Create Your Website

How To Build A Profit-Making Website

2012-09-22T20:11:00.004-07:00

by Timothy Tye

One of the things I love to do first thing every morning is to check the Internet, to find out how much money I made over the night. Like a fisherman checking on his trap, I am thrilled to see money accumulating in my account while I sleep. The beauty of earning an income from the Internet is that my websites continue make money for me from all parts of the world. I can actually know where the money come from, and how much, and test the pages to continue improving them. Wouldn't you want that too?

Before you get the wrong idea, let me clear the air about how I make money from the web. HappyJoblessGuy is NOT about earning money from some online pyramid schemes. It is not about Multi-Level Marketing (even though I have no issue about people earning through MLM). It is not about online forex trading. I am going to show you an honest way of generating income from the web but it's going to involve a degree of hard work from you. For sure, nothing comes easy, and that includes building a machine that makes money online.

Do not have your website hosted by PBase, Tripod, Blogger, even though it can be done an hour. If you intend to earn serious, long-time income, that is not the way to do it. You want something that is 100% your own. Once you have your own website (not an account with Blogger, PBase, etc.), you will realise the amount of freedom in your hands.

If you were to ask me, what are the tools you need to build a great website, I can count them with the fingers of one hand. You can hire a web programmer to build a whole website for you, bypassing the need to be acquainted with any tool. But to own a really great website, I would urge you to do it yourself. You can't be the captain of your own ship if you can't tell stern from starboard. I have received emails from people asking to give them personal coaching. I am sorry, but I do not have time to do that, even if you're willing to pay me money.

In the next five pages of this chapter, I will go through each essential tool one by one. At the end of this chapter I will recap what we have learned. You will realise, if you haven't yet, that earning a living without holding a job requires you to learn skills that you may not have learned before. On the other hand, you may have built many websites, and are wondering what's new that I want to share. Once again, I urge you to be patient as the topics are developed.

Now, without further ado, let’s look at the 5 Essential Tools:

The first tool you need to build a great website is a HTML Editor.

A HTML Editor is a software application to write web pages. There are several brands in the market, including Microsoft Frontpage, Adobe Dreamweaver and so on. Personally I would encourage you not to use Microsoft Frontpage, as it tends to add proprietary codes to your pages, making it difficult to be edited with a different HTML Editor. The one I use is called Homesite, also from Adobe. I learned to write webpages with Homesite.

With a HTML Editor, you write the content of your pages by keying in the HTML Codes, and then checking it with the Preview function. If you do not have a HTML Editor presently installed in your computer, I strongly suggest you get one immediately and start fiddling with it. Get used to all the functions. Learn what to click to make the text bold, italics, underlined, etc., how to hyperlink, how to insert picture, and so on. A good HTML Editor does a lot of work for you, so that you can concentrate on putting together a great website. It doesn't matter which one you use, as long as you get familiar with it.

The second Essential Tool you need is knowledge of HTML Codes.

As mentioned in the previous page, you need to learn coding. To be exact, HTML Codes. HTML Codes are instructions you tell the Internet how you want to format your webpages. The basic HTML codes you need to know are:
• Title
• Body
• Head
• Html
• Headers (H1, H2, H3, etc.)
• Bold
• Italic
• Underline
• Hyperlink
• Table

In addition to the above, it would do you good to learn how to format size and colour of your font, background, border. More advanced features such as CSS would be helpful too, but are still all together very easy, that even a dummy could learn it (so if you have to, find a book for dummies and learn all about it).

The third Essential Tool is a Domain Name.

The domain name, also called the hostname or sitename, is the basic name of your website. For example, www.happyjoblessguy.com. As you probably have known, the domain name has an ending such as .com, .net, .org, etc. To use it to earn an income, I would suggest you go for .com. It is the most popular, hence, the most difficult to get. Nonetheless, you should try to get domain names with .com.

You probably will not get the first domain name of your choice, and will need to try a few times before landing on one that is still available. This is a very important exercise, so take all the time you need.

Registering and keeping a domain name will cost you approximately US$10 per year or even lower. That is peanuts if you can earn the amount back. For now, look for the domain name but don't register it yet. Instead go to Essential Tool #4 to read about Web hosting.

The fourth Essential Tool is Web hosting.

