Monetizing Your Website
Your website will need a way to earn
money. We recommend one of the following five methods:
Optimizing Your Website for the
Search Engines
Volumes have been written about how to
optimize websites (meaning design them so they show up in Google's and
Yahoo's search results), but really only
three keys exist to ensuring that
the search engines will like your website and want to rank it so that
searchers can find it.
1) Have lots of quality,
well-written, fresh content on the site. Remember that on the
internet, "Content is King."
2) Have many pages in the
site...some very successful websites have hundreds or even thousands of
pages
3) Each page should target a particular keyword or keyword phrase. The more
targeted pages you have, the better the search engines will like
your website. For example, if your site is about shoes, you will
want pages that are about different kinds of shoes. You will want,
say, a page about tennis shoes and tennis shoes only. This is page
is targeted to the keyword phrase "tennis shoes." You
will want a page about running shoes. This page is targeted to the
keyword "running shoes." Then you want a page about
air-filled running shoes, a page about lace-up running shoes, etc.
In other words, spread out your information and have each page target a
specific subtopic.
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Note: Not all visitors
who find your website in the search engines will enter through your
homepage. Many will come in through other pages in your site which
is why the more pages you have, the more visitors you will have.
To find the best keywords to
target, the ones the most people are searching for, and some you
would never think of on your own, you need to use this
website, the
leader in keyword researching. They are an excellent company that
has been around since the web's early days. Without knowing which
keywords to emphasize on your site you will end up with a website that
no one finds. This
website offers a free
trial and has a good how-to
guide for those just learning about keyword optimization.
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For more information about building
website traffic, go here.
Getting Your Website into the Search
Engines
Use this URL to submit your website to
Google. Once it is in Google, it can take weeks or months for it
to show up and start getting some traffic, but once it does, all of the
other search engines that matter (Ask, Yahoo!, etc.) will pick it
up. There is no point is submitting your site to any engine other
than Google because they pretty much own the web.
If your website is well-designed, meaning is easy to
navigate, is easy to read, is light on graphics, has lots of fresh,
original content and has many pages, each one targeting a particular
keyword or keyword phrase, then the search engines will give it some
good rankings. Good rankings and the traffic they bring are the
lifeblood of your website. Since getting natural, free traffic
from the major search engines can take weeks or months, many
publishers decide to purchase traffic on Google and Yahoo!
(Refresh Your Page if You Cannot See the Picture
Above)
These are the advertisements you see to the right of the
main listings whenever you do a search. We recommend caution when
purchasing ads because as an advertiser you are charged a set amount,
which you determine, each time someone clicks on your ad.
Often the conversion rate of purchased ads is low, and advertising costs
can eat up profits. Still, if you manage your advertising account
closely, purchased ads are a way to get your website online and in front
of the world in a matter of minutes. For anyone considering
purchasing Google Adwords, we recommend this eBook.
It's a good guide for those just starting out with Adwords because
keeping keywords running can be a tricky thing. Google has all
kinds of secret rules and will stop running your advertising campaign whenever
it pleases if your ads do not meet their often-mysterious guidelines.
Spam - Don't Do It
Never send unsolicited email to advertise your website
because you will be accused of spamming. Your website will be
taken offline, and in worst cases, you can face fines. We also do
not recommend buying so-called "opt-in" mailing lists because
these are often phony and full of non-existent email addresses.
Setting Up a Payment System
Go here.
