You have made the decision to have a website …. right? Why have a website – because you do need one – if for nothing else than to host your squeeze pages that you will need for list building.
The next question or problem you face is what is the best way to build a website – a critical issue if you are not an IT person.
But, there are easy solutions, so don’t worry. Let’s review some basics first.
Before you jump in and contract for a flashy, super duper website that has all the bells and whistles you have to make some other decisions first.
Answer any or all of these questions
• What do you need a website for?
• What’s its purpose?
• Is it about information?
• Is it for landing pages only?
• Is it a site for promoting products (e.g. Clickbank products)
• Will you be inserting Adsense as part of your site monetization program? (don’t build a site just for Adsense – Google won’t be friendly)
• What is your budget? – there will be monthly fees (e.g. ranging from $6 -$30 a month)
Other issues impacting on website construction choices
• Domain Name
• Do you know html, CSS, FTP?
• How will you get your content?
• External and internal linking
• Will you need to include graphics/images
• Does it need to be able to store PDFs, audio/video files for others to download?
• Can you write good sales letters?
• Keyword research
• SEO
• Niche marketing
• Design and layout (the “look and feel”)
AND, last, but not least – will you be maintaining the site yourself or paying for it to be done by someone else. If the latter, that’s easy – if it’s you, then can you put the time into it to make it worth your dollar investment.
DON’T Despair – if you have decided you want all or some of the above, but feel you haven’t the skills or whatevers! There are always solutions, and affordable ones at that!
DON’T OVERSPEND
The point I am making is to NOT go in at the deep end when you really only need to wade in at the shallow end.
Websites for internet marketing do not need to be expensive and flashy – such as would a site that promotes fashion, movies, cars and so on.
Internet marketing websites should have good quality content – and enough of it to satisfy Google as a credible site to send searchers to, and to build page rank.
If it is a site purely for landing pages – then even simpler is better – and as you won’t care about page rank etc, then the amount of content doesn’t matter. The site will get its notice through other SEO activities such as links from your article writing.
The solutions to many of the above are numerous. Some are free, some cost a reasonable rate, some can be expensive (but you rarely have to go down that track)
Decision Time
When you collate your answers to the above questions, then you can look at hosting programs and software that will:
1. Do what you can’t
2. That allow you to do what you are able to (and thus save)
3. That are relatively easy to use
4. That have great support – easily accessible and reasonable response times (you would be surprised how hard it is to find real “contact us” pages on some sites – Google included)
There are site builders that:
1. provide simple cut and paste methods (they do all the techie stuff behind the scenes)
2. allow you do it all from scratch (you would need to know html, CSS, ftp at a minimum)
3. allow a mix of both (the html/CSS is solved with WYSIWYG software like Dreamweaver.
You will always have to do research for your niche, keywords, content and so on. Unless you want to pay big bucks no one will do that for you – and then, that and paid SEO is not that reliable.
An Alternative To A Website
If you feel uncomfortable about building a website, then consider a blog. Blogging is very easy – basically just writing your content and posting. There is a little bit of work to make the ‘look and feel’ dress up the blog and some plugins that should be added.
WordPress
The guidelines are very clear, especially if you use WordPress. A note on WP – there ia a free one at WordPress.com – but you cannot have sales pitches or product promotion. The paid version – WordPress.org – does allow this.
Better still, use the host I am wrting this on – you can turn this site into a website, as I have, or you can use it as a blog. Hostmonster uses the WordPress platform without the restrictions – and with all the ease of use.
To be transparent – I am an affiliate of Hostmonster – so I benefit from any sales – but don’t let that deter you – if you join, also join up as an affiliate too and then you straightaway have a product to promote! Two sales and you have your years fees back!
Also in other sections here, I have other options to which I am affiliated – I have personally used them and recommend them.
I am always willing to assist purchasers through my affilate get going to save time and effort. Just contact me.
