a new freshman needs help from the "guru"-s

[perfect]

Hello everybody,

I'm very happy to join your community. My name is George, I'm an 18 year old student and I'm planning to start a gambling portal

that's why I joined this community. first of all I want to say that I'm a total newbie in online gambling, I know only the basics about online casinos/poker rooms/sports betting etc. I really need help of experienced people, but that doesn't mean that I'm here only for getting information. I just don't have anything to share "yet", but after getting more experienced, I will help other newbies like me


For starters I have a few questions:

1) how should I make the gambling portal, should it be a CMS, or should I order a custom coded website/design?
2) if it should be CMS, which one do you suggest?
3) what kind of content do you suggest putting on a website?
4) I have approximately $7000-8000 in my budget, on what do you suggest me spending this money for?
5) (a bit unprofessional question) approximately how much time will it require to earn back the starting capital? I know it depends on many things but please, at least tell me how it was in your experience.

very very big thanks in advance!

[point2]

i'm interested to know as well.. hope to hear from someone.. thank you

[21Local]

Hi George,

I will just address the capital issue.

My advice would be, that if you are just starting in this industry, take that $8k and stick it in a bank account for now. Take the next 6 months to a year to learn more about the industry, and get your first site(s) up. Once you have soaked up more knowledge about what you want to do, experience surrounding what works, and what kinds of strategies you want to employ, you can spend your budget more effectively. In a year, every dollar that you spend will be spent ten times as effectively as a dollar today -- particularly if that is your entire capital allotment. Others may think differently!

[perfect]

Hi Scott,

thank you very much for your reply. I will say that I'm not completely newbie in this sphere. I just said that I have no experience in online gambling business, but I have much experience in offline gambling and I also have much experience in SEO and internet marketing. I won't spend my capital ineffectively. I also did some research before posting on this forum, I have even made a detailed plan for creating my website, I just need to know some details about the website structure, should it be CMS or something else. About other questions that I have, I just wanted to hear opinion of different experienced people.

I would be happy to hear answers to my questions from you and other gambling webmasters on this forum.

Thanks again and have a good day.

George.

[onlinegamblingeu]

On natural search marketing, that sort of budget will not get you very far on a competitive search term.

My advice is to start hunting around for "long tail" search terms that show signs of high commercial visitor intent.

To answer your question, try drupal or wordpress. You can't really go wrong with either one, and your life will be a lot easier in the long run.

Hand coding websites offers no real value to search engines, you can disguise the fact you run a cms pretty easily in any case, so any argument against them can be shot down quickly.

[perfect]

On natural search marketing, that sort of budget will not get you very far on a competitive search term.

My advice is to start hunting around for "long tail" search terms that show signs of high commercial visitor intent.

To answer your question, try drupal or wordpress. You can't really go wrong with either one, and your life will be a lot easier in the long run.

Hand coding websites offers no real value to search engines, you can disguise the fact you run a cms pretty easily in any case, so any argument against them can be shot down quickly.

Hi,

Thanks for your advice, I really appreciate it. I checked your website and really liked it. I think it's wordpress, but heavily modified, am I right?

[bonusbeast]

Handcoded or cms, either is fine which ever you feel more comfortable with.
There are many different types of content gambling portals can contain, just make sure the content is good. As for the $8,00 you have to spend, assuming you don't need any of it for the design part, you could definitely use if for marketing, I would find high PR gambling sites that sell links and purchase links on their sites, along with doing some free backlink building of your own. I also agree with the other poster take your time before investing a lot of money into this to fully understand what is going on.

[perfect]

Thanks bonusbeast for your answer. you said that I don't need any money for design, I think that's wrong. First of all, search engines like unique websites with unique designs and if the design is quality made that will be a good reason for customers to return. I don't need just a website with visitors who will visit my page for only 5 minutes. I want to create a community, I will update my website freaquently with news about online gambling, I may even add a forum when traffic will be enough for it.

[Pokerworx]

If I was you I would go with wordpress, it seems like everyone is using that now. You could pick up a nice one here http://themeforest.net/ and hire the designer to make a few changes to make it unique and yours. I agree with the rest though keep your money you will find a million things to waste it on and its pretty hard to make it back.

[onlinegamblingeu]

hi mate,

yes it is wordpress.

i made a post about it yesterday with a few recommendations

you can read it:

https://www.gpwa.org/forum/wordpress...tml#post562019


feel free to shoot me questions if you need help with anything

g

Hi,

Thanks for your advice, I really appreciate it. I checked your website and really liked it. I think it's wordpress, but heavily modified, am I right?

[pgaming]

4) I have approximately $7000-8000 in my budget, on what do you suggest me spending this money for?

Keep it in my opinion or be very very selective where and how you spend it. Most of the work is not monetary but rather sweat equity. Knowledge is power as the saying goes and doubt money will be able too afford that IMO.

greek39

[perfect]

Keep it in my opinion or be very very selective where and how you spend it. Most of the work is not monetary but rather sweat equity. Knowledge is power as the saying goes and doubt money will be able too afford that IMO.

greek39

greek39, Thanks for your answer. Be sure I will be selective. In my first post I just said that I have a very little experience in online gambling, but I have much experience in SEO and internet marketing, I'm not a newbie in spending money on needed service. I won't spend a single penny for unnecessary services.

Thanks for suggesting anyway,

George.

[ironman2000]

I would agree with all that has been said here about................bank the cash for now till you have built your first site/s and then think carefully on what to spend it on.

I build my first website a while ago using Dreamweaver, but most seem to like wordpress..............we all have a preference. Just like Mac or PC?

I am sure you have researched a little about what you are going into and I wish you sucesses, but tread slowly and keep you feet on the ground. It will take up to a couple of years till you see any great profits.

Have a wonderful weekend

Keith

[casino2k.com]

2) if it should be CMS, which one do you suggest?
5) (a bit unprofessional question) approximately how much time will it require to earn back the starting capital? I know it depends on many things but please, at least tell me how it was in your experience.

For my little experience.:
2) if you want a cms, use a real cms. Joomla, Drupal, Mambo, phpNuke... they're all very good. Personally I think wordpress is good for small websites, but for very large portals it's not enough.

5) my starting capital was 0$ and after 1 minute I got my 0$ back...
If you find the right niche and the right keywords, 1 year could be enough.