Thinking of making a new TGP site, but I'm looking for some feedback.
 

Hi all,

I'm a web designer/developer by trade, and I've been giving a lot of thought to making a niche link TGP site. My approach is to develop a meaningful site (with good content, and really build traffic) before even thinking about going the route of monetizing. I've been doing a lot of research, but I have several questions for everyone. Hopefully someone can give me some thoughts.

First, the age old question: how to develop strong/repeat traffic. So, working on obtaining traffic trades is a big one but how does one do traffic trades if the site does you own doesn't yet have traffic? So, the next thought is to buy hard links and/or feeder traffic... but do this traffic actually do anything?

Any thoughts/suggestions on this would be VERY helpful. I've reviewed a few FAQs and tips, but essentially they all say what I've written above.

Second, let's taking hosting. I know there are several out there that are trustworthy, and the ones that really keeps coming up over and over is Hostgator. Seeing that this is just a TGP that does not host any content, this seems to be an ok host. Does anyone have suggestions on a reliable host that will take TGP sites?

Third, how can I get people submitting links to the site? Yes, one can do it via the site but how does a TGP get added/listed into TGP submission software? Does anyone have any additional ideas on how to get others to submit links to the site?

Fouth, let's talk monetization for a moment... the larger amount of traffic a site has, obviously, the more likely the site is able to pull in money. That said... how much traffic per month is needed to actually pull in good cash? And, what does that traffic really translate into. I guess asked differently, how much can a quality TGP site expect to make a month? $10? $100? $1000?

Thank you all, I look forward to being a part of the community here!

One, just buy a small amount of traffic once you have signed up with 10-20 trade sites. Don't bother with hard links, just buy feeder traffic.

Two, just about any host will be able to run a TGP

Three, Don't bother, make it a Fake TGP an just add your own sponsor hosted galleries.

Four, see Three (but i'm guessing that you don't actually know exactly what a TGP is?) A good micro-niche TGP that has very little competition AND has domination of the rankings can do well but on the whole most TGPs have had their day now.

One of the few ways you could stand to make reasonable money nowadays with the Tubes domination is to find a nicro-niche where people still prefer pictures (softcore glamour is one area thats still mainly photos, for example)

So, sign up with trade sites and then buy feeder traffic? How much traffic are we talking? Also, why not go with hard linking?

Why not accept link submissions?

No, I know what a TGP is... see I think that TGPs had their day mainly because they were spammed out. I believe that a quality product with a target audience with good content can thrive BUT it will take effort. Again, tho, this comes back to getting the traffic.

Thanks for the input.

only a few K to start with, just to kick off the trades, if you find the trades unstable (i.e the traffic from the trades don't click enough to feed the rest of the trades) then you might need to buy more until you get stable traffic from elsewhere (SE, bookmarkers, ect), Google really dumped on TGPs after the panda/penguin update which is why IMO hard linking wouldn't really work on a TGP.

Why not accept link submissions? If you use sponsor hosted galleries then you get all the sales to yourself!