Steps to Setting up a Successful Website

Important Steps to Setting up a Successful Website

By: Ray Rice

1. Choose a Niche - Today, anyone can have a website and sell merchandise or services on the internet. The choices are endless and only limited by your imagination. If you are already in a business and don’t currently have a website, then it’s simply a matter of deciding what name to chose. If you are thinking about setting up your first website and aren’t sure what niche to chose, you might consider a favorite hobby. I’ve always liked to collect & repair antique radios, so I setup a website called www.RadioExchange.net

The fastest way to achieve success and a high ranking on the internet is to build a website around a theme and niche which does not have a large amount of competition. For instance, if you were to start a web hosting site, it would be an uphill battle because there are thousands and thousands of hosting websites already on the internet fighting to be seen in the top 10 or 20 listings of the major search engines like Yahoo, MSN and Google. The more competition, the more costly and time consuming it is to get your website seen.

I know of a guy who used to drive a van for a courier delivery service for a living. He started a expedited transportation website on a shoestring budget several years ago. Today his website is one of the most successful in the US for the expedited transportation industry. Another guy I know loved to collect scale model steam engines, so he built a simple website with photos of his collection. Before long, he started getting inquiries from other collectors as to where they could buy some like his and where to get parts. He began selling parts and hard to find steam engines to collectors around the word. He also added a paid ad section to his site. These are two examples of how you can turn a job or hobby into a successful, money making website. There are still many untapped, niche markets available. You can do the research on your own or a detailed report on 109 Untapped Markets is available for download. The price is only $33. and it’s well worth it. To get your report go to Niche Topics at UntappedMarkets

2. Purchase a Domain Name – Think of a domain name which uses the words which describes your business or what you will be selling. If your domain name contains the keywords which describe your business, you may rank higher than with names which do not. For instance, if you are a realtor located in Orlando Florida it would be a good idea to register the domain name OrlandoFloridaRealEstate.com/net or org or Orlando-Florida-Real-Estate.com/net or org. A scientific way to determine the best name to use is to run keyword popularity searches by using Overture's Keyword Tool at http://inventory.overture.com . When you type in keyword phrases, the tool tells you how many times any given keyword phrase was searched across the internet for the previous month. Once you determine the name you want to use, you can search to see if it’s available and register it at a domain registration / hosting service such as http://Website-Supermarket.com .

3. Set Up Web Hosting - Web Hosting is what connects your website to the internet so it can be viewed by people around the world. Prices for hosting service range from free (I would not recommended a free service - you get what you pay for) to $39.95 per month which is on the high end. Some hosting companies charge a setup fee and demand a year commitment. I would not use any hosting service which charges a setup fee or demands a year commitment because there’s so many which does not. Advancedwebsitetools.com offers excellent hosting services for only $4.95 per month.

4. Design Your Website - If you have no experience or limited experience designing a website you can choose from thousands of professionally designed web templates for as low as $20. at Advancedwebsitetools.com and they are available for immediate download. Just browse through until you find a template you like, then click “Buy this Template” and download to your computer. They also offer 1000’s of clip art and photo art ideal for customizing a website. Unlike many of the other template websites, after you’ve selected the site you want, if you need help customizing your template, they offer complete set up services to get you up and running quickly.

If you choose to customize the template yourself you will need web design software such as Macromedia Dreamweaver or Front Page.. You will also need image software such as Adobe Photoshop or Macromedia Fireworks. A new alternative web development software which is rapidly become the tool of choice for Internet Marketers is XSitePro. To learn more you can visit their website at XSitePro

5. Upload Your Web Site files to your Hosting Service’s Server – Most Web creator software such as Front Page and Macromedia Dreamweaver has built in FTP (File Transfer Protocol) capability. A super program I recommend for uploading and downloading files is Cute FTP by GlobalScape. You can download a copy from their website at Cuteftp.com. It’s especially handy for managing several sites.

6. Submit Your Website to the Search Engines - I recommend Submit-It which is a Free service that Submits your URL to all of the major Search Engines such as Yahoo, MSN & Google. Their website address is Submit-plus. Also, don't forget to make a sitemap and submit it to google. This makes it easier for google to index your web site pages therefore increasing your website's ranking. Just go to Sitemapbuilder.net, type in your URL and their online sitemap program will create a sitemap for you which you can download and then upload to google. Complete instructions are given on Sitemapbuilder.net's website.

7. SEO / Search Engine Optimization - This is the final step and an ongoing process to achieving success with your website. Search Engine Optimization involves having as many pages of articles and text as possible containing keywords phrases which describe what services or products you are offering in your website. You can get articles about almost any topic you can think of from many of the Ezine websites with reprint rights. Articles written about your niche on your website vastly increases the value and ranking of your site to search engines because they reinforce your keyword word count. Another very important step is to trade links with other sites and get as many inbound links as possible. Publishing your own articles to Ezine websites will help increase your inbound links. I highly recommend the Article Submitter Pro which submits your articles to over 900 article directories. You might also want to purchase links to your website which have a high Google PR. Link Directory Submitter is a software which submits your website link to over 300 directories, with more than half ranging from PR4 to PR8.

Last but just as important, make sure your Meta Tags such as Title Meta Tag, Description Meta Tag, Keywords Meta Tag, Alt Tags, Header Tags etc are formatted and used properly. For more information about Meta Tags go to Top Ten SEO Factors .

To learn more about SEO / Search Engine Optimization, just type in the search phrase "SEO" in your browser and you'll find numerous articles and info to help you with this process.