How to Make a Website – the Plan to Success

You are thinking about making your own website? This is a great idea, since the Internet lives from fresh and diverse content that is as individual as you are.

Now you might think all you need to do to make a website is make a page, either by hand or in an HTML editor, upload it somewhere and be done with it. If you are doing that, you may have a website, but will you have visitors? Not to speak of making money from your efforts.

Here is a fundamental truth: To learn how to make a website, you need to understand why people browse the Internet and how they find websites. How did you come to this article? I bet you searched for something related to the topic of how to make a website. In the majority of cases visitors will come to your website from a search engine.

That means, to come to your website, people will be searching for something in the first place!

When you are thinking about how to make a website, you may or may not already have an idea about the topic. Choosing the appropriate topic will be crucial in securing your success in the online world.

But what is ’success’?

Your personal success depends on the goals you are after. It is mandatory to clearly define what you want to achieve. Do you ultimately want to make money online by learning how to make a website? Or do you mainly want to connect with like-minded people or friends and family?

Depending on what your goals are, there will be different roads to walk.

This article focuses on how to make a website and monetize on it. Monetization does not mean that you are going to have to sell your own product or service. In fact, most sites you are browsing on a daily basis that you think are ‘free’ monetize on their efforts via advertising or other means.

But we will come to that later!

The First Thing You Need Is A Plan

Believe me, things will go nowhere fast without a plan. Brainstorming and spontaneous ideas are good and necessary, but they must be turned into an organized plan. Planning up-front is critical in reducing tears and frustration when you make your own website.

Imagine you have wasted months of work, just because you did not take the time to plan carefully.

In order to be successful, you have to look at what what people look for when browsing the web. This can be easily summed up as information and entertainment. Most people have a problem and are looking for a solution.

That problem can be anything. Maybe they are looking for information on a certain model of digital cameras. Or they want to learn more about training their dog.

Solving these problems is where your website comes into play. Create quality content and help your visitors, and in turn you will be able to monetize your website from several different sources.

The success of many web entrepreneurs lies in the creation of niche websites. Choosing a niche that suits you best (and sticking with it) is probably one of the most important steps in making a website that is valuable both to you and your visitors.

Niche Research Is Important

Niche research is probably one of the most important steps in learning how to make a website. I can’t stress enough how important it is to take the time to find a proper niche for yourself.

You might ask yourself, ‘What could I possibly write about’? Here is the good news: Almost everybody is an expert in something. Almost everybody has a hobby. Something that you are passionate about. This should be a topic that you can create a lot of content for and that will not bore you once you’ve written about it for two weeks.

Most people that want to learn how to make their own website just brainstorm some ideas and throw them out there without further thought. Why do you think are there so many websites that will never see the light of day, err, I mean rank in the top results at Google? Honestly, when you search for something, how many pages of search results do you look through? I bet not more than one or two!

So it’s mandatory for your website to rank on the first two pages of Google to receive a noticeable stream of traffic.

I hear you asking: I have some ideas, but how do I find a good niche? And why does it have to be a niche anyway?

Well, you should always target a specific niche. Don’t target a whole industry!

Let us say, you love shoes. Don’t come to the idea to make a website about shoes as a whole. This is just too wide of a topic, and you will have to create hundreds of thousands of pages of quality content to compete with some of the giants that come up on Google when you search for ’shoes’.

Pick a more clearly defined niche. Just as an example, I’m going to say ‘red women’s shoes’. Let us say you love red shoes. You can talk about them forever, and are up-to-date on all new designs hitting the shelves. You could post pictures of the cool new shoes you found recently, write personal reviews etc. Just make sure to do it frequently (once a month is not enough) and to stay on topic. Using the same site to write about your dog’s health problems is probably not a good idea (unless he ate one of your shoes…).

Your niche shouldn’t be too obscure, though. There needs to be a general interest in the topic. Don’t make a website about Ramses III and expect a lot of traffic. In this case, rather talk about this whole ancient Egyptian dynasty or extend your topic to his famous predecessor Ramses II.

But how do I find out which niche is popular and which is not?

Actually, there are a lot of resources to find this out, some of which are free. You can get started with the Google keyword tool: adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal

Enter one or more keywords and check out the columns ‘Local Search Volume’ and ‘Global Monthly Search Volume’. Make sure to set the Match Type on the right to ‘Exact’. These numbers are some good indications for how many people a month search for the keyword(s) you entered.