To get web hosting means you rent space on a server that will host your website. You do not need to purchase a server - you don't even need to know how a server works. All you need to know is that you need to host your website on it. The Webhost provides you the space and the interface for you to manage your website.

Think of web hosting as a safe deposit box, and the domain name as the safe deposit box number. When you register for web hosting, you are buying space in a safe deposit box. The amount you pay should determine the amount of space you need. For that reason, the web hosting fee is directly related to the amount of space you purchase. The safe deposit box number remains the same, regardless the amount of space you use. In a similar sense, the fee for domain name is fixed regardless the amount of content you have on the web.

When you start your website, the amount of space you need will most likely be pretty low, less than 1GB, so do not pay for a lot of space that you are not going to use. You can always buy more space as your needs grow. If you pay for 5GB per year, and throughout the course of that year, you never use more than 1GB, then the balance 4GB is money wasted.

The fifth and final Essential Tool you need to build a great website is an FTP Software.

An FTP Software is an application that enables you to transfer data from your computer to your website on the Internet, and vice versa. There are many other ways to do it, including using an online interface provided by your webhost, but usually, using an FTP Software is the swiftest way.

The FTP Software allows you to upload new pages to your website as well as update existing pages. The FTP Software that I use is called WS FTP, which stands for WinSock File Transfer Protocol. To download it, google "Free FTP Download" to see what comes up.

In the next chapter, we will look at Building a Profit-Making Website. As of now, I want you to be familiar with the five Essential Tools in this chapter. Please go ahead and register your web hosting and obtain your domain name, but once again, let me urge you to give the domain name a good thinking through before decided which. If you choose a wrong one at the beginning stage, fine, it only costs another US$10 or so to register another. But you need to make sure it is a domain name you want to own for years and years to come. Who knows, one day you may even sell that domain and the whole web business for $1 million? So, choose carefully.

Things You Need To Know About Creating A Website.

2010-04-07T20:09:00.000-07:00

A few weeks back, my brother's wife had asked me to come to her house as she was creating a website and she wanted me to guide her through the process. She seemed quite annoyed by the whole process and was pretty confused and frustrated at the same time. I agreed to help her, but frankly speaking I didn't know much about creating a website myself. Though I was flattered that she thought that I did know how to create a webpage, however I wasn't too sure why she had the notion that I had any experience with it.

Suddenly, I realized that my sister in law had a feeling that I am efficient at creating a website was perhaps because she had visited my blog. I think that she is confusing blogs with websites. Though I may know how to start up a blog nevertheless this does not make me eligible to tutor someone on creating a webpage. I feel personally that a number of people do not understand the differentiation between a blog and a webpage.

Even though I may not be too sure if I understand fully the difference between creating a blog and creating a website, but I'm willing to give it a shot. In fact I have trouble describing the difference between a blog and a website. In my opinion, a blog is a kind of an online journal. In order to give the blog some depth, a person who sets up the blog posts short articles and a range of other entries. To create a blog is simple and involves little work. I am quite comfortable with the set up and its format as blogs are free and user friendly.

For sure, creating a website requires significantly more work. There are always a number of professionals who work full time in the field of web design. I had suggested to my sister-in-law that she should utilize the service like Bravenet in her attempt at creating a website. To a lay person, Bravenet offers everything that is needed to get started as well as has a lot of information and technical support. In order to assist her through the process, I am going to walk her through the steps as laid down by Bravenet and see if we can work together in creating a website.

Well if all turns out well, perhaps I may even create a website of my own. As of now, I am going to stick to blogging. As I mentioned before, blogs are user-friendly and they are free. Frankly speaking I really do not need anything else right now. Maybe in the future, if I need any assistance in creating a website on my own I might call my sistre0-in-law to see if she can help me out. Who knows, she may well get me moving in the right direction.

Create Mobile Website

2010-04-06T15:13:00.000-07:00

Mobile or WAP websites as they are often called are mini websites that have been configured to fit the smaller screens of mobile phones because regular websites made for PC's cannot always be viewed properly on mobile phones and devices. A mobile website is similar in function to a typical website created for PC viewing but is different in that both its size and content layout have been specifically configured to fit the small screen sizes of mobile phones and devices.

