Beginners guide
Topics covered:
- Is what you want possible?
- Why do you need a website?
- The domain name
- Website design
- Web hosting
- Promoting your work
- You want some revenue, don’t you?
1. Is what you want possible?
I remember the first time I wanted my own website was in 2000. I wanted a personal page, to post a few pictures of myself and to give the page to a few girls on mIRC. After five years of experience I considered it very important to know the reason why I needed a website or if a website is what I needed. If you just want money quickly, a website isn’t the right choice for you, because you can’t get revenue from a website so easily. Those guys you heard of usually have usually worked on the Internet for years. Many times I asked myself how much a website can earn by having thousands of unique visitors per day. With Google AdSense they might earn about $5000. With advertising they also can earn much money. On the Internet there are many kinds of websites. Even the laziest webmaster wants some money after a while. Oh, and those free services you see when you surf the Internet just aren’t free. I think there are three major types of website:
Service providers
Online shops
Free websites (forums, blogs, articles, tutorials).
2. As I mentioned before, you have to know precisely why you want a website. Just for fun? You have great software and you want to sell it? You provide some sort service? Are you a genius in some programming language and you want to know if somebody is interested in you? And if so, why? I consider this step to be important, because a website with no visitors is useless. Creating and maintaining a website is not free. You must spend about ten dollars to register a domain name (and this is for only one year, but you’ll see when promoting your brand that it is better to register a domain for a few years), another ten or twenty bucks for a web hosting place. Then there are many places where you can promote your website, but nobody will link to you unless you pay them (I don’t think that you can create some magic tool to make someone think you are a good resource). Almost all major directories will charge you for a listing. Free directories are useless.
3. Registering a domain name: it’s a simple step.
4. Designing your website.
This is the hardest step so far. Depending on your needs, your website’s purpose, and the skills you have to create a new website. If you never created one, you’ll tend to create a single page, a long page with fake testimonials telling surfers how great your services are. They will not believe you. Avoid pages like that. Avoid FrontPage. You have to create a nice design, well structured, easy navigation, small pictures, no flash, not more then 2-3 JavaScript. A good idea is to make a Homepage, About, Contact and something regarding your work or what you sell, offer, and do. Try to use pictures relevant to your website’s theme. Don’t use roses if you are a coder. Don’t use abstract images if you have a flower online shop. Just because you read somewhere that it is a good thing to have your main keywords on your pages, don’t stuff your pages with useless phrases and many keywords. That will make you a spammer. Design your website for your visitors. You must ask yourself what you would like to see on a page like yours if you were a visitor. Another good idea is to hire a web designer from a web design company. They should not charge you more than a few hundred dollars. If you want to invest less money, you can buy a non-flash website template. Remember, a website template is only a design idea; you still have to have some skills to edit one.
5. Web hosting.
After you finish your website you have to host it somewhere. In your first year it’s enough to have a cheap hosting bought from a serious company. They will provide you with an administration link, a username, and a password. In your hosting account you will find a directory called ‘www’ or ‘public_html’ or just ‘html’. Double click that directory to upload your files. Then you’ll have to point your domain name to this hosting account. Ask your web hosting provider your name servers. Then go into your domain name management control panel and exchange the name servers with the two provided by your web hosting company. You’ll have to wait a few hours until your switch will propagate thru the NET. If everything was made correctly, you should see your website when you type its name into your browser.
6. Promoting your website.
Everything so far was easy compared to promoting. You can promote your website in many ways, but lately the Internet has become a huge advertising farm . Rarely can you find a free website in the top rankings a website. A website needs many back links, from other relevant websites. Your website must be made is such a way that it will motivate others to link to you for free. You can submit to some web directories like: DMOZ, Yahoo Directory, BOTW, Business.com, Haaba.com, Abilogic.com, JoeAnt.com, and Skaffe.com. Then you’ll have to wait a few months. During this time add more content to your website, discuss it in major forums, add tools, and put in free stuff. In other words, be a good resource for others. This is the single best way to success on the Internet. If you develop your website, and you gradually make it bigger, visitors will flow to it. Then when you’ll have thousands of visitors, you can begin to work at what you know bestr. There is always somebody interested in what you sell or do. At that point you can try Google’s AdSense, too.