When you create your content, be it in written or image form, make sure to keep checking the keyword tool to determine what keyword to target. All the pages on your website should be targeted to something that people actually search for. Don’t just make up something. This is one of the common problems you might face when you learn how to make a website.

Web Applications That Make Life Easier

Now comes the fun part: the coding.

No, I’m just kidding!

Learning a little HTML, CSS, PHP etc. is a good idea, and if you ask me, you will probably pick things up pretty quickly once you have been working with your site for a while.

But, generally speaking, no coding experience is necessary if you want to learn how to make a website. That’s right, if you have the motivation and are willing to stick to your plan you can make a website without touching the source of any HTML or PHP script.

This is possible thanks to the wide array of web applications available. Some of these are free, others are not. My favorite among the free options is definitely WordPress. WordPress is originally a blogging platform, but it is so feature rich, and at the same time simple to use, that you can turn it into practically anything. Also, there is a host of free and commercial plugins available for almost anything you can think of.

This kind of software makes it easy for you to simply create your content and post it to your website without further hassle. Now isn’t that a fun way to learn how to make a website?

Choose Your Domain Name

Before you can get started on making your own website, you will need a domain name and web hosting. The domain name is the address that your website will be found under. Domain names are bought for a certain amount of time (1 year is usually the minimum) and will have to be paid for again before they expire.

Domain names can be bought from any domain name registrar. Often, you can get a domain name and web hosting from the same place though I would discourage this. Registering your domain name and hosting from the same company puts you at risk of forfeiting your domain should anything happen and you’re hosting would be closed.

As for top level domains, or TLD, (that’s the ‘com’ part in example.com) I would always go with something generic like ‘com’ or ‘net’. It is possible to rank well with other extensions, too, but this will make things easier. I would also stay away from choosing a country code, such as ‘ca’, ‘com.au’, ‘mx’ etc. unless you are targeting visitors from that specific country only.

Now, your domain name should have something to do with the keyword you are going for with your website. If you are making your own website about all things related to the Siamese cat, you will want to have the term ’siamese cat’ in your domain name.

If you go to the registrar of your choice and search if ’siamesecats.com’ is available, you will see that it is already taken. Don’t let this deter you. Think outside the box and try names like ’siamesecatscentral.com’ or ‘allaboutsiamesecats.com’. Check if the hyphenated version (e.g. ‘all-about-siamese-cats.com’) is also available. If anyhow possible, you will want to buy both versions so that your visitors don’t end up on some other website, should they try to type in the domain themselves and don’t remember it right. The same goes for common misspellings!

At the registrar, you need to redirect all other versions to the main domain name that you have picked. If you have a very long domain name that might be hard to read, like ‘allaboutsiamesecats.com’, you will want to use the hyphenated version (’all-about-siamese-cats.com’) as your primary. Much easier to read, isn’t it? If you got a short two word domain name, such as ’siamesecats.com’, you can simply use that, since it should be easy enough to read.

Now you have a domain name, but there is nothing to see there yet. Let us move on to to the next step of how to make a website.

Get Reliable Web Hosting

The next thing you need is some proper web hosting. You often can get web hosting and buy domain names from the same place. However, it is also possible to split up the two. In any case, it is important to find a fast and reliable web host!

Picking a low-end web host can be detrimental to your website’s success. Search engines will frequently ‘crawl’ your website to take the pages into their index. These automated bots are also known as ’spiders’. Should your website not load because the server that your website is hosted on is down, or simply because the server is very slow, search engines will rank your website very low or not at all. Google recently stressed the importance of website speed again. They want an experience that is as fast as flipping a page in a book.

However, many web hosts will overexert their servers to make more money from less resources.

If you get started with a new web hosts I suggest you just make a contract for a month or so, and keep paying on a monthly basis. At least you will be able to move your site to a different host if you are not happy with their service. This is a way better option than being stuck with a crummy service for months or even years.

Traffic

Securing traffic is one of the key elements in learning how to make a website. The good news is, if you have carefully researched your niche and know the topic you are writing about, this will be less of an issue.

Make sure that your site has an XML sitemap. This file is used by search engines to index your site and find all the individual pages. Depending on what software you use, your website should create this file automatically and submit it to the appropriate services. WordPress for example has a plugin called Google XML Sitemaps by Arne Brachhold that takes care of the process for you.

Secondly, find out what links your competitors’ websites receive from other sites. Do a Google search for the niche you are targeting. Note down other people’s websites that rank for that term. Go to Alexa and enter your competitors’ domains into the search field and click ‘Lookup Sites’. Now look for ‘Sites Linking In’. This is the amount of other websites linking to that domain. Click on the number to browse these websites.