Before anyone thought to create mobile website features specifically for mobile internet users, there was a common problem that regular websites would not display properly or at all on the small mobile phone screens and would be very difficult for mobile viewers to maneuver through since they do not have easy access to a large screen, mouse and keyboard as do PC website viewers.

Mobile websites are often called WAP sites. WAP is an acronym that stands for Wireless Application Protocol. This is simply a means of presenting and delivering wireless information to mobile phones and other mobile devices. The basic purpose of WAP is to provide internet access to anyone a mobile phone or mobile device. Mobile websites can be viewed from anywhere in the world if you are using a WAP enabled mobile phone or device.

If you want to create mobile website features of your own, there are several online services that will help you create and customize your own WAP website either for free or at very affordable rates. One of the best services available is from Mobilemo. Using this service, you can create mobile WAP sites with ease even if you don't have any programming skills because they smartly designed the interface and tools to be very intuitive and self-explanatory.

One of best things about being able to create mobile website features through Mobilemo is that they give you many options to customize your site to meet your own personal tastes or particular business needs. Other free mobile sites sometimes provide you with just plain text. With Mobilemo, you can combine text with photos and other images using the text wrapping feature and you can also choose font and color background options. They also provide you with a lot of options for interactivity with your mobile website visitors. You can use interactive mobile site tools like surveys and polls, forms creation tools, a guest book creation tool so visitors can send you their contact information, and a comments tool where you can collect comments from visitors to your site. There is also a nice email alert feature that will inform you anytime someone has submitted feedback to your mobile site.

There are several different account types to choose from at Mobilemo. They have Personal service plans that are made for anyone who wants to create mobile website features for blogging, social networking, file sharing, or just staying up to date with friends and family. The Personal service is available for free or, if you need more features, control settings or storage space, you can pay $5 a year. The Business account is $10 a year and offers enhanced mobile site tools, larger storage space and mobile site settings available at your discretion. A free 15-day trial is also available on the business service plans.

The Art of Creating A Website

2010-04-05T16:02:00.000-07:00

Creating a Website
is like creating a virtual world. It is a way of really defining who you are and what you are about. Creating a website is a very personal experience and is different with every client. You can choose to be involved in every step or you can leave the details up to us, either way we guarantee the final product will be a professional website with a look unique to you.

This is a complex process. Your goal is to create a website based on either a provided topic or a topic that you choose.

It is more about exposing your business to new potential clients and generating new sales. There is no need to overhaul the way your company does business. Creating a website is now a doddle. Creating a website is not so much success, if we compare it to the education of other technical skills. Most people tend to give up and pack their bags as soon as they listen to the word technical.

Making a website is really not that hard, and best of all, you can make one for free. If you have never made a website before, it's not a problem, there's many services out there that are easy to use for beginners. Creating a website is a process that involves a number of services. Creating a website is only half the battle. The other half involves more work with driving traffic and learning how to market your site.

Website creation is relatively easy. Creating an Internet marketing strategy that achieves predefined objectives is more difficult. Creating a website is not as hard as you think it is. In fact you can do it in 6 easy steps. Creating a website is important for any size company.

A website is a wonderful way to showcase your talents globally by posting examples of previous work for potential clients to preview. In addition, you would have the know-how to create your own newsletter that could be available online or sent on a regular basis via e-mail.

Don't forget to place some graphics and pictures to make your site look nicer. Creating a website is easy, any Joe Schmo can make one and have it live within a day. Which is all well and good, but how well can one person make a website by themselves? Creating a website is step one, there is no such thing as a finished website. Maintenance will cost a lot more effort than creating the website.

How Do I Make a Website Easily

2009-12-04T15:59:00.000-08:00

This is kind of a confusing title, I have to admit. This article is about the top three reasons people don't build their own websites, and the top 3 reasons you should. As a webmaster of several websites on several hosts this is my opinion from talking to many people and advising them on building their own websites.

Top 3 Reasons People Don't

1. Too Lazy- Its hard to give up those Family Guy marathons.

2. Fear That it's Too Difficult for them. Many people think they will have to know HTML, PHP, and other programming skills. They also think" I would love to have my own website, but what will I put on it?'

3. Too Expensive. Years ago having a professional website meant thousands of dollars, but that is definitely not the case now.

Top 3 Reasons You Should

1. Its Fun and Rewarding! It's a great way to expand your interests and passions. You can meet people that share your interests . I don't know of anyone that has their own website that regrets it, especially if you enjoy computers and the internet.This is the ultimate tech toy.

