Re: Sawatdee Network is For Sale
I completely agree with you. As I said previously, if this board stays in its current format, I give it 24 months maximum before it's offline.
That doesn't necessarily mean it's doomed though. Depends what the new owner does with it. There's still lots of Thais out there who are a) looking for a long-term relationship with a farang, and b) willing to take their pants off for a little money. From what you guys say, I guess many of them aren't desperate enough to move to Pattaya and work in a go-go bar, but they're still out there.
I'm not buying the board, but if I was going to, again, I'd revamp it to concentrate on Thai-Farang hook ups, so the Thais out there can keep their exploits low key, and don't have to worry about the social stigma of working in a bar. Huge gamble, more than likely would be a complete flop, but chance it could be quite successful as well.
Re: Sawatdee Network is For Sale
Quote:
Originally Posted by fountainhall
...it is a site with a large active membership...
That's probably because men can still be imprisoned for up to two years for being gay in Singapore although it's rarely enforced. I imagine there's likely to be a lot more activity and interest in countries which are fighting for basic lgbt rights.
Re: Sawatdee Network is For Sale
Quote:
Originally Posted by cdnmatt
...I'd revamp it to concentrate on Thai-Farang hook ups...
It'd be incredibly hard to compete with hookup apps like Planet Romeo et al and dating sites like Thai Cupid and Thai Friendly.
Re: Sawatdee Network is For Sale
Quote:
Originally Posted by Tobi
Quote:
Originally Posted by cdnmatt
...I'd revamp it to concentrate on Thai-Farang hook ups...
It'd be incredibly hard to compete with hookup apps like Planet Romeo et al and dating sites like Thai Cupid and Thai Friendly.
Yes, it would be, hence the "huge gamble" part. Definitely possible though. Slant the marketing angle towards Thai-Farang hook ups / relationships, instead of just general dating, and there's a chance of success.
Costly project though. $3500 isn't bad, but it's another probably $15k of sweat equity, plus about $50k to hire a quality marketer who knows what they're doing. It would have to take off in a huge way to get your money back, but still possible. I've worked on projects that went from $0 to $200k/month within months, so nothing's impossible.
Re: Sawatdee Network is For Sale
Yup, but why would you want this forum for that? You'd set up a Wordpress site with a theme such as SweetDate http://seventhqueen.com/demo/sweetdatewp-modern/ at the very least, or purchase a turnkey dating solution such as SkaDate https://www.skadate.com
Re: Sawatdee Network is For Sale
Quote:
Originally Posted by Tobi
Yup, why would you want this forum for that?
Because Google has some love for this board. $3500 isn't going to get you better marketing than the current search engine rankings.
Oh, and shame on you for using Wordpress. :)
Re: Sawatdee Network is For Sale
You won't keep the rankings with a change of format, not that this board ranks for "thailand gay hookups" anyway, and the brand name isn't exactly memorable. You'd be better off starting from scratch than trying to port this site's content to a new format, and use the $3500 to pay for advertising.
Wordpress currently powers 74,652,825 sites, almost a third of the internet, and has some remarkably large players in that number too. ;)
Re: Sawatdee Network is For Sale
Ranks #3 for "gay thailand" though.
Obviously, you'd keep all the posts for history & link juice, so Google doesn't deindex you. Nonetheless, to rank #3 for terms like "gay thailand" is probably going to cost you more than $3500. Plus it's an aged domain, so that counts for something as well, versus firing up a new domain.
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Re: Sawatdee Network is For Sale
It's actually #6 you need to use an incognito tab so that your previous browsing history doesn't affect the ranking. If you kept all the posts, you'd have exactly what you have now, a Wordpress front end with a bulletin board tacked on the end. I'm afraid that no longer works. Oh, and a memorable brand trumps all. :D
Re: Sawatdee Network is For Sale
Fired up a VPN + Tor, and sorry, but both google.com and google.ca are #3 ranking for "gay thailand". Not sure which locale you're using.
And yeah, Wordpress would be the first thing to go out the window. Wordpress is meant for throw away sites you setup in 10 minutes, not for proper online operations.
There's ways to revamp everything 100%, while keeping all posting history and URL structure. Link juice wouldn't get affected too much.
Doesn't matter anyway. I'm purely a tech guy, not a marketer, so revamping this place would take a lot of resources that I don't have. I'm not willing to drop say $65k on this place, which is about the minimum it'd be.