How To Set Up A Website Or Blog That Actually Works!
Are you setting up a website or blog, or indeed a website blog similar to mine? Are you looking for some great SEO, to rise you to the top of the pile?
Google AdSense, keywords, content, niches, unique niches, online marketing, affiliate techniques, SEO, optimisation, passive income online, earn while you sleep, content is king, “you’ll cry when you have found your niche”, “Site Build It!” etc. etc.
Keywords are king, content is king, niche content is king etc. etc…. Have you heard all of this before?
If you do not have much cash, dollars, dosh, spondoolies, sovs, or even any real money to throw at it; what can you do to, “dip your toe in the water”?
Do you want to rank well on Google?… So do I… however at number 7,209,420 on Alexa that isn’t a great rank to be honest; yet that is my rank at the moment, and it isn’t great yet… (Hey less than 2.5M on 20/06/2010) It’s coming down - Let’s rock! (hope it’s Michael Schenker though, but that is another blog, coming soon!) (And again to 1,902,965 on 26/6/10), (1,084,933 from 7/7/10)
Why isn’t it good yet?…
Well for a few reasons…
- My name isn’t Steve Pavlina; he tells some great yarns no doubt on his blog; but the best has to be how he justifies and makes it look so OK about leaving his wife (Sorry Steve, it must be true; is that why you blew me off Facebook?)… (well we all knew that was coming didn’t we?) And he can be controversial, as well as having 100′s of pages, albeit nearly 50% of it can be “fluff” and drivel! (after all, who wants to sleep “polyphasically?” – now that’s just silly!) He is obviously also in cahoots with “Site Build It!”, after all, how else can you have your own religion?
- Secondly my website name was set up in late 2009, and I haven’t done much with it until now so what can you really expect already?
- I have only a handful of blog pages on here so far; and you need some serious content indexed with Google using keywords, and many quality articles, written with a passion!
- I am a generalist in nature; and although people do reckon a “general website” can succeed; to be honest in the short term it would appear that a single niche site has the edge! However I haven’t defined if this is the case yet.
- I don’t want to be “pigeonholed” by having one single niche that I am stuck to; I want to be free to write about whatever I am passionate about at moment, and therefore a totally free agent.
OK then; why did I choose “mark-lawton.com”, and “The Generalist’s Repository”
Simple…
- For one I actually like my name for a start, and if I started a great niche site called “Great Gifts For Babies”; how could I indeed start talking about “Growing magnolias Successfully“?
- I like to talk about different subjects as they come to mind.
- When a subject comes to mind, it has to be something that I know something about.
- The subject has to be something that I am passionate about.
- It has to contain at least some quality content that will benefit some people at least.
- I can revise change and add content as my site evolves.
- A pattern may emerge and I may find my true niche, or remain a “generalist” for life.
- Using Google AdSense, and other affiliate marketing techniques it is interesting to see if I can cover the cost of this website from advertisement earnings.
- Is it indeed possible to make any passive income online I wonder and can you accept the tales of people who do make money with Google ASense and the like?
- Finally I do actually enjoy writing the items and have a fascination as to how many readers I am actually reaching, and how I can improve on that
I do actually rank quite well for “Growing magnolias Successfully“, even though it was a little “off the wall”; I do have a passion for growing them; especially when you see the end result, and the nice flowers in the garden!
Well; love it or hate it, Google is the search engine you want to rank well on, and the rest will follow!
The next thing I thought about was who do I use to set up a website, and how do you do it?
Firstly you need to register a domain…
I chose godaddy, http://www.godaddy.com/, and it was due to good reviews online, good value for money, and ease of use. There are others too, but that was my choice.
I registered www.mark-lawton.com for 10 years to start with. You get a “parked domain”, which to me means a single page showing your domain filled with adverts, and ready to do things on when hosted by either your domain provider or elsewhere.
If you follow the on-screen instructions you’ll see exactly how to start searching for a domain name, and how to register and own it for X amount of years.
Now you can choose to host with the same people who supply your domain, but I chose to host elsewhere; below being the example, but only a suggestion…
A few tips to help with the SEO…
How To Get More Traffic To My Website Or Blog
First remember the golden rule…
Why have your own domain?
- For one it feels good to own something that is yours, and is special and unique
- It is better for SEO (search engine optimisation) as the likes of Google etc. do like original new domains to crawl and index.
- It actually belongs to you, (as long as you pay your domain fees at least)
- You can move it to other host services
- You are only tied by the T’s ad C’s (terms and conditions) of your host
- You can choose your own name, and not some long silly blah blah name followed by your title!