2. Its Easy !-You don't need HTML or any other skills. I suggest using Wordpress to create your website. Anyone can create an impressive website with Wordpress. The average person can create a basic website in about an hour. There is a lot of free content online that you can post on your website including Youtube videos. The web host provides great support whenever you need it.

3. Its Dirt Cheap! The web host provides all the best tools you will need for your website, including all the best applications to create the website. They supply around the clock support and even give you more than a hundred dollars in advertising credits so you can spread the word about your site. How much do you think all of that costs? I have a deal from a host now for $40.

4. Yes, I know, I cheated. You Could Become Very Rich! You could make a little extra, or you could get rich. Its not a longshot either. Many people make money from their websites. Perhaps with a little hard work and creativity, you could make a fortune. At least it's a chance. Where else could you start your own business for an investment of $40.

Start a Website Because You Love Pets

2009-12-02T18:36:00.001-08:00

Have you ever thought of starting your own website? Do you love pets? Well, why not combine the two and start your own pet website! It isn’t as hard as you may think. Think of all the fun you would have doing it. And you might make a bit of money too.

The first thing you need to do is decide what type of pet website you want to start. There are a lot of websites about pets in general, but in order to make money online you really do need to be a bit more specific. You can specialize in one particular area and still deal with your love of pets.

Search you own heart and find out what it is about pets that really grabs you. Is it because they are cute and cuddly? Is it because you want to find homes for all those homeless pets? Do you love to see pets dressed up? Does pet health concern you? Any of those topics (and many other pet topics) would make a great pet website.

For instance, if you like pets just because they are cute and cuddly, you may want to start a website that features pet pictures. You could involve your visitors by having them send in pictures of their pets in cute situations. You could have special topics like ‘Fattest Pet Pictures’ or ‘Pets on Vacation’ or ‘Pet Babies’. The opportunities are endless.

If you have a concern for pets that are homeless, you could start a website that brings unwanted pets together with people who are looking for a pet. You could access pet shelters and pet rescues and co-ordinate your efforts with theirs. This could prove to be a very rewarding way for you to help pets.

If you love to see pets dressed up, you could have a website selling pet clothing and accessories. You could have your own line of pet clothing, or go the affiliate route where you sell other people’s products and get a commission fee. This might prove to be an extremely fun industry for you to get into (as well as extremely profitable).

You could also have a pet website that deals with the health and care of pets. Pet Insurance is quite a big industry now and you may be able to cash in on some of the profits, while still dealing with your love of pets.

In each scenario above, you could monetize that particular type of website by making it a subscription site where your visitors pay a fee to enter. You could also sell pet e-books, pet accessories or pet insurance through affiliate programs. You could sell advertising to other pet product websites.

After you decide what type of pet website you would like to create, then you have the fun of designing and creating it. (Don’t forget to include a picture of your own pet—that obviously inspired you to begin with!) You then need to decide on a domain name and a hosting company, and there you have it—your own money-making pet website.

Then the fun really starts. After that all you have to do is to get visitors to visit your website. There are many ways to do that—with article marketing, pay-per-click, free advertising, etc. You may have to do a bit of work to get ranked well with the search engines so that you get the amount of website traffic you want to make your website truly successful. One way to help with that end is to include a lot of website content for your visitors to enjoy. Visitors love to see fresh new content articles on a website, and search engines will rank you higher for it as well.

Creating a website on a topic that you love (like pets) can be a very fun, rewarding and profitable experience. It isn’t as hard as you think to start a website so why not start working on your own pet website today.

Web Design – Five Top Tips for a More Effective Website

2009-12-02T18:35:00.000-08:00

Designing and launching a website requires a great deal of thought, consideration, and planning if you want the end result to be attractive and useful for site visitors. Here are five top tips for staying focused on creating the most effective website possible:

Tip #1 – Choose the layout carefully. It’s tempting to “dress up” your website layout with lots of different components just for the novelty of having a ‘cool’ website. The problem is that this kind of complicated design is not very user friendly and can actually cause visitors to leave the site out of frustration or confusion. Instead, stick with a simple design, free of excess clutter like lots of images, extensive menus, or too much content. Your primary goal is to make it easy for visitors to see valuable content and quickly identify what your website is all about.

