Website Considerations

Narrow Down your concept

If you're doing this for money, which ideas stand to make the most profit? Which ideas require the most commitment? Which ideas look like they'd be fun to pursue? You will be spending time working on your website, so choose the idea you are most passionate about (that is also profitable and practical for you).

Define Your Goals and Achieve them

The website you create may be for fun, it may be for profit, or some combination of the two. Knowing your expectations makes it much easier both to design your website, and to track and make sense of the results.

Be Ready For a Competetition

Content sites require less investment but they also face more competition, since anyone can start a content site. To make money from this kind of site, you provide information and generate income from the traffic you receive through advertising, such as through Google AdSense. In order to optimize AdSense, you will have to write your content purposefully and make it interesting so that people come to your site. Use specific keywords directed at people searching for specific terms too; just don't get carried away with this aspect or the content may suffer and readers won't like it.

Be Ready for Responsibility

eCommerce sites, which sell products, will need more maintenance and attention. You will need to think about shipping, sales, taxes, SSL, inventory updates, and everything that a person with a brick-and-mortar storefront would have to manage. A system for prompt answering of questions and dealing with complaints is essential when selling products online; many companies also offer phone help, which you can outsource offshore if need be.

• If the goal is just to add a stream of income, you can also sell other people's products through affiliate programs, letting you earn money without investing in product or worrying about shipping.

Conduct Market Research

Which kinds of people will your website serve? Conduct market research to figure out more about your audience. Things to know or find out include: What do they do? How old are they? What are their other interests? All of this information can help make your website much more useful. However, be careful of assuming that your site is only targeting one group––always watch for trends that show other types of people becoming interested, so that you can cater for their interests too and make the most of new opportunities.

Do Keyword Research

This is necessary to determine whether people are searching for topics that are relevant to your site and can be useful for learning more about your potential clients. Making a conscious effort to incorporate in-demand keywords into the site can also help you get a better search engine ranking. There are tools available from Google (ex. google.com/trends/ andgoogle.com/insights/search/#), Overture, and third-party software developers that can make the keyword research process easier.

• Sprinkle the keywords you've chosen throughout your text, but not insofar as it hurts the quality of your content.
• Creating pages that are optimized for the search engines will help you get your site found which is really more important than design. What good is a site that no one sees?

Advertise

Now that it's out there, you want people to come, so let them know!

• Submit your site to major search engines. There are sites that will do this for you, or you can do it yourself.
• Tell your friends. Tweet about it—constantly! Add it to your Facebook status updates, post pictures of it on Flickr, add it to your LinkedIn account—anywhere and everywhere is the key here. The more people coming to your site, the better.
• Use an e-mail address with your domain. Visit other websites that complement (not compete with) yours, and offer to exchange links or guest blog/write. Post constructively on blogs and forums, and put your URL in your signature.
• Use article marketing. Creating SEO-optimized articles and posting them to other sites is a sometimes a useful way to create back-links to your website. This might help you to boost your website’s search engine ranking but always keep abreast of search engine updates that often impact SEO strategies and can render them less helpful or even downgrade your site's ranking.

Quality Content & Service

Most of all, listen to your readers and customers and learn from their experience with your website.

• Take constructive comments seriously. Other band members, fans, and friends may all have easier navigation ideas.
• Think about your target market or audience: their needs, their frustrations, their circumstances. As much as possible, seek to make their lives easier or more informed.

Tips

• People are often in a hurry. On average, you have about 3-7 seconds to capture people's eyeballs, so be smart about what people see first when they get to your page. To minimize your load time, don't overload with huge graphics. Compress them where possible. Use flashy technology JavaScript, Flash, Streaming Audio/Video, etc., sparingly and only if it is important to your presentation.
• If you hire a professional to code a complicated site, remember that programmers are not necessarily graphic designers. The most eye-catching sites out there have been made by or with the input of someone involved in graphic design. The best advice, especially for a professional site, is to use the right team for the job: designers design the look and feel of the site; programmers do all the stuff under the hood to make it work; marketers position the site and make sure it's relevant; and writers write the copy.
• If you're selling a product that users will find through a search engine, make sure that product is the first thing they see when they get to your page. The more you make your visitor click, the more likely your visitor will visit someplace else.
• Find popular websites, even if they do not have much to do with yours, and use them as models. What are they doing right? What is interesting about their layout, their content, the way you maneuver through the website? Incorporate relevant aspects of what you learn from viewing these sites into your own website, tailoring it to fit your requirements.
• Begin with simple things, practice them, and then find ways to improve – even if what you create is not very impressive the first few times time. Do not attempt to rush through the process.
• If you intend to sell a product on your website, you will need to be able to accept secure credit card payments. You can apply for a merchant account, which charges a per-transaction fee, or use a free payment service like PayPal. Always read the fine print carefully. Be aware that many credit facilities require you to give guarantees for lost or damaged shipped items (look into insurance as well).