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Success - an event that accomplishes its intended purpose. (What
is your purpose? You can achieve it!) Success and You - I have gathered many years of
useful information, and relative information of success that will confirm
the power of positive thinking, and positive intention. I am preparing to
publish all of this informative information so that you can become
successful and wealthy. If you educate yourself with this information and
use it, you will see a change in your life. May 06,
2006 - To my friends, family and acquaintances:
So you want to build a website, become successful, and make
lots of money? What I am about to tell you is
my personal opinion. And some of the facts as I have learned them in the
past 4-5 years. Some of the information I tell you may not necessarily
relate to all that are reading this, and some may think that the information
contained here is not enough. I will try to incorporate all the information
that I think will be needed for someone to start from basically nothing,
to
building and running a web site. If you want to succeed, the decision is up to you,
you make your own destiny. You are here reading this now, so you have
positive intentions, you need to maintain those and go with your dreams and
goals. Visualize what it is that you want, set goals for yourself, and when
you meet them which you will, then instantly set new higher goals again.
Never become content with where you are in your life, and do not stop
developing and educating yourself, you will always have room for
improvement, and you will always have room to make more money or become more
successful. Keep a positive attitude all of the time, learn from your
mistakes that may come along, and if you can, learn from others' mistakes
before they happen to you, and do not think about or dwell on anything
negative. Keep that positive intention, and it will manifest into your
dreams and desires. First off you will need to make sure that this is what
you are wanting to do, be a webmaster. By that I mean, do you really have a desire to do this kind of work and succeed at it? You also
need to know that this will not be easy. You need to know that you will be
spending lots of hours researching your topic(s) and finding content, or
writing your own content. You will always have to keep up on advancing
technology, and changes with the Internet. Also how to use and work your website on the Internet correctly. You will also need to be semi-proficient at
typing, a hunt and poke typist will have a much harder and longer time
building a website. So if you do not have good typing skills, then you need
to get a program and start practicing to build up your typing skills. There
are many facets to owning and building a website, you will need to educate
yourself on all of them in order to have a popular and highly ranked web
site. You will need to know how to work a program like Dreamweaver, or
X-Site Pro, or FrontPage, or some other similar web design program. You will
also need to know how to work an image program like Macromedia Fireworks,
for doing image projects. These programs are only a few of the things that
you will have to learn about to obtain the goals of building a good website
that is successful. Once you have all that information covered, then you
will need to educate yourself on the do's and don'ts of being a webmaster.
Those are many, and they keep adding and changing them often. If you do not
keep up with them regularly then you can easily fall behind and drop in the
search engine rankings, and those results can lose you valuable traffic to
your website. I can not help you personally at this time in my life, I am a
very busy man and have a wonderful family and home that take up most of my
spare time. You will need to have a positive attitude about this
endeavor. You will need to maintain that attitude all the time that you are
doing this project. You will have to like what you are doing, and the topic
that you will be building your website on. If you do not like the topic, or are
hating having to work gathering information, or building pages, or anything
that has to do with this, then stop reading here, and go on with whatever it
is that makes you happy. I am trying to add all that I can think of as I am
writing, I probably should have had a notebook filled with ideas to work
from, but I do not. It has come to this point where many people that I know
want me to help them by being their personal tutor. I wish
I could, but you will have to learn all that is required on your own. I will
guide you through this as best as I can, trying not to forget anything.
(You'll feel better about yourself and your potential by doing it yourself,
believe me.) You need to know also that anything you want to know about can
be found online. The Internet is a world of information, if you know what
you're looking for and where to look something up. So do not hesitate to go to Google.com and search for whatever it is that you are
wanting to know. If you do not find it, then use different search terms. Also
do not forget to use the image search when looking for a picture or images.
If you are not familiar with the language and workings of the Internet, then
you need to learn that and educate yourself on it extensively. It will make
things a lot easier and quicker for you. Having the proper tools and
knowing how to use them is very important. Knowing the language and
terminology on the Internet will speed you along your quest much faster.
Speaking of faster, it's a good idea to get a high speed Internet connection. A dial
up connection will not cut it in the long term, though you may be able to
start out with one. You can physically do web design with a dial up,
but it is much too slow to keep up with you when you become more proficient
with your webmaster skills. If you will be gathering and/or using images on
your site, then you will need a broadband or other high speed connection.
Some of the Things that will be Required to Own and Run a
Website. What Topic Will Your Website Be
About? You
will need to think of the type of website that you want to build.
Keeping in mind that there will be competition, so make
sure that you research who your competition will be. If you plan on cutting
in on an already large group of websites on your chosen topic, then you may
want to rethink that idea, or if you have a good plan then go for it.