- As long as it is registered you can even host it yourself from home on a base such as Apache on a broadband connection, using dedicated web-server PC (just a spare computer and your home connection to start as your traffic will be light initially; maybe host it later somewhere else as you grow your site and following)
Follow the on-screen instructions with your host, and learn how to connect your domain to your host. It isn’t rocket science!
OK so you have got your domain and hosting…
What now.
Well in Just Host you have “Fantastico”, which is an interface which enables you to install some site builders, and well known site software, which is free open source, such as Joomla, or WordPress.
I went for WordPress as it is so easy to use, and customisable with plugins.
I used a new theme to start with, and once I had the theme I installed all of the plugins below.
Not everyone recommends all of the below; but I decided to get the best of the best 20, and just install them.
I Googled them and decided on them.
However I recommend that you do the following…
- Change your “permalinks” to postnames from the default “ugly URL’s.
- Install a new WordPress SEO optimised theme
- Install All in One SEO pack
- Install Headspace
- Install Askimet (anti spam; get your API key too from them)
- Install the WP-Supercache to increase speed of page loads etc.
- XML sitemaps is a good idea too to create a sitemap
- My favorite is “Sensitive Tag Cloud”, not only does this give you a Tag Cloud widget, but is only selects the tags relevant for the displayed post. This helps Google AdSense pick relevant ads for your site, and makes the whole site look tidy with relevant tags only displayed.
- Don’t forget to either add tour AdSense, or use “AdSense Now”, a great plugin; but watch your settings not to give money away to the wrong people!
They are described below, my favorites at the moment…
Recommended WordPress Plugins So Far…
AdSense Now! Get started with AdSense now, and make money from your blog. Configure it at Settings ? AdSense Now!.
AkismetAkismet checks your comments against the Akismet web service to see if they look like spam or not. You need a WordPress.com API key to use it. You can review the spam it catches under “Comments.”
All in One SEO PackOut-of-the-box SEO for your WordPress blog. Options configuration panel
CBbnet Ping OptimizerSaves your wordpress blog from getting tagged as ping spammer. (Note: this plugin is a fork of the MaxBlogPress Ping Optimizer plugin, with registration/activiation functionality removed.)
Dynamic Tag LinksAdds the shortcode (It will tell you what). And it first checks for the existance of tag1, then tag2, etc. If no tag is specified, the shortcode content is used as the tag.
FT FacePress IIThis plugin publishes the title, url, and/or excerpt of your post as the status of your Facebook profile and/or Facebook page by WordPress author.
Google Analytics for WordPressThis plugin makes it simple to add Google Analytics with extra search engines and automatic clickout and download tracking to your WordPress blog.
Google XML SitemapsThis plugin will generate a special XML sitemap which will help search engines like Google, Yahoo, Bing and Ask.com to better index your blog.
HeadSpace2Meta-data manager on steroids, allowing complete control over all SEO needs such as keywords/tags, titles, description, stylesheets, and many many other goodies.
PayPal DonationsEasy and simple setup and insertion of PayPal donate buttons with a shortcode or through a sidebar Widget. Donation purpose can be set for each button. A few other customization options are available as well.
Post to TwitterA very simple integration between your WordPress blog and Twitter. Send your blog posts to Twitter in a simple way. Configure your settings here.
Robots MetaThis plugin allows you to add all the appropriate robots meta tags to your pages and feeds, disable unused archives and nofollow unnecessary links.
Sensitive Tag CloudThis wordpress plugin provides a highly configurable tagcloud that shows tags depending of the current context.
SEO Slugs Removes common words like ‘a’, ‘the’, ‘in’ from post slugs to improve SEO.
SEO Smart Links SEO Smart Links provides automatic SEO benefits for your site in addition to custom keyword lists, nofollow and much more. (Brian Edition)
Subscribe To CommentsAllows readers to receive notifications of new comments that are posted to an entry. Based on version 1 from Scriptygoddess
Thank Me LaterAutomatically send a ‘thank you’ e-mail to those who comment on your blog. This plugin engages the visitor by reminding them to check back for responses or new blog posts. The plugin is highly configurable with multiple messages, variable delay and restrictions.
WordPress SEO PagerAn SEO-enhanced pagination control for WordPress.
WP Archive-Sitemap GeneratorWP Archive-Sitemap Generator plugin Generates simple Archives/Sitemap based on your posts and pages. This is not another XML sitemap plugin, but rather a nice sitemap generator.
WP Back LinksA plugin to track your backlinks and to help get more back links.
WP Super CacheVery fast caching plugin for WordPress.