Tip #2 – Make navigation easy. Look at your navigation menus and sections from the perspective of visitors, for the purpose of making it easy to navigate the site. Homepage navigation links to top level categories should be clear and easy to find, and within each category page there should be clear links to the pages within that topic. Also, use link bread-crumbs throughout the site (e.g. Home -> Category -> Topic -> Sub-topic); this makes it easy for visitors to always know where they are on the site and quickly go back to higher level pages or categories if they so choose.

Tip #3 – Choose comfortable colours. Once again, look at your website from the visitor’s perspective when choosing colours; all colours should be easy to look at and attractive rather than “in-your-face” bold and brilliant. Lean toward natural colour tones whenever possible because these create a feeling of warmth, pleasantness, and comfort. Be sure also that all links and content are distinguishable and easy to read; avoid any colours that will cause strain on the eyes or over stimulate the brain when looked at for an extended period of time.

Tip #4 – Make it user-focused. We just can’t say this often enough because it’s so incredibly important: an effective website absolutely must be user-focused and designed to meet the needs of website visitors. Check that all links and functions work properly, and quickly fix any that have gone astray or are causing errors. Take a good hard look at the functions themselves, eliminating any that make your website run slower or put visitors through unnessary effort, and keeping only those that make your website easier or more convenient to use, or at least have no visible effect. Your goal is to create a website visitors will find usable and trustworthy so they will be enticed to take action and to return in the future.

Tip #5 – Split test for effectiveness. This is perhaps the most valuable action you can take to fine tune your website and improve its performance. You can split test anything from textual content to images to homepage layout to the colour of headings and more, helping to identify those areas of the site that are effective and those that need some changes to become better. It’s especially beneficial when first launching a website but is also a good tool to use periodically to ensure maximum ongoing performance as well.

While these are major points to consider when designing a website that will perform well, there are many different aspects of a website that can affect visitor experience and conversions. Frequently review your website’s effectiveness and continue to educate yourself in the best practices of web design.

10 Steps to Be Taken While Creating a New Website

2009-12-02T18:31:00.000-08:00

Every business now-a-days should have a website to increase their revenues compared to the other companies in the same niche.A company which has a best website will get more contracts/offers compared to the company which doesn't have one.A good website makes visitors to think about our company and helps to establish a rapid growth. Website is a very important tool for online marketing.

So,a website should be designed by an expert who was keen in all aspects of the web development techniques.Here,the actual role of an expert is more important.

Steps to be taken when creating a website

1]First,check your business status [Like revenue,target]
2]Estimate,How much money should be spent on designing and advertising?
3]What items/Links to be placed on your website?
4]Choose the best hosting service & simple url [url should be small to easily remember]
5]Good Looking website makes visitors bookmark your site
6]Every page should link back to main page.
7]Use animations only at required places [Very Less]
8]Provide all available Payments options
9]Follow Quality Guidelines
10]Advertise or Optimize your website for getting more visitors [Includes SEO, PPC, SEM]

A professional Website Design having good look and feel have more chances to attract visitors.If your website looks bad,then the visitors first impression will be very bad and he moves to another site.The proverb "First Impression is the best impression" exactly suits this situation.Also,the quality and stardard of services that you provide will bring more valuable customers to your site. Always,choose the best web development company to fulfill your needs.

How to Choose the Best Website Builder

2009-11-08T00:52:00.000-08:00

Websites have become critical to the success of companies
. A solid online presence can help companies to boost their profitability and marketing potential. Because website building now has become too common, you need not be a computer whiz in order to create one. All you have to do is to use a website builder that has the capability to create interactive sites even if you have scant technical knowledge. Latest web builders can also help you to create interactive map and fully functioning flash websites.

With lots of web building applications available today, it would be difficult to choose a website builder that will be suitable for your needs. The first thing you should consider when choosing a website builder is its ease of use and friendly interface. A good website builder needs to have a user friendly interface and functionalities. Because you are probably just starting to experiment with website building, ease of use is very critical. The tools and utilities of the web builder should be intuitively positioned so you can find them easily. It should also have a work area where you can simply click buttons to create pages, link pages and sites, and create graphics. If your website building application has friendly interface, you can easily create a website in minutes.

