Whether you decide to begin with a simple dynamic service like those supplied by Blogger or Wordpress.com, or whether you go for an easy static site like the ones you can create with Google Sites or a website creator like Moonfruit’s, you’ll be up and running with your own website in minutes.
That’s exciting.
If you’re building your first site, it really is a thrill to see something you’ve created on the Web. And when you realize how easy it is, you’ll wonder why you didn’t start earlier.
And once you’ve been doing it for a while, you’ll start to feel the restrictions of using services that have been supplied by other companies, that require you to use templates, host the site on their servers or limit what you can put on your pages.
You’ll want to pull off your training wheels and head out on your own. Buying a Domain Name
That begins with buying a domain name.
Your own domain name is an essential part of your branding, and it’s a vital element in search engine marketing too. It’s the address by which the world
knows you.
Finding a name though is easier said than done these days. All the best words
in the dictionary — in fact, just about all of the words in the dictionary— have
either already been bought and built by developers or they’ve been bought and
offered by speculators.
But that doesn’t mean you can’t create a good name out of more than one word
and buy the domain for just a few bucks. Putting two words together,
sometimes with a hyphen, can work (like www.adsense.com) and there
are plenty of good names available if you’re prepared to move outside the world
of .coms into .net and .biz, etc. One recent trend has seen companies take
advantage of the suffixes used by countries with relatively little Internet traffic
such as Northern Mariana Islands (.mp) or Western Sahara (.ee). They still
have plenty of words available — or at least they used to — and combining a
word with .ly (used by Libya) or .is (used by Iceland) can make for some
interesting domains that are easy to remember. It’s a strategy that’s worked
well for URL shortener bit.ly and sports streaming service willow.tv.
You can buy domains from any number of companies, and a lot of sitebuilding
firms will even handle the sale for you. If you want to keep your independence
though, GoDaddy.com is one of the biggest domain and hosting services. You’ll
be able to test a bunch of different options and the site will tell you which (if
any) are available.
If you can’t find a name you like and that hasn’t already been grabbed, you can
also take a look at sites like ModernDomains.com or Sedo.com. The first is a
domain seller (one of many); the second is a domain name marketplace where
other sellers offer names that they’ve already bought — a sort of domain name
eBay.
There’s a good chance you’ll find some good names at Sedo but they can cost
you anything from $50 to $50,000. Before you part with a penny, think about
the advantage that a good name can bring and ask yourself if you can’t get the
extra traffic a cheaper way. Often, you can.
If the domain is just right, it can be worth it to pay a lot for it. I’ve paid a
couple thousand dollars for the right domain more than once.
Choosing a Hosting Service
Your site is going to be stored on a hosting company’s server. (You didn’t want
thousands of people dialing into your computer every hour, did you?) Space on
those servers is available for rent and again, there are lots of different options
available depending on how much you want to pay and what you need.
But you will get what you pay for with Web hosting. “Free” services will cost
you more than you save in lost revenue, and you can pay up to $200 a month
for dedicated servers. It’s unlikely you’ll need that until you’re handling
cityloads of users an hour.
I’ve been recommending
HostGator.com as a solution for a number of years,
having two dedicated servers with them myself. Their least expensive
WordPress hosting service can be a good place to begin. You’ll get unlimited
disk space and plenty of email accounts. That should be enough, and the most
you’ll pay is about $5 per month. You can always upgrade later if you need to.
Most importantly, whichever hosting service you use should have 24-hour
service. If your site goes down, you’ll be losing money every hour it’s offline. If
there’s a problem with the server, you want to make sure it’s fixed right away.
Playing around with hosting though isn’t straightforward. If you haven’t done it
before, it’s going to feel a little unusual. But the steps are few and it’s actually
very difficult to make a mistake. Placing a domain name that you’ve bought
onto a host’s server, for example, will usually require filling in your personal
details, choosing a payment plan, then providing your domain’s “nameservers”
when asked. They will look something like this: “NS1.[domainname].com.”
They just tell the new host where to find your domain name so that it can bring
it onto its own server. You should receive that information by email when you
buy the domain.
