Tools & Resources For Sitebuilding
The technical stuff (including how to build a fantastic website, all the elements you need to consider and how to make it work with little or no technical abilities).
It can be done.
I’m almost certain that many people reading this Ecourse have no technical skills at all? I’m not embarrassed to let you know that I don’t have great technical skills… I’ve learned how to build really basic websites, but nothing fancy (I don’t think the Affiliated Web Business site is going to win any design awards in the near future!).
The fact is you don’t need to have great technical skills to make a good website. In some ways having limited web design abilities gives you an advantage because you won’t get caught up in, what can sometimes be, confusing details. As a novice you’ll be able to focus on what counts … That is; making money, marketing your site and getting visitors.
If you have no money, then you will need to learn how to do all of these things yourself which will slow you down considerably. If you can afford to pay someone else to design your site, then you can get a great site designed at a tiny fraction of the cost (compared with what it would cost to start a “real” bricks and mortar business in the offline world).
Web design can be a be a bit overwhelming when you are starting out, especially if you haven’t done it before - it’s hard to know what you should do and where to start. However, once you’ve been through the initial process it gets easier and easier.
To start with, let’s look at all the “technical” elements that you need to include for consideration on your new site. We will be covering several of these aspects in more depth in later issues, but for now, I’ll provide an overview of the things you will need to get started:
1. Domain name – you need a domain name for your site (E.g. www.yoursite.com)
2. Web hosting – you need to get your site hosted somewhere so other people can see it.
3. An auto-responder email service – you probably want to have some kind of email auto-responder set up. This is can help communicate effectively with your audience by send them a series of emails from you automatically.
4. Copy (i.e. words).
5. Design – you need to get a template designed for your site.
6. Audio - audio has proven to generate more sales and interest to visitors.
7. A shopping cart service – if you are planning an ecommerce site and want to be able to accept online payments, you will need a shopping cart service where you can accept credit cards via a secure server.
8. A merchant account – to accept credit cards you need to have your own, or a third party merchant account.
9. An affiliate program - you may want to have your own affiliate program. We’ll talk about this in future issues of the Ecourse.
If you can combine the above elements and put them together effectively, you’ll have the essence of a great website. Keep in mind that you may not need the shopping cart service, the merchant account, or the affiliate program if you are not actually selling your own product.
Below, I’ve provided valuable information about how to build the 9 most important elements of a successful website:
The Domain name and Web hosting
I will be examining domain names in more detail in a later issue of the Ecourse, but for now, I’ll assume that you need a new domain name for your site. A good place to start is somewhere like http://www.mydomainfriend.com/ - this is a great keyword combination tool that I built for researching and finding new domain names. My Domain Friend helps to simplify, what can be, a quite often lengthy and tiresome process. When you find a suitable domain, there are number of cheap services where you can register it for under $10. For more info on domain names and web hosting check out http://www.profitpuppy.com/hosting.htm
An Auto-responder service
If you want to build a profitable site you should definitely consider an auto-responder service. If you get someone to your website, there’s a good chance they may never come back. By using an auto-responder you can build a valuable relationship with you your visitors and increase the likelihood that that they will visit your site again (unless they unsubscribe!).
There are many different ways you can use auto-responders. For example, you might start an Ecourse, or remind your visitors of upcoming events or product developments in a newsletter. Auto-responders are crucial if you want to maximize the profits from website. In a later issue of the Ecourse, I’ll be showing you how to put together great sounding newsletters to help you get more bang for your buck.
So, how do you set up an auto-responder? The best (and easiest) option is to go with one of the many third party services that are available on the web. For more information and a list of the best auto-responder services visit: http://www.profitpuppy.com/compare-autoresponder.htm
Writing copy for your site
Words are the MOST important element of your site: Effective copy is the one factor that will ensure that visitors react in a way that you want them to (whether it’s to buy something or simply to browse the information available on your site).
Of course, the way you write for your site depends on what type of site you are building and what you want to achieve. If you are building a site with sales in mind, you’re going to need a copywriter to carefully draft a great sales pitch.
If you’re not a confident writer, you’re going to have to find someone to do it for you. The bad news is, a good copywriter is hard to find. However, if you fancy yourself as writer, you should start out by trying to develop the content yourself (other sites are always a good reference point!).