Whatever you decide to build your website about, you should be
knowledgeable about that topic, it should be of interest to you personally,
like a hobby would be. You don't want to build a web site about pets if you
hate animals. In my opinion you probably do not want to build a website
that has negative things involved in it. Good positive sites are the way to
go, I believe. And Google Adsense does not accept any sites that have
questionable moral content (that does not mean "Christian" morals.)
If you're planning on adding some ads to your web site after
it is built and established then you will need to consider the actual
content of your site and what the keywords are worth. Some keywords
are worth a lot more than others. So to capitalize on your site the most you
would want to have the best keywords that you could for your sites chosen topic(s). It would also be beneficial to not have too many topics within one
website. That would require lots of additional work when you start your website's optimization and link exchanges. If you're thinking of just building
a website to throw ads up on and cash in on them, don't! There are
already way too many of those types of sites out on the Internet now. They are
really becoming a problem, especially for people who are genuinely looking
for information or actual content in a specific area.
When you get your idea
and plan set, you should build a content rich site with helpful and useful
information. That way your site will always be there and will probably remain in all
the important search engines. For those who try to take the quick and easy
road by building a no content site that is loaded with incorrect keywords
and misleading anchor text link exchanges, your sites will not last and they
will be banned from the search engines, in my opinion. It basically works
like the karma thing - put into it what you desire to get out of it.
What Domain Name Will You Choose?
So you have an idea for the topic of
your website. Now you will need to think of a URL for your website. That
is the name that you will probably be calling your website.
Although there
are a few websites that I have been to that have a different URL than the
name of the website, that is very odd in my opinion.
Domain names are
sometimes hard to think of. One good rule of thumb is to have great keywords in your name, and not have it be too long either.
Also do not have it
be something that is hard for most people to spell, for example, carenthusiasts.com I would bet that a lot of people might not know how
to spell "enthusiasts" properly. So by having that name you could be losing
traffic to your site from people not being able to spell your website's name
correctly.
You also probably do not want to use spelling like toyz instead
of toys because while your site is still new and growing many may not
realize you spelt toys with a 'z' instead of a 's'.
I personally think that
you should get a .com extension instead of a .net or .org or .tv There are
many other extensions also available nowadays, but I believe that the majority of
Internet surfers still, by default, are typing .com at the end of domain names
out of habit.
Multiple word domain names are becoming more popular these
days, for example joes-used-cars.com with the dashes in-between each word.
You can see that that web name has two good keywords in it: "used" and
"cars". Both of those key words are probably looked up a lot everyday.
"Joes" probably is not looked up much but sometimes you have to have
something like that because just used-cars.com is probably already taken.
Most of the really good names are usually already taken.
To check for available domain names, you can go to registar.com or godaddy.com and type
the name you want in their search
box and then hit enter and it will give you a list of the names you entered with
the different extensions and if they are available or not. (Do not buy your
domain name from registar.com when you find one, they charge too much for the
domains.) Find several domain names that you like, jotting them down in
Notepad as you find them. When you have found that right name, then you can go on to the next step.
Note that
you do not have to have dashes between the words. I bought fastcoolcars.com with no dashes.
There are different opinions on having
dashes and not having them. The dashes do count when you are counting the
characters in your domain name. Some experts have suggested that
URL
length may affect ranking.
When you have your domain
name chosen you will need to then purchase the name. Domains usually cost
about $9.00 or so a
year. We use godaddy.com, but any domain company can sell
you the domain.
When buying the name, be sure to read all the small print on
the page(s). Some sites are very tricky and you could easily miss something
on the bottom or side of their page(s). A lot of the time those sites will
have a two year purchase automatically checked before you purchase, so you
would need to change it to one year if that is what you want.
If you are at all serious about your
web site I would suggest that you buy your domain name for 5 years up
front. That way it is yours for 5 years minimum, and the search engines can
tell, and will look upon you better, thinking that you really are more
serious. But you may want to wait and see if this whole web design idea is
going to work out for you before you buy it for five years. You can buy it
for one year in the beginning and renew it whenever you are ready.
Remember
to shop around for your domain name. DO NOT buy your domain name from some
website that is going to charge you $35 per year for that name, when I am
telling you that you can get the same name for $6.95 - $9.95 per year
normally. And sometimes you can purchase several years in advance and
receive a discount.
Credit Card or Check Card?
You will need to have a Visa or MasterCard to purchase your domain name,
hosting services, and other things that are related to owning a
website. Some people
don't realize when a company asks for your credit card that you can always
use your check (debit) card instead, as long as it has the Visa or
MasterCard logo on it. If you have a checking account, then
you have availability to a Visa/MC check card. If you do not have one, then you
can request one from your bank. Your Internet life will more than
likely require you to use it many times over. If you are afraid to use your check card online,
don't be, just be cautious, and always look for the padlock icon at the bottom right area of the page that you are
putting your personal information on. That lock icon is a symbol that the
page that you are on is secure, and should be safe.