That will give you name and a place on the Web. But you still have to upload
your content. The username and password supplied by your hosting company
will give you access to a control panel, usually a program called cPanel, and it’s
intuitive enough, with buttons for uploading and directories for organizing files
and folders of information.
This is where learning about the Internet really begins. It’s not difficult, but it is
a little technical and there are plenty of guides and manual around that will
explain what the various buttons do, how you can create an FTP account to
make the management easier, and even how to create sub-domains if you
want them.
But getting to grips with this stuff will take a little time. It will take patience,
practice and a little effort but it’s nothing that requires any major skills that the
average person doesn’t possess. You just have to be willing to sit down and try
it without being afraid to make mistakes.
The result of that practice will be complete control over your website — and
that’s a goal worth attaining.
WordPress.Org, Movable Type — and SocratesTheme
I’ve already mentioned WordPress.com as one way to get online with a dynamic
website quickly. WordPress.com though is a simplified, hosted version of
Wordpress.org, an open source content management system that has been
around since 2003.
The biggest strength of WordPress is that it’s open source. Because any
developer can access the source code, they can add to it, creating applications,
themes and plug-ins that extend the functionality of the program.
It’s also yours in a way that WordPress.com isn’t. Create a site using
WordPress.org, and you can put all the ads and monetization tools on it you
want, help yourself to all of the plug-ins, themes and extensions you need, use
your own domain name, with all of the branding and SEO benefits that can
bring, and choose your own hosting service instead of relying on the one
supplied by WordPress.com.
Like WordPress.com, it is also free but you’ll have to pay your own hosting fees
— which, again, are usually around $5 per month.
To use WordPress.org, you’ll first need to have bought a domain name and
signed up for a hosting service. You can then either download WordPress on to
your desktop from WordPress.org, or simply install the program by choosing
the option in the host’s cPanel.
There are other services that work in a similar way. MovableType is
WordPress’s closest competitor and is said to be more secure from hackers than
WordPress. But that might be because it’s targeted less — and it’s targeted less
because it’s used less. The last few years have seen MovableType chasing
WordPress, even mimicking much of WordPress’s design and usability. As I
write this, I am in the process of porting my MovableType blog to WordPress.
‘Nuf said?
I’ve tried to make it easier still. WordPress is such a hugely flexible system that
it can be easy to go wrong, to use a theme that isn’t best for AdSense or end
up with a design that doesn’t do your content justice.
And you’ll still have to look for and install all of the plug-ins and extras that will
make your site more powerful.
varied, and placement of AdSense units is completely down to you. It’s a flexible
theme for WordPress that was built with monetization in mind. It contains over
200 niche header designs, multiple sidebar layouts and built-in AdSense,
affiliate and ClickBank ad bars.
It’s a complete AdSense-ready website in a box.
Designing a Site from Scratch
Programs like WordPress will provide a platform into which you can insert all
the elements — the spaces for text and images, for headers and graphics, for
menus and social media buttons, and for ads — that you can use to build a
professional website. You’ll always be working within the limitations of a set format — blogs, for
example, are expected to look a certain way — but for the most part, those
limitations are broad enough to give you enough room to do everything
necessary to create a successful AdSense-supported website.
But what if you want to create something truly unique, a website that doesn’t
depend on Blogger or WordPress, that’s been created completely from the
ground up?
You can still do that, of course. You can install Adobe’s Dreamweaver or
Microsoft’s Expression Web. You can learn about HTML5, PHP and CSS. You can
create the site you’ve always dreamed of — if creating a site from scratch is
something you’ve always dreamed of doing.
Or you can hire a professional Web designer to do it for you.
Freelance sites like
www.elance.com, www.guru.com and freelancer.com are
good places to advertise. You can invite designers to give you quotes and pick
the best based on price and talent. (Be sure to check feedback and portfolios
though; a low bid is often low for a good reason although there are plenty of
offshore developers who can provide a lot of coding power for a relatively small
price.) You can also combine two approaches by hiring a designer to create a
unique site based on WordPress or Movable Type.
You’ll need to know what you want built and what you want the site to do, but
most importantly, you’ll need to have a good reason for paying thousands of
dollars for a unique handmade site instead of using a free service or a low-cost
theme that allows for customization.
If you’re just hoping to monetize content, you really don’t need to hand-build
any more.