If you are building an affiliate marketing site you should concentrate on well worded copy to highlight the programs and products that you are promoting. General writing tasks, like this, are a much easier undertaking as there is usually a wealth of available existing information about your products or programs (sometime affiliate programs will even provide you with useful copy for you site). “General” (as opposed to specialist) writers are usually much easier to find.
In my experience, you can provide much more powerful content if you can afford to outsource your writing tasks to an experienced copy writer with a great understanding of your product or service. By taking this approach, you will have more free time to spend researching new opportunities and managing the other elements of your site which could be making you money.
To find a good copywriter, have a look at the services on: http://www.profitpuppy.com/freelance-sites.htm
In general, you can expect to pay around $15-30 per page (around 400 words). It’s possible employ writers for around $5 per page, but don’t expect polished copy for that price. For a reasonable copywriter you will be looking at a minimum of $50 per page. Not surprisingly, great copywriters charge hundreds or even thousands of dollars per page.
Designing the site
As with the other elements of your site, there are a few options here; you can learn how to do design a site yourself (if you don’t already have the skills). The disadvantage of this method is that designing a nice looking site can be quite a lengthy process. Again, if you have the budget for it, I would recommend outsourcing the work, especially if you are just getting started.
Freelance web designers (unlike good copy writers) are everywhere. Contracting your web design tasks to a freelancer is usually an inexpensive and sound option. For more information about hiring a freelance web designer, check out the list of resources at: http://www.profitpuppy.com/freelance-sites.htm
Another (and less appealing option) is to get a local firm to design a site for you. If you reside in the USA or UK this is likely to be an expensive proposition (sometimes up to 500% on what you can pay for a freelancer) – I wouldn’t recommend this option unless you have money falling out of your pockets : )
If you would prefer to talk to the person that is designing the site, think about alternatives like hiring a university student or someway studying graphic design. You can often find someone who has great web design skills and is relatively inexpensive.
Also, don’t be afraid to ask for some examples of work before employing someone. It’s important to know that they can create site design that you are going to be happy with.
The last option for designing a site is to use an application like Site Build It. (Go to http://www.profitpuppy.com/designingwebsite.htm for more information on this package). There are some distinct advantages to using software like this - it does everything for you, including the domain name and hosting, auto-responders. The best thing about using Site Build It is that will also help you to get listed in the search engines.
Audio, shopping, merchant accounts and more…
We’ll talk about these elements in another issue of the Ecourse, if you can’t wait that long, it’s worthwhile investigating these valuable services:
For an easy way to put your business on autopilot go to the "Advanced Tools" section of this site. For a comparison of shopping cart services: look here.
For information on setting up a merchant account (so that you can accept online payments) have a look at http://www.affiliated-business.com/tools/Payment_Processing.html
Regards, Daniel Russo.
The SEO basics of how to get to the top of the search engines
Search Engine Optimization (commonly referred to as SEO) is one of the best ways to get traffic to your site. The best thing about SEO is that the traffic you get is free! If you manage to get top ten listings in a major search engine like Google, you can get hundreds or even thousands of visitors to your site.
Depending on your site’s subject matter, you might even be able to start earning a significant income purely from the popularity of your site. For example, if you have a site on jokes you might be able to get a substantial amount of traffic, but you’re unlikely to earn a huge income.
On the other hand, if you have a top ranking site on Google for the keyword phrase “web hosting”, you’ll be able to earn at least $1-2 million (probably more like $3-4 million) per year from that site alone. However, to get into the top 10 in Google for the phrase “web hosting” is extremely difficult, you would need to be a search engine pro to do it - even then, it might take you two years to get there with a team of 5 people working around the clock.
A profitable site will be based on a good keyword phrase, a good topic (or subject material) and be different enough to stand out from the competition. If you can combine these elements successfully you’ll increase you chances of turning a profit from your site.
Keep in mind that there are a number of niche areas where there is not so much competition but still the opportunity to make a decent profit. There are hundreds of such areas where you have the potential to earn $500-2000 per month. We’ll talk about keyword research and finding profitable niche areas in later issues, but for now, let’s look at the basics of how to get a site to the top of the search engines.