WPtouch iPhone Theme A plugin which formats your site with a mobile theme for the Apple iPhone / iPod touch, Google Android, Palm Pre and other touch-based smartphones.
Greg’s High Performance SEO A great plugin better than Headspace, and it works on WordPress 3.0, does the job of Headspace, and “all in one SEO”.
OK then; what is next…
A few tips to help with the SEO…
How To Get More Traffic To My Website Or Blog
First remember the golden rule…
C > T > P > M…
Content > Traffic > Pre-sell > Monetise
What does this mean?
Content
- Above else before you start, remember quality niche content counts for most of your success, if not all of it !
- Decide what you have to offer, and be sure there is a demand for it, and if so, that you have plenty of quality content people are looking for on the web, and use plenty of explanations, bullet points, hints and tips, along with relevant illustrations and/or pictures. The content has to educate people, and actually give them what they are looking for; otherwise they will go elsewhere.
- A niche may be a good choice, as most main topics are covered well; so a niche, or a sub-niche may well be the way to go today, due to stiff competition. One example could be “cars”, or “Diesel cars”; this is a wide competitive niche. But “cars converted to run on LPG, or Propane” is a narrower niche covering cars, but an area where people want to save money on fuel maybe. Taking this further; you could say “do-it-yourself-autogas-vehicle-conversions”. Lots of good keywords, high demand, but less competition.
- A sub niche could be “skoda-diy-autogas-conversion-kit”, then you have narrowed down to a “sub niche” which is a particular make of car. Have the patience to find a sub-niche maybe!
- Don’t narrow it down too much though; as you could be number one on Google, with only a handful of people interested in your niche!
- Try to choose a niche that has a high demand, but where there is a lack of information for it. This will enable you to get a foothold on the niche you have targeted. Be sure you know your stuff on this niche, so that you can offer quality content, and update often.
- Research the market to see if it is viable by using Google Trends here…
http://www.google.com/trends
- Use Google keyword AdWords generator here …
https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal
- Generate and narrow down keywords for your web site’s content, and your URL (Uniform Resource Locator) domain name (URL means your site’s actual web address in the address bar on the top of the page.) A URL with a combination of popular keywords will be better than trying to compete with the strongly ranked competition with only one or two keywords.
- Take effective notes and tabulate your best results for keywords to use, not always the most expensive words per click on AdSense, but a balance of cost per click, and popularity.
- Create your URL using several words, such as the example of http://mark-lawton.com/diy-lpg-conversion/ This will enable people to find you with popular search terms for your niche.
- People often search online using a short sentence to find what they are looking for; if your URL has these key words together, you have a good chance of ranking highly. Use these keywords a lot in your content. When the search engine “spiders” crawl your site, your keywords will be indexed higher, and you will begin to rise up the ranks on all the major search engines.
- Register your domain with a good domain registrar, you can pay for one year or more from the start. Go for a year, and see how it goes first. See if you can transfer the domain elsewhere if you want.
- You could consider experimenting with a free blog on WordPress, or Blogger; they quickly rank well on the web if optimised correctly by good naming, and content. Free WordPress blogs don’t seem to allow AdSense though; which is a shame, and limits you. Paid for ones will allow this, or stick to “Blogger” and play about before taking the plunge on your own paid for URL and hosting.
- The advantage with blogs is that you can change their URL, title, and content at the drop of a hat, instantly, online.
- Get web hosting from your domain host as above, or elsewhere that offers a good all round package, and good or no bandwidth limits. You don’t want to run out of bandwidth for visitors, as the site will be down. Find out if you can transfer the hosting elsewhere, or they’ll match a competitive deal elsewhere.
- Once you have the domain, and the hosting, you can use many free programs on the web to create and upload the content. HTML knowledge is not required. A practise with Blogger is a good way to start small, and “get to grips” with it.
- The content and what you have done so far will help the traffic. Consider using a good, and flexible site builder to eliminate HTML editing headaches, and simplify getting the content online.
- Leave the “fancy coding” to the experts; all you want to do here is create the content with the minimum of fuss.
- Write clear quality content to keep your visitors happy. Content is king. This is true whatever service that you decide to use. C>T>P>M, and I wish you every success in the future !
Traffic
- To get the traffic, content is king, (only quality content I’ll add!), look after the content, and the traffic will begin to ramp up. The first stage is the most important, because your site will be listed and begin to move up the ranks on the search engines.
- Submit your URL, and key pages to Google; some say this is “so 1999″, but I have proved to myself that this does speed up the Internet spiders, and indexes your URL sooner with Google etc. http://www.google.com/addurl/
- Submit your pages to other main search engines as well, such as Yahoo, and Altavista etc.