Whenever you are using
your credit card online it is important to read the entire page before
submitting to their terms. That is a good time for them to add extra things
to your purchase that you may not be aware of. Also read about their return
policy, in case you decide that you want to return their product or services.
And always make sure that you are aware of any recurring charges
that may be implemented monthly or yearly to the card that you are using. If
you did not want a charge to be recurring then you need to make it that
way ahead of time, or have a plan set before it will reoccur. Never use your
credit cards online on an unsecure page.
Hosting, What is it and Why Do I Need it? Now you have
a topic for your website. You have a domain name bought for your website.
You will now need hosting services for your website. That is basically space on
the Internet that you are renting to run your website on. This space is
usually charged to you per month. Depending on different circumstances the
prices for these services will vary. For a relatively new site that is not
very large and does not use a lot of bandwidth, you can probably get hosting
for about three to four dollars a month and up. You will do best to shop
around and educate yourself on the services offered, and learn about them
and what you will need.
Take note on the space available for your site, bandwidth
available to your site per month, and what their percentage of uptime per
year is. 99.9% uptime is NOT great. 99.99% up time is MUCH better. And
99.999% up time per year is not usually found, but is rarely available out
there in some places (for a much higher price too). Once again, educate yourself on bandwidth and
percentages per year, and how large and quickly you expect your website to
grow. Make sure that you can always upgrade your hosting needs without a
penalty being charged. Also make sure that the company you choose has a good
customer service department so in case you need to talk to a person you
will know that they are knowledgeable and understandable (many hosting
companies are run by foreigners with sometimes heavy accents.) There are lots of
people and companies that offer hosting services as a reseller, they are
like brokers, or the middleman. In most case you would probably do better to
go right to the main source, and skip the middleman, since services offered
will probably be better from the main source. Although the personal customer
service that you might get from a reseller may be better. It is one of those
choices that you will have to weigh out in your own mind and see what it is
exactly that you are wanting. I really like the personal service from a
reseller, but I like the options and larger selection of services that I get
from the main source supplier better. Review your choices, and check on what
other people have to say about each choice possibility. Do
not purchase hosting for several months in advance. Only buy a month at a
time until you have been hosting long enough to really understand what you
are doing. Buying a year of hosting in advance is a sure way to find out
that your hosting company sucks and that you want to switch to a different
company, but now you can't or else you'll lose all that money you paid in
advance. The discount they offer is not worth paying in advance for. The
most you should pay is about two months in advance and I say that because
Godaddy's cheapest hosting plan is $3.00 if you pay for two months in
advance.
Starting Your Website, How Does That Work? Now you
have your websites topic, a domain name, and a hosting
service set up for your new website. You are about ready to start building a
website. You will have to figure out which kind of program that you
will want to use to accomplish this task. There are many programs out there
online that say 'build a website for free', they profess to have all that
you need to build, and maybe even host for free. DO NOT do that. If it is
free and they are offering you so much there is a catch. They will probably
be placing their ads on your website that you worked so hard on. If there
are
going to be moneymaking ads on your site, then you should be receiving that
money. People do not respect a site on a free server. Also, Google will not
allow you to place ads on a site that is hosted on a free server.
After all the hard work that you are putting into this
project up until now, you do not want to make it look shabby or
amateurish. So you will need to get yourself a program to build and
publish web pages to the Internet for your website. There are many of these
programs to choose from. You will need to read about them
and research which may be best for you to use. Maybe you know someone that
can help you with this decision. I use FrontPage, it is an older way of
building websites, but I am very familiar with it at this point and it works
for me. Dreamweaver is supposedly a very good program as well. There are other website building programs available like X-Site Pro. That
may be the way that you want to go. That program has a one year guarantee,
if you are not satisfied within a year, you can return it for a
full refund. It currently costs $199. You will need to research your
possibilities and go with what you feel best with. You will need
an image editing program as well. Macromedia Fireworks is a good one, but it
is expensive. There are free ones available if you look for them. These programs let you crop,
optimize, and shrink
pictures, among other things.
