Many people around the world wonder how to make money from a website or blog. Well, making money from a website or a blog is easy if you know the basics and some of the tips and guidelines. There are webmasters who create websites for the sole purpose of making money from the internet. There are website owners and bloggers who are making thousands of Dollars from their websites.
The secret to making money from a website is correct knowledge. Anyone with the right knowledge can create a website and start making money. The best part of this online business is that it needs very little initial investment and some initial hard work and revenue comes for lifetime, even while you are sleeping.
Now let us proceed to learn how to create a website and then make money with it.
Register a Domain Name
The first step to creating a website is to register a domain name like www.abc.com or www.example.com. A domain name is registered with a web hosting company. There are free web hosting sites that allow people worldwide to register a website for free and create a website. However, these free services are often sub-domains (www.example.freewebhostingsite.com). Such free sub-domains are given least importance by search engines and people who visit the website. Therefore, it is important to pay little money to register your domain with a reliable web hosting company.
www.bluehost.com is a trusted and reliable web hosting company. Visit this site and register your domain.
Once you have registered your domain, you will get a FTP (File Transfer Protocol) Username and Password. This Username and Password will allow you to enter the control panel of the server where your website is hosted. Once you enter the control panel, you will get several options.
Design Your Website
Once you have registered your website, it is time to design your website. You can take help of a website builder or a website designing expert. There are software like FrontPage Express and Dream weaverto design a website. There are Free Website Templates that can be downloaded and then opened in an HTML Editor Software to edit according to needs. Some of the best website templates can be found atFreetemplatesonline.com andZerodollartemplates.com.
If you want an easy step forward, you can install wordpress in your website. Web hosting services like Bluehost.com offers single-click installation of WordPress in your website. Read: Bluehost Tutorial to Install WordPress.
The advantage with WordPress is that there is no need to design a website. There are millions of ready-made templates that you can install with a single-click. It allows you to start writing content almost instantly.
Whatever path you choose to design your website, just make sure it has following essential elements:
- Simple navigation menu so that visitors to your website can explore contents easily.
- Search box to search across your website and other sites.
- Sitemap that tells about all pages in your website.
- Privacy Policy.
- Copyright.
- Contact.
Add Content to Your Website
Once the design of your website is ready, it is time to add content. Make sure to write your own unique, original and useful content. Neither people nor search engines like cheaters and copied content. Remember, 1000 copied articles = 1 Original and useful article.
You should also add pictures, videos and links to other websites that are relevant to your website.
When adding content to your website, it is important to follow Search Engine Optimization (SEO) tips. Take help of keyword research tools to find keywords and phrases that people around the world are looking for. Make a list of your target keywords and phrases and include these words in the Title of your page, in Page description and in the body of the article that you write. Make sure you use these keywords wisely and sensibly.
Unique and original articles will automatically find its place high in search engine results and will get more traffic and the secret to success in making money with a website is traffic and popularity. The more useful and original articles you write, the more traffic you will get and the more money you will earn.
Search Engine Optimization for Website
Once you have added considerable number of articles to your website, it is time for some off-site search engine optimization. SEO refers to optimizing a website so that it ranks high or on the front page / first page of search engine search results. It has to be remembered that SEO is a slow process and will not occur overnight. There are websites and services that offers to get your website on the first page of search engines like Google and Yahoo but they are all scam. They don’t have any magic formula. The truth is that if your website and content is truly unique and useful, it will automatically rank high. Here are some SEO tips to follow:
- Title of a Page: Make sure to include your target keywords in the title of your pages. e.g: <TITLE>your DESCRIPTIVE KEYWORDS TITLE GOES HERE</TITLE>
- Meta Keyword Tag: Add this meta tag to each page and separate keywords with “,”. e.g: <META NAME=”KEYWORDS” CONTENT=”your keywords,go here,separated by a comma”>
- Meta Description Tag: Write a 160 to 180-character description for every page. Make sure to include your target keywords. e.g: <META NAME=”DESCRIPTION” CONTENT=”Your keyword-rich description goes here”>
- Alt Tag: Assign a caption to every image that you add to your website. Include your target keywords.
- Content of the page: As explained above, do some keyword research and include your target keywords and phrases in the content of the article.
- Sitemap: Assign a sitemap to your website and also submit an xml-sitemap to search engines.
- Broken Links: Make sure there is no broken link.
- Link building: Build incoming links to your website. This can be done by submitting articles to ezines with a link back to your website, submitting website to directories, online discussion, leaving comments on similar websites, social networking and social bookmarking.
Monetizing a Website
Now is the time to monetize your website and start making some money. There are several way to make money from a website but the best and proven way is advertising. Either you can sign-up for advertising programs or directly sell advertising space. The most popular approach among webmasters is to sign up for some popular and reliable advertising program, add little code that they provide and start making money almost instantly.
Making Money from Advertising: The, best, most popular and proven advertising program for website owners according to priority are:
- Google Adsense: Contextual advertising solution to web publishers
- Yahoo Publishers Network
- MSN Publishers Network
- Kontera: In-Text advertising.
Making Money with Affiliate Programs: Another way to make money from websites are Affiliate Programs. Affiliate programs allow you to make money from your website by displaying advertisements on your pages and receiving commissions. Commission is based on pay-per-click, pay-per-sale or pay-per-lead.
The process to join a Affiliate program / network is very simple. Just visit their site and fill their application form. You will get instant consent in some programs while in others, manual checking of your application is done. On approval, you will get a piece of HTML code, to be cut and pasted on your website. Some of the most popular affiliate programs are eBay,Amazon, Commission Junction and Clickbank.
Making Money from a Website
Making money online is slow and steady process. It is not a “get rich quick” program. You need to create a useful and popular website in order to get success in this online business. Patience is the key to success. Learn as you go. You may not be able to make money with your website instantly, but if you have the patience and do little initial hard work, you can make huge money. It should be kept in mind that creating a single website and making it popular works better than having several useless websites. Of course, if you can have several successful and popular website, you can make more money.
