money

New to dolphin 7 and im wondering how do people make money using this software?

I guess this maybe a silly question...i dont want to charge for memberships...i want the entire site free. Is there a way to sell business ad banner space or do i just make money through the store?

Leo

Lots of ways. Depends on what sort of site you have, who your market is, how busy your site gets etc...

Just a 'general' chat / SN site will prob not do well as there are millions of them out there. 

Make something niche, develop it and you can make money.

I started with DOlphin 2.5 yrs ago, developed about 8 different niche sites, and made a fairly decent amount of money on them all combined. Main thing though, was while exploring each of these site 'ideas', I learned what the script can do, how to use it, and developed my bigger ideas for using the script. Been working on a new site launch for approx 2 years now, from idea to launch stage. 

Good things take time, if you're learning the ropes on the way, then it will be just that - a learning curve. Dont expect a million overnight, but dont give up on your ideas either, it will most likely take time and persistence.

What sort of site are you looking to develop?

It depends on what your site is about and how you go about implementing it.

Ous site is a pay premium dance site, but another great potential revenue stream is emerging for us. Dance businesses, are offering us a tickets for events and courses franchises etc for 50% value. we can then advertise tom our premium members at 75%. So our members save 25% and we make 25% for doing nothing. We did not expect this to happen, but many companies are approaching us. Also, we are getting approached by hotel.com type sites offering us commission if our members stay in hotels near an event.

other ideas we are looking into are running our own dance events when we get big enough. This is a huge revenue earner, and perhaps a Dance agency.

You will find that once you start may ways will present themselves.

i hate to express this, but if  you are asking how to make money, then you are destined for failure on this venture. if you do not already have a plan, and if you do not already have a target audience, then you are in for trouble. 

running a site with plans on monetizing, be it dolphin or wordpress, requires a business plan, long and short term goals. 

if you have not stategized already, then i would say leave dolphin alone, develop your plan, then decide if dolphin is the best route to take. 

 Agreed, but then again if you're not aware of what Dolphin can offer, then its worth exploring outside of a business plan also...

Ive had a number of sites, each with different markets, and each doing different things. These have been my place to explore what I can do with DOlphin. 

I have found income streams and ideas have risen from this exploration that have been key to my long term business plan. 

Having said all that though, I have had to invest several thousand pounds into Dolphin and over 2 years to get it to do what I want it to do, and still have a fair bit of investment still to cover...!

Its not a get rich quick thing. Still possible to make it work though.

Again - Ariel, what sort of site are you looking to build?

Do you have a niche market you are aiming at?

Do you offer a service of some sort?

If the plan is just to create a social network, and then charge for it, I would say forget it. 

You will not make a fortune with this plan unless you can trump facebook!

If you have a niche market that you are able to tap into, and a service and or products, then you can make some money.

Thx to everyone for getting back to me...i was thinking of making the site membership free but allow people to place their own ads.  Is there a way to do this?

Leo

yes

Yes, there are mods for this, and you can easily setup a 'semi' automated process for other banner mods that are not setup for auto payments.

Main thing is though, if you want to make money on your site, and are looking at banner ads as revenue, you have to focus on bringing users in! 

Content, site build and design, usability, site marketing etc.. all have to be foundations for banner sales!

What market are you looking at and what sort of site is it? 

Might get more specific help if you have a clear direction...