Some people may not have a
creative mind, so when it comes to a website design they may may not know where to start. For those individuals there are templates
available to use in your site's design. These templates are available from a
wide range of suppliers. They range from free to costing hundreds of
dollars for one template. Some of the free ones are not too bad. Sometimes
the designer requests that you add a link to their design site on your links
page in exchange for using their template. Some of those templates are very
flashy too, that is not always a good thing, they may seem 'neat' to you,
but don't use them because of their 'neat factor'. Probably a good thing
would be to make your own site with your own ideas and imagination at first
(maybe something simple) and then evolve up to using a template, unless you
think that you would be better off with a template to start with. The
templates have a lot of nice amenities about them, you should research the
differences using and not using them, and see which suits you and your needs
best. If you are planning on a very large site with a lot of pages and
sections, then you will probably be better off to start with a template of
sorts, so that in the future you will be able to make adjustments and
changes to the site easier with that type of setup. Prior planning on your
website will help you in the long run. You do not want to jump right in and
start building pages without a plan. Look at your competition and other web
sites to see how they may be setup and/or organized and use that as part of
your plan for building your website. I'm not saying to copy someone's site,
but use their information and design to help you with your planning ideas.
(If you cannot come up with some on your own that you feel will be good.)
Content In Your Website? You will need to decide
what it is that you're planning on having for exact content on your site,
(for example, articles, sections, pictures, guestbook, message board, etc.).
Then you will need to learn how to manage, distribute, and design it within
your website. There are lots of professional looking websites on the
Internet that you could visit to get good ideas for your own website design
thoughts. It would be to your benefit to research popular sites and see what
they have in common that keeps them popular, as far as their web design
goes. Use some of those tactics to incorporate into your own websites design
ideas. Once you have a plan on how you want it all to go together then you
will need to start building your home page. The home page is the first page
that visitors will be coming to when they type in your URL, ... your domain
name. This will be the first impression to that first time visitor, so
realize that it is an important time to think about how the site looks.
Think about how long the page will take to load, on all kinds of connection
speeds. What will catch their eye. What may not catch their eye, and you may
want it to, but because of its location, color or size, it doesn't. These
are all things that you will learn about when you read up on website design.
And also by looking at other successful websites. When you are happy with
the content on your home page, and the way that you have it setup, you can
then start to build new pages that will be linked to from your homepage. All
the information that you will need to build a successful website and
multiple pages would take a lot of typing and explanation. I have included a
list of links to articles and learning tools that will help you in the
process of building websites. What is, and do I Need a
Link Exchange? A link exchange is a way for websites
to to share relevant links with their visitors. And by doing this you will
be increasing the amount of links that are coming into your website. This in
turn is gaining you popularity with the search engines. And also gaining you
traffic to your website. If you have lots of quality links coming into your
website you will rank higher in most search engines and that also will get
you more traffic. When doing a link exchange it is important to exchange
links with websites that pertain to similar topics as your own website. Also
do not get involved with link exchanges from sites that are link farms.
(Link farms are sites that basically have hundreds if not thousands of links
on their site that are not relevant to their topic.) Look at the website
that you are thinking of doing a link exchange with and determine if it is a
good enough site for you to exchange with. If you think the site looks
crappy, and/or it has a bad design, or issues with not being good content,
or enough content, then I would not exchange with them. Another good rule
may be to check their Google PageRank™ for their homepage and for the
page that they are planning on adding your link to. Also check
to see if their site is indexed in Google's directory. (Listed in Google
search engine.) If they have PR, they are indexed in Google. If not, you'll
need to check and see by going to
www.Google.com and type www.domain.com
in the search engine and see if Google shows their site in the search
results. Also make sure that you can get to their links
page easily. Their links page should be linked to from their home page or
someplace obvious.
More coming very soon ...
Helpful Links to Educate Yourself With Being a Webmaster.
WordTracker - Use
WordTracker to find the best keywords for your website.
Choosing
a Domain Name - A helpful article that includes info on dashes, domain
length, and other tips.
Does URL
Length Matter? - This article studies that question. We have personally
known people who have broken these rules and chosen a longer domain name
that got top rankings, but we agree that it would probably be easier with a
shorter name.
Heather's Tips on Link Exchanging and Anchor Text
Heather's SEO and Adsense Tips
SEO,
Web Design, and Hosting Articles - HeathersWebDesign.com offers many
articles on subjects including site design, optimizing for search engines,
link exchanging, Google Adsense, and more.
Registar.com - This
is where I like to look up domain names (not purchase them.) If you want
more help finding a name, use Godaddy to look it up, but be careful during
their checkout process.
GoDaddy.com - A great
place to look for and purchase domain names. Be very careful when you are
going through their checkout process, as they tend to throw in "helpful
options" that will jack your price up higher than you expected. Be sure you
check the final price and see that it is what you expected. If not, fix it,
don't just pay for it. Make sure you are registering the domain for only 1
year. Godaddy automatically sets it to 2 years. They are tricky, so you must
be smart when using their services.
Using GoDaddy's "Smart
Search" option to help you find domains can be very helpful.
GoDaddy also offers dirt cheap hosting plans that you can make use of,
though at this point you may not be ready to purchase hosting. When you do,
only buy a month at a time. Do not make the mistake of buying an entire year
of hosting simply because it is offered to you. |