- Web sites will crawl your pages like below…
Quoting below… “(This is the simplest diagram for Search engine cache) Here the spiders/bots/robots crawl the web pages and stores it in the page repository (huge Databases.If you have used cvs, svn or any version controlling apps then you will understand the word repo better. In simpler terms a store house). Then the algorithm is applied on the cache pages to get the SERPs (Search Engine Ranking Pages).So Ranking depends directly on the cached pages not what you have on your pages currently. Also the logic is redefined for the spider for sites and in general. Sometimes you will see from your log files that Google is visiting your pages (if you think google is not visiting your pages, do check your log format. Also check the robots.txt) but not caching your pages. There can various reasons for it (filters, bans e.t.c. But with filter and bans I doubt whether google visits the pages). One of the reason is no modification since last visit.” Keep updating, and the spiders will come soon, and you will start to rank on the web !
- Check the sense and spelling regularly as you add more content; use appropriate illustrations as and when required.
- Proof read it, and/or get a friend to do the same; mistakes can lose you valuable visitors, and visitors lost, means internet traffic lost, which equates to lost business!
- Spread out the content, add links and sub-pages to your products, and features, and make it flow like you mean it. Make it look neat, informative, and readable, so that the reader will stay focused, curious, and will want more.
- Allow for posting, questions, and contact details if applicable.
- Create “side blogs” linking back to your sites, create a blog network linking to others that are relevant, and link back to your site.
- Join Facebook, Linkedin, Myspace, and Twitter etc, and create a profile; also link back with quality “lead-ins” to your main website. Allow comments, and create a “storm” by creating a good social network, using effective interesting relevant posts, and attract people who keep coming back for more. Sensational, witty, amusing, and controversial posts where applicable will pull in the visitors!
- Use auto-responders where applicable, and keep in touch with your visitors. Respond to queries as and when you can. Be practical, as one day you may not cope; so put plans in place to deal swiftly with “standard” queries automatically where possible. Add a counter to your website to check how many visits you get per day.
- Monitor your visitors, and traffic as you grow the business with Alexa, http://www.alexa.com/, or Google analytics, http://www.google.com/analytics/
- A silly point; but when you have found your niche, you may become or feel “emotional”, and feel like crying. If this is the case, then you may have found “the one” for you.
Presell
- Pre-selling, means that your visitors are already willing to buy; and your targeted traffic is relevant to the product or service you are offering. If people come to your site not looking for what you are offering; then you are not pre-selling, and are off-topic.
- Only create content directed at what you are trying to achieve, offer, sell, or affiliate with.
- Make your “landing pages” where people first come onto your site relevant, easily navigable by a menu or side, buttons, and information and products easy to find.
- Offer data sheets, and downloadable files to read offline if applicable.
- If you are selling, make purchasing online an easy, safe and comfortable experience, such as by using a shopping basket, and a Paypal or credit card checkout system. (easily implemented online)
Monetize
- Sign up with Google AdSense, and other affiliate companies. Clickbank may be another one to use as an example.
- Use Google AdSense on your site, and your keywords will give you relevant adverts that people can click on. Watch point; disable ads that are competing with your product or service, but keep them relevant by using the AdSense control panel (explained on Google)
- Do not clutter up your website with too many ads. Keep it simple, tidy and straightforward.
- Above all else; be natural, look for what you would like to see if you were searching or buying online, and offer this level of service on your site. Work hard at it, be patient, as traffic takes time to build, and be successful !
I hope some of this info has been useful, and I highly recommend some cheap hosting to start you off. Success is possible however without it; but it is highly recommended, especially for novices, as the process is second to none, and NOT get rich quick !. Have fun, flow, be creative, do your research, do your homework, and success can be yours.
Be patient, as online success builds slowly, and keep you site(s) up to date.
Thanks for reading this, and for your patience; and so I wish you all every success in the future!
Maybe try your own domain hosting for your first site, and the learning curve, then using similar ideas, you may come back for more, “going it alone”, but using similar ideas gleaned from this site!
I wish you all some happy web designing fun, and a good level of sales if you follow the basics, and keep active, and write good content, and often update your website.
Mark Lawton (UK)
Mark Lawton
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1. About Mark Lawton.Com
2. The Generalist’s Repository – Mark-Lawton.Com
3. Basic Guide For Blogging
4. The Keyword Academy
5. Privacy Policy
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26. One of The Worlds Largest Sinkholes (4)
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28. Growing Magnolias Successfully – Growing Magnolias from seed (0)
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31. Fitting A DIY LPG Conversion Kit To A Vehicle (2)
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