Note down your competitors’ backlinks and see if there is a way for you to receive backlinks of similar quality or better. If you have quality content on your site, this should not be that much of a problem.

Let us say you have a website about German Shepherd dogs. When looking up your competitor’s backlinks you will most likely find other dog related websites in there. Try to approach the webmaster of each sites by letting them know about what your site has to offer. Many people will be happy to link back to your site if they feel your site may be of interest to their visitors. If they run a blog, you could also offer to write a guest post with a link back to your website.

To Sell Or To Presell

Before you get started on monetizing your own website, ask yourself: What can my website do for my visitors?

Never put your money making efforts before what you can offer to your website visitors. Quite the opposite. How to make a website and be successful with it means looking at how you can help the visitors of your website. This is where preselling comes into play…

Doing business with people, both on the Internet and offline, comes down to building trust and relationships. The first step in doing this is to provide your visitors with valuable content. Remember, most of your visitors will come from a search engine. They will have searched for information regarding the topic that you are writing about.

This information should be helpful and not self-serving. Give your visitors what they were looking for. Build trust by helping them scratch the itch that drove them to your site in the first place.

Let us say you run a site on cat health. Your visitors might be coming to your site when searching for how to trim their cat’s claws. If you build trust and provide them with quality information from your own experience, chances are these people will read other information you have to offer. And they will take your suggestions serious.

This is the time to suggest your own product/service or those of another company willing to pay you a commission. If you are an expert in your field, your suggestions weigh a whole lot more than some random sales pitch they may encounter. In fact, your visitors will be thankful you pointed them in the right direction by suggesting a product that is of value to them.

Don’t promote products that you know are of low quality just for the sake of selling them. That will only cast your site in a bad light and discredit your information. I would also suggest against promoting products you haven’t had a chance to use and review yet. If you plan on getting them mention that, suggesting them beforehand though could also hurt your credibility.
Monetization

Now you might ask yourself: What if I don’t have my own product or service that I could suggest to my visitors? In fact, many people that learned how to make their own website make money from renting out advertising space or affiliating other people’s products.

Depending on your niche, there will be multiple monetization models for you to choose from when you make your own website.

Contextual Ads

Contextual ads are served from other companies to your website. Like the name suggests, these types of ads automatically check for your website’s topic and try to serve matching ads. These types of ads can be installed by placing a small code snippet into the source of your website. Some publishing software has plugins available to simplify the process if you are not comfortable adding the code yourself.

These types of ads are based on pay per click (that means if somebody clicks on the ad on your website) or for a certain amount of impressions on your site (usually per 1000 impressions).

Usually, the payout on these types of ads is not that high. But it is always a good ‘default’ monetization model that can generate a lot of money if you get a lot of traffic to your website. Also, these ads don’t need any maintenance from you once they are installed.

Private Ads

If you are getting enough visitors to your site, it may be lucrative to rent out ad space on your site directly. For this you will charge a certain amount of money for showing somebody’s ad over a certain period of time. Just as an example, let us say you may want to charge $90 a month for a 125×125px image ad in your website’s sidebar. This depends greatly on how many people visit your site and what authority your site has.

Affiliate Programs

Affiliate programs are programs that let you promote other people’s products in exchange for a percentage of the sale.

Becoming an affiliate is also known as performance based marketing. This simply means that you get a part of the sale that you referred from your website.

For some reason, there seem to weird myths going around concerning affiliate marketing. Some people think that they have to pay more if they buy from an affiliate link.

This is very wrong.

The company whose product you are affiliating is happy to make a sale that they might not have had, had you not referred a customer to them. That’s why they will freely share their profits with you. Some companies will even give you promotional codes to place on your website as an incentive for you to promote their offers.

There are many, many different affiliate programs for you to join. You should be able to find something no matter the niche. Make sure to look around and find high quality products that you would use yourself or suggest to your friends and family without hesitation.

Affiliating other people’s products is a great way to make money once you have learned how to make a website.

Diversify Your Monetization

In general, it is always a good idea to not place all your eggs in one basket. Rather employ multiple means of making money on your website. Imagine you are affiliating one product that does really well for you, but one day your sales are gone because that offer is no longer available. This would be a mayor hit to your business.

However, if you are using your website to promote your own product, it is okay to focus on that one. You don’t want people to be lead out on a cheaper click before getting to introduce them to your own product or services first.

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