TGP Tutorials & Articles

TGP Site Startup Costs, Requirements Explained

by TGPFactory Staff, June 29 2006

TGP's actually require a very small monitary investment to get started: the bulk of the investment is in time spent cropping thumbnails, monitoring traffic trades, and updating your site. When planning a TGP you need only take into account two expenses at the bare minimum: Domain Name and Hosting. The remaining expenses are optional, and many of them frivolous. Be sure to research your options for traffic, design, and scripts before making a hefty (and often unnecessary) purchase.

  • Hosting plans can run as cheap as $6 per month (yearly investment of $72.00) plus a setup fee, however many places have stopped charging for setup.
     
  • Domain names can be purchased for around $15 per year.
     
  • TGP Design can run anywhere from $75 all the way on up to $200-300 depending upon the quality, where you get it designed, and whether or not it requires custom cartooning.
     
  • TGP Scripts are often available free or free with a "skim" option (this allows a percentage of your traffic to be sent to the script owners' sites). If you do choose to purchase full licensed scripts, things can get very expensive. Comus charges just under $300 for a licensed copy of Comus Thumbs; JMBSoft charges about $90 for a licensed copy of AutoGallery SQL. Trade scripts are above and beyond this cost, with some peaking at $600 per copy.
     
  • Feeder Traffic is a valuable asset when starting a TGP but is not detrimental to your TGP's success: there are dozens of other ways to build traffic for free. Feeder traffic can cost between $2 and $10 per 1,000 hits, depending upon the source, niche, and productivity of the visitors. Free options include submitting to linkdumps, trading with GFY members and other TGP owners, gallery submission, SEO techniques.
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