Website Tips

Here are some useful website tips to get you started on your journey to website success!

Website tip number one is for absolute beginners:

Play around with a freebie personal website

There are so many good free website programs around; almost anyone can set up a personal website with a few bits of info and photos, and they're usually pretty easy to work with.

Why do this?

You'll get the hang of how pages are made
You might enjoy picking up a bit of simple HTML - the website code that lets your web browser display a page.
You'll practise writing online
Even if you're only writing about your family or favorite sport, it's a useful exercise to transfer your thoughts into the written word online.
BUT... it's best to use a paid website to make money with
I wouldn't recommend using a free website for making money. It's much better to own your website, and more professional, too.
Free websites can suddenly disappear for various reasons - and many affiliate programs won't allow you to use free websites to promote their products.
Some free website programs will put their own ads on your site anyway to cover their costs, which can be annoying.
Buy your own domain name and web hosting, and you won't face these problems.

Our next website tip is for those of you in a tearing hurry:

Don't expect to build a website in a day

There are so many programs promising you a website in 5 minutes, or 24 hours.

But do you think you will be able to write, say, ten pages of good information, learn how to upload your pages to the site, link them together and get your website graphics sorted in this amount of time?

It may take you a few days to think about what kind of website you want to build, and what you want to do with it; then you will look around at hosting, and at what the hosts offer in terms of site building wizards and so on. So don't rush - enjoy the process!

Want to fill your pages with cursor effects and blaring music? Aaarghhh!.......... Please.......

Keep your website design simple!

Most people don't like flashy websites with blinking banners and scrolling text. Many of the very best websites have super-simple design. Think of Google - a white page with the word "Google" on it and a search box.

All you need is an easy-on-the-eye template to get started with - start with your header - the design that goes on the top of the page. I've kept things probably too simple with this site, and just used paint.net to put together a logo. I've used one kind person's free design services for one of my sites, and paid for custom headers for other sites.

Your webhost will probably offer templates as a start anyway - so you don't need to worry too much about this at first. You can always change the look of your site once you've got to know your website a little better!

If you want music on your site - fine! But give your visitor the option to listen or not.

Onto the fourth of our website tips:

Always think of your visitors

What do your visitors want to know about?
You'll probably have tons of things that you want to tell them! But sit down and think carefully about your typical visitor. What problems do they face? What might they want to improve? What kinds of things are they interested in? How can your website help them?

If you aim to please - you'll be going in the right direction
And you'll also attract lots of people to your site who are looking for just this information! And these are the people you will be able to earn money from by offering them relevant products, services and advertising. So let's add the last of our website tips for the moment:

Keep your money-making efforts relevant

If you're planning on using Google's Adsense program, which shows text ads on your pages, you'll notice that their ads are relevant to the content of your page. If the page is about wedding favors, the ads will be about favors, wedding planning, or wedding gifts, for example.

Google knows that people respond to relevant advertising. So you can use this wisdom, too. In addition to Adsense, you can add affiliate links to your pages - maybe relevant books or goods from the Amazon affiliate program, for example.

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