunkie]

Here ya go. It took me a while to find this because I originally wrote this in November of 2002, in response to a messageboard poster that was criticizing portal owners.

1) Build a good portal - not a 1 page template - a real portal, with several pages, colors that appeal to visitors, navigation that works, sales material that converts, and info that brings your visitors back. Otherwise, only 2-5% of your visitors will ever come back to your site.

2) Find a good host that'll keep you up all the time and give you support when you need it, and pay for that upfront - BEFORE you even have any visitors.

3) Now, go find the casinos to promote, that no one else has, and that you KNOW will pay you, and respond to you, and be honest with you.

4) Now, get your site listed in the Search Engines. Anything other than 1st page is not acceptable - you MUST be on the first page, preferably in spots 1-3. And it can't be just 1 search engine - it has to be all the major ones. This will take you months, and some of them you have to pay for.

5) Now you're ready to sit back and wait for those checks to start rolling in, right? Wrong.

6) Now you have to keep up with the changes at the casinos you're promoting, because most of them don't notify you before they make the changes.

7) You have to keep up with the new casinos that are coming out. If you don't, you'll lose business to your competitors.

8.) Speaking of which, you have to watch out for the other portals. Some of them are outright thieves, just waiting for some new, unsuspecting portal owner to put out some good material they can use. Now you have to learn copyright laws, so you can protect your site.

9) Now your traffic is starting to move. You have to set up an email list, and manage it. That means setting up another program to manage that, and if you outsource it, paying for that. And you have to create a newsletter or something every couple of weeks to send out, in order to keep your players interested.

10) Oh, speaking of paying - have you signed up with the Pay Per Click search engines yet? You must, if you want your site fed to other SE's. Some of those clicks can cost you up to $15 a pop! And what's your conversion rate, and profit, at $15 a pop?

11) When you finally do start making some money, after several months of hard work, you have to put it back into your site, if you want to keep getting those checks.

12) You have to keep up with all the message boards, do your research on new casinos, check stats, chase casinos for payments, and update your site nearly daily.

13) NOW, you get to defend yourself, too! What fun! You have to defend your site, and your choices, to people who have no clue about what you do. But you HAVE to, since they choose to trash you publicly.

14) And around, and around, and around............

15) And you get to do all this in the dark, on your own. Because NO ONE, not even your family, understands what you do - unless they're a portal owner themselves. And don't expect too many other webmasters to take the time to help you or answer your questions. You're on your own here.

PS - This is where GPWA comes in.

[diceman]

Boy thats what I call in a nutshell. That last part is more true than you will ever know to. Get ready to lose a few friends to.
At least thats what happened to me.

[techwoman]

Now that was powerful!!!!

It's nice for people to understand that:
it's not as easy as it looks!
It's not overnight
its trial and error
its making the right friends in the business

Cindy clearly shows all of that and more

when I first started almost a year and a half ago, I thought it would never get better. It gets as good as you want it to be but takes time!

My family never understood that until now and gave me hell every waking minute I worked on my sites, so be prepared to put up with that until you have something to show for all your hard work.

Hanging in, in this business is very hard to do with everything else that goes on in our real world lives, I almost quit many times out of frustration and my FRIENDS here at the GPWA helped me through it (family just wanted me to quit). That's what I meant about having the right friends!

[diceman]

Well I am glad you hung in there and we got to meet. Your awesome!
Who knows if you wouold have quit we all would have missed out on you and allotto dancing. Ill never forget that! hahahaha

[techwoman]

We all need to get together again real soon!!!!

What a blast!!!!!!

[jlwcashflow]

Well, I tell you this was a hard reality pill to swallow and I thank you. I feel fortunate to have a forum which will help me through the bell curve, which seems to be expoptentially skyrocketing up. I had to walk away from the computer and really think about the posting replies. As overwhelming as the reading seems to me and my wife, I felt that we were reading all the "work load" at once and in reality, we will be taking baby steps to reach our goal. I also realized when you said "you are all alone" it was really directed towards the original post reply and not aimed at me, personnally.

As for loosing friends, I don't have many due to my already busy schedule.

I have a question on this comment:
Finding link partners and getting ranked high in free listings also consumes alot of time.
On pay per click, you bid on certain keyword searches and the higher the bid, the higher the search listing, correct? How do you do this on the free ones if you don't pay per click?

[diceman]

Wish I knew what she ment to Where are those "free" listings beside partners and search engines?

[techwoman]

This wasn't all to make you give up

It's good to know what is really involved so that you can plan better. I didn't know about the GPWA when I first started, and I never really understood what was involved.


But, I love my work
It may be hard and involving, but the challenge is sort of a high!!

This is my full time job and I would rather be doing this and being home for my family than ever having a job in the outside world

so don't let this all discourage you, let it guide you and give it your best shot!!

[jlwcashflow]

Please don't misunderstand, I am not discouraged. I am fortunate to get the straight and narrow from those in the know. My wife and I definetly appreciate this forum. We will be posting frequently and proceeding with our goal as planned. Thank you so much,

JLWCASHFLOW

[VPJunkie]

To get and maintain high listings in the free search engines like Google, Yahoo, MSN, etc., is a time-consuming and very challenging game that changes every month.

For some basic reading on this, go here - www.BruceClay.com - he's great!!

[jlwcashflow]

"To get and maintain high listings in the free search engines like Google, Yahoo, MSN, etc., is a time-consuming and very challenging game that changes every month. For some basic reading on this, go here - www.BruceClay.com - he's great!!"

On his site, he offers services to optimize profitable traffic. Realizing this is not a straight forward question/answer, would it make good business sense to utilize a service like his at any stage of experience simply to save ones time or would you say it’s better to master online marketing techniques and perform them yourself? A bit of a loaded question considering the marketing background of most here have developed. With all the previous talk of how much time is invested in marketing site traffic, I just wonder if it makes good sense to subcontract it out at a certain point if the benefit outweighs the cost. Or maybe "no one will promote your site as hard as you" could be used as an adage.

Quite a powerful site which is helping me understand fundamentals though .

Jlwcashflow