I’m going to focus on SEO for Google because it’s the largest (and the best) search engine which will generate the most traffic, especially if you can master all of the right optimization methods. Google has a very complicated system for determining which sites make it to the top of the search engine. There are many factors involved and there is no precise formula. A further consideration is that Google often changes its formula so you can’t rely on it being the same from month to month. However, there are a few key factors which are unlikely to change dramatically:
Keywords phrases should be one of the most important considerations when you are optimizing your site (remember that for each page of the site you should concentrate on one or two keyword phrases).
Keyword phrases (which you want to get to the top of the search engine for) should be well researched. For more information on researching keywords, have a look at http://www.profitpuppy.com/keyword-research.htm where you can find links to useful keyword tools.
Key factors for getting to the top of Google:
1. The keyword phrase in the title of the page - you should have the phrase in the title of the page.
2. The keyword phrase in the text of the page – you want the keyword phrase to be up the top of the page, preferably as high up the top of the code on the page as possible. You also want the phrase repeated a few times on the page. Don’t worry about how many times, just at least 3-4 times and more if you think it fits in naturally with the content of the page.
3. Include the keyword phrase in a large font heading with H1 tags (this may make a small difference).
4. Links into your site from other sites (covered in more detail below).
5. Links within your site (covered below).
6. Links to other sites (covered below).
Links into your site from other sites
This is probably the most important factor for getting good search engine listings. You need to have good links coming into your site from other sites. You want those links to be from popular sites that also have lots of links coming into them. Google uses a Page Rank system which is a rough measure of how many links are coming into your site. You want links from sites that have good Page Rank. Creating 50 of your own sites and interlinking them won’t increase your page ranking.
How do you get links from other sites?
The main ways are to: Create a great site that people naturally want to link to, Get an affiliate program so people can link to your site and get paid, swap links with other sites, get listed in directories such as dmoz.org and buy links from people who have sites with a high PR (Page Rank). Again, we’ll be talking about this in more depth in another issue of the newsletter.
The most important consideration with incoming links is that you need to have the keyword phrase in the link that directs traffic to you your site. Getting listed in directories such as DMOZ (Open Directory Project) can also help you significantly in getting a good search engine ranking in Google.
Links within your site
It helps once again if you have the keyword phrase in the links to each page of your site. For example, let’s say you have a site on baby products and you have one page where you are trying to optimize for the keyword phrase “cheap baby supplies”. You should make sure that links that come into that page have the phrase “cheap baby supplies” so that your links look like this: Click here for cheap baby supplies
Links to other sites
You can improve your page rank if you link to other sites that have high search engine listings for the phrase that you are trying to optimize for. Note: it can also hinder if you link to pages that are off-topic. For example, you don’t want to link to a chemical arms factory from your baby supplies site.
Some other things you don’t want to do (and some things that make no difference at all) are:
1. Repeating the keyword phrase multiple times on the page unless it makes contextual sense.
2. Placing hidden links on your site – for example, links that are the same color as the background of the page won’t be recognized by Google.
3. Optimizing your site too carefully – if it’s obvious that you have optimized your site for Google (for example, if all your incoming links use the same keyword phrase) you may be penalized. Google looks for sites that are more ‘natural’ in their structure, so if all links look the same this won’t look like an organic site to Google robots and you may be penalized for it.
4. Despite popular opinion, Meta tags don’t really help at all. However, the description tag is important because that is the description that will appear in your listing on Google.
Finally, you may have heard of people using automated pages and or ‘cloaked pages’ to get high search engine rankings in Google. Personally, I don’t believe in taking this approach as it’s a non-sustainable way of getting high search engine rankings (that’s not say that some people who aren’t very successful at it). I know of atleast 3 highly successful companies who generate automated pages using this software http://www.profitpuppy.com/traffic. This is a sneaky way to make it to the top of of the search engine rankings, but it can work; one guy I know is earning several million dollars per year using this technique. So it can work, but as I mentioned before, I don’t think it’s sustainable and the Google engine doesn’t take kindly to it.
How do I submit my site to the search engines?
My personal philosophy is that if your site is not found naturally by following links then it is unlikely to rank in the search engines - I don’t usually bother submitting to search engines.
So that’s the basics of how to get to the top of the search engines. We’ll have a look at the more advanced stuff later on. It takes a lot of time knowledge and dedication to get there but once you master it, SEO is a fantastic way to get traffic and make money on the web.
Regards,
- Daniel Russo
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