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How
to Start a Website |
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So
you want to know how to start a website? Here are the things
to be thinking about: content, general design and
layout, and what you want to acheive. Layout is more
important than incoropration of every new technique.
An animation that takes 45 seconds to load and run
may be cool once, but will discourage return
visitors! Also, avoid popup ads as nobody really likes
them and the clickthru rate is terrible.
- What
is the website about, what is the target audience,
and who are the main sites now serving this audience?
Take a look at who is out on the internet now and
how you can do things better. Content and services
are the most important thing to a return visitor.
- Domain
name - It is best to try to find a domain
name that your target audience will relate to. One
example is theLabRat.com for biotech and pharmaceutical
sciences. The best domain name is one that will
be remembered (and not to difficult to type in).
- Affiliate
programs - If you are going to have advertising
on your website you will want to take a look at
the affiliate programs section. These programs do
the sales work for you. All you do is put the banners
or text links on your site and when someone clicks,
fills in a form, or buys something, you get paid!
Using text links that are relevant to your content
gives you the highest clickthru rate.
- Web
design - Are you going to do it yourself
or hire someone? Doing it yourself can be fun, but
it can also be frustrating. I have done this for
about two years on a part time basis and have a
few websites running (besides my day job as a biotech
scientist). If you are looking for running a business
on the web it may be faster to have someone else
design it for you.
- Web
Hosting Services - You want to try to get
an estimate of how much bandwidth you will need.
Most sites can exist fine on free or low cost hosting.
Higher traffic sites may need a system which allows
unlimited bandwidth (to a limit). To limit your
exposure, you may want to start out on a free or
low cost server plan and then upgrade as necessary.
- Search
engine placement - The major source of hits
for many websites are search engine queries. Having
a search engine placement in the top 5 of a common
search term can mean big traffic. Unfortunately,
search engines don't use similar algorithms to determine
placement and even change their algorithms perodically.
Maintaining your rank is a continual process.
- Web
tools and content - Once your website is
set up you will want to be constantly upgrading
and adding new features to grow the traffic. Examples
of things that grow traffic: email services, message
boards, e-card programs, and recommendation scripts.
Below is a step by step guide for your website |
| 1. Domain name registration |
| It is best to try
to find a domain name that your target audience will relate
to. One example is theLabRat.com for biotech and pharmaceutical
sciences. The best domain name is one that will be remembered
(and not to difficult to type in). Cybersquatting and
typosquatting (registering domain names that are common
typos of high traffic sites) will disqualify you from
many affiliate programs and is strongly discouraged. |
Dotster  |
Dotster Inc. is a leading ICANN-accredited
registrar capable of registering your .com, .net and .org
top level domain (TLD) names. By choosing to register
your domain names with Dotster, you are guaranteed many
value-added features that make registering domain names
even easier and more enjoyable. NameSpin, multi-year pricing,
and our dotPartner and dotAffiliate programs are only
a few of the special services they provide. |
GoDaddy.com |
Go Daddy has been offering the latest TLDs at the industry's lowest prices since 1997. Little wonder they are the world's premier domain name registrar (Name Intelligence, Inc). Because at Go Daddy, you can register a domain for up to 70% less than other registrars AND get hosting, an easy-to-use site-builder, personalized email account, blog/podcast tool, photo album and more - all absolutely FREE. They will get you up and running on the Web for just the cost of your domain registration. |
Network Solutions |
Register your domain name with nsWebAddress™. Includes free instant homepage, local directory listing and 24/7 real person support! A domain name, or Web address, is an address where you can be found online. It's how you'll express yourself through email or your website and it's what customers think of when trying to find you. nsWebAddress™ provides the tools to get online fast. |
| 2. Website hosting |
| You
want to try to get an estimate of how much bandwidth you
will need. Most sites can exist fine on free or low cost
hosting. Higher traffic sites may need a system which
allows unlimited bandwidth (to a limit). To limit your
exposure, you may want to start out on a free or low cost
server plan and then upgrade as necessary. |
| HostRocket |
HostRocket
provides the most complete and cost effective packages
available anywhere on the internet today. With faster
servers, technical support, and a no questions asked 14
day money back guarantee, we provide a package that can't
be beat and you are certain to be happy with. |
iPage |
They make it affordable and easy to manage your website and email. Here are a few reasons why iPage is right for you: •A leader in web hosting •Over 1,500,000 domains under management •Serving over 1,000,000 Websites •Customers in 150 countries •6 worldwide locations •800 employees ready to serve you •Over 25 brands worldwide. |
iPowerWeb  |
Hosting
from as little as $7.95 per month! iPowerWeb is a respected
leader in the IT/ASP industry, which includes product
lines such as hosting, access, total Web solution, e-commerce,
content, marketing, and financial services. iPowerWeb
provides all these products as an ASP in a co-branded,
private label fashion and directly to the consumer with
a commitment to the highest quality, reliability, service,
and customer satisfaction. |
Lunarpages  |
They
provide top quality web hosting at affordable prices,
including 20 GB of bandwidth, 200MB storage, MySQL database,
POP and web-based email, and the latest versions of PERL,
PHP, ASP, JSP, and PYTHON. Not to mention 24 hour support,
fully redundant broadband ready network, data center which
is secured by patrolling security 24 hours a day, streaming
media capable, toll-free phone number, and NO Setup Fee. |
| 3. Affiliate programs |
| An affiliate
program is a program that will pay you for referring of
a customer to another website for a product or service.
This is how small websites like this one actually make
enough money (hopefully) to cover their expenses. There
are three types of affiliate programs: pay per click,
pay per lead, and pay per sale. The pay per sale usually
generates the most revenue, but the product needs to be
of interest to the visitors of your site! One thing to
watch for is high minimums! You may sign up for a program
that offers 0.01 per click but has a minimum of $100.
That would mean 10,000 clicks before you get paid! Unless
you have a high traffic website that could be a long time.
Check out the affiliate programs below. I use all of them,
but prefer Google adsense since it targets the ads based
on keywords present on your pages and thus relevant ads
are always placed resulting in a high click thru rate. |
| Google AdSense |
Definitely the most effective advertising that
I use on my websites. It is an easy way for website publishers
of all sizes to display relevant ads on their website's
content pages and earn money. The ads are selected based
on the content of the page they are on, resulting in a
high click thru rate. It also allows a way for webmasters
to provide Google web and site search to their visitors,
and to earn money by displaying Google ads on the search
results pages. |
| Articles
on starting a website - Check this link for articles
on how to start a website, content, and also webmaster
tools. |
| Recomend this page |
| Google |
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