An excellent website building application should also have the capability to create flash based website with no coding requirements. Flash websites are highly interactive, visually appealing, and can attract more web visitors. Flash programming however is very complex and time consuming. Your website builder therefore should be able to create flash sites in just a few clicks. It should have a ready What-You-See-Is-What-You-Get (WYSIWYG) editor where you can simply patch or drag and drop different elements and plug-ins of a flash website. If your website building application has this capability, then you are on your way to creating the best interactive website on the Internet.

Your flash website should also have an interactive map so that customers can easily find your place of business. Flash map creation however can be very difficult because you need to specifically program grids and coordinates and create images and map icons. If you do not have the time to do all these, you should use an application that will allow you to create an interactive map without programming any codes. Just like your web builder, an interactive map creator must be easy to use, automated, and can be integrated with your flash site builder. Such capabilities will enable you to build websites that have fully functional interactive flash maps. Your website therefore will have greater chances of becoming successful and productive.

One of the most important features professional software should offer is related to the type of images imported. By adding either JPG or PNG images to the program, one can easily convert them into interactive image maps. As it was already mentioned, clickable dots, lines and popup info boxes can be easily introduced.

Website building and map creation need not be too complicated. All you need is a good flash website builder and an excellent flash map creator that can produce interactive flash based maps. Once you have these tools, you can create a professionally designed corporate website to attract more customers for your business and strengthen your company’s position in the online and traditional market.

Simple Way To Create A Site

2009-11-08T00:47:00.000-08:00

Can you believe this, now you can create website on yourself in a very simple way. After reading this one thing will surely come in your mind, “Are you joking”? This is not a joke; once you use the web application

offered by www.createasite.ca , you can easily design your own website. Create a site is offering you what you always wanted for the preparation of website at a very reasonable rates. Usually people think that creating a website requires lot of technical knowledge and so they think it as a complicated task. But this web application can make your task easier as, now they do all technical work for you, you just have to click and select pages. It is a simple way to create a site which does not require any designer or webmaster.

For creating website you have to open an account by making online payment and within 24 hours your account will get activated. Once your account gets activated you can easily follow this program as it can assist you in every possible way to create a site. Building website without any web designer is always like dream come true. You can have a great experience of creating website on your own with great designs and templates. There are various software’s available in market which can help you in building website. But when you will start using such software’s, you may really find it a complicated chore to operate such software’s.

Now you don’t have to deal with such difficult job for creating a website. The program offered by create a site is very easy to learn and it does not demands any of the technical knowledge. They have a huge team which can show you the simple way to create a site. Their team can handle all technical related problems and can assist you in creating effective website. Along with good quality of design they also offer personalized content management system, maintenance program, hosting service, logo creation, search engine optimization etc. By all such services they make your work really easy and you can create unique as well as professional website.

Looking for Great Software to Create Website!

2009-11-08T00:45:00.000-08:00

If you are the one who always wanted to create a website for your business, but the price of creating a website made you dropped the plan. You need not worry why to drop the plan, there are software’s available on the online market to create website which are low priced and free. The only problem is that the ones that are free many a times do not suit our requirement and fail to fulfill the purpose. Therefore it is preferable that you have the software that is affordable and help you to make a proper place in the online market.

Creating a website has number of advantages and that too with the help of the software, will be much more advantageous. This is mainly because through the software you will be able to put your own expression about the product or the service that you are providing. This will also give you a chance to share more about the product or service that you provide. The websites are the ones that help to attract the traffic towards your product and therefore it is very important that you have the software that creates an effective website for you.

These websites indirectly help in increasing the profitability of the company. You will be wondering how, websites convert the potential customers into the actual costumers which helps to increase the sales of the company and that leads to overall profitability of the company. Hence it is very important that you have the software which creates a website that is very efficient.

As creating the website has so many advantages you will have to find the software that has right features in it. The software should have pre made templates with no chording required. This is because chording is very difficult and so a small mistake can also cost you much. The software that you select for your website should have the capability to create eye-catching logos and designs for your website. The software should be such that is easy to access manually this is because it will take much your time to first understand the software and then to create website.

The software must have good customer service, so that whenever you face some problem this is ready to serve you and help you out. It is very important that you have a site that is unique and so you need the software that has easy customization feature. The software should have the facility of regular updating your website. These are some of the features to be looked into while having software for you.