Monday, December 12, 2011

Building a New Website














I'm in the process of researching tools and checking out sites that provide lots of good info on creating a website and driving traffic to your site.  There is SO much information out there.  When you find a good site on a topic such as creating a static website, you may find all sorts of other good info on something completely different and get ahead of yourself on another topic for an hour or two. 

I am going to create a quick list of items that I need to do, in the order I think I should do them to make better use of my time and keep myself on track.  Hopefully they will also be helpful to you if you are planning to create a website as well.  Here's how I think I should be going about setting up the new site, please feel free to add in some steps or offer suggestions if you have experience on any of the items below!

Setting up a Website:

1)  Come up with a domain name that matches the main topic or niche of your website.  Register the site with a domain name provider.  This step is complete.  For my travel niche site I registered through GoDaddy.com  I've used them to register several domain names since 2003 and it's generally very cut and dry, but when I did have a question or two, their support was helpful and responsive which is very important.  If you click though either link, you'll get their current special rate of $7.49 for 1 year .com registrations instead of the regular 11.99 price and I will get a small %.  Thanks for your support.

2)  Gather related content from past blog post, past reviews we've written on sites like Trip Advisor, etc.  Copy/paste the material into Google docs to share between my wife and I so that we can both be working on this and have access to review/modify the info as needed.

3)  Research and try out different website publishing software or websites which provide tools to do so, in order to decide on one to utilize for the site.  This might include offline programs such as DreamWeaver, open source programs like Komposer, or programs like WordPress, most synonymous with Blogs.

4)  Plug the content from item 2 into the tool in item three to setup/test a local copy of the website.  Setup at least 5-10 pages of content initially to make sure that you have enough information on at least one main topic to keep a visitor's attention and make them want to return for more information in the future.

5)  Once the local copy is put together and the overall site layout is finalized with the initial content, choose a web hosting company to house the website.  This step requires that you have done some research and read lots of reviews on the various hosting companies, have checked out any demos that their sites provide, have asked them a question or two to see how responsive they are and have reviewed their money back guarantees, etc.

6)  Publish the content, test/verify that all behaves as expected and go live with the site!  One important step is to be sure that you have a local backup copy of your site any time you update the site.  Also be sure that you research what it takes to secure your site as best that you possibly can to try and limit your exposure to having your site hacked.

7)  Utilize tools or widely available methods to drive traffic to your site and to get your site to rank in the top 10 for specific related search words/terms in Google. 

8)  Monetize the site with relevant affiliate links, AdSense and eventually line up Sponsors for your site once the traffic arrives.  Be up front with your visitors about such links and thank them for their support. 

Once you have all that done, you'll have your new website online and accessible to the world and eventually, with continued hard work and diligence, it will provide you with a source of passive income.  Pretty exciting eh?  In reality, I could do steps 1-5 in a day or two, but I want to take the time to try and pick the right site creation software and web host up front.  In general, I find that the extra research usually pays off and if I can avoid having to switch to a whole new site setup software/host in the near term, that will give me more time for doing the important stuff like publishing additional content and bringing in traffic.  

Right now I'm currently not following the order above.  I'm scouring the internet in steps 3 and 5, trying to figure out what software or tool to utilize for the creation of the website and reading reviews on which web hosting company to choose to house the site.  The hosting company you choose has some bearing on the item you will choose to setup the website.  Many hosting companies support WordPress and provide a 1 click option to install WordPress on your site and a process to keep it up to date.

So far I've found a great site on the entire process of setting up a website to generate passive income with a ton of tools, content, videos, etc.  I'd highly recommend checking out that site, there is a ton of great info.  I emailed the site creator to ask a few questions over the weekend.  I also found another site on building a static website with WordPress that I'm reading through.  I do not want the site to be a blog that requires daily updates, I want it to be static in nature that I can add more and more content to over time, but it wouldn't hurt to be able to utilize commenting systems or other things that WordPress offers.  In addition I'm reading reviews on this site and others, trying to find honest reviews of decent web hosting companies and trying to weed through the fluff reviews from people whose sole goal is to derive income from steering people to specific web hosts that pay them the most money. 

All in all it's a bit overwhelming, but fun at the same time.  I'm learning a lot along the way that will be helpful in the future.  Do you have any suggestions on good software or sites for creating a website.  Do you have any experiences good or bad with specific web hosting companies?

Please leave me a comment below or drop me an email at thepathtoriches@gmail.com and I will also be sure to provide updates on how things are going along the way.  Thanks!

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