How to Build Your Website

Introduction

How to build Your Website – From absolute beginning. 

This article covers the Mechanics of building the website. But please pay attention to choosing your niche BEFORE you start the building process

Build Your Website: Steps 1 to 5

1.You need some web-space to put your website, its a bit like real estate,  you buy the land – the ‘webspace’ from a HOSTING company. 

2.you will need a DOMAIN NAME for your website, this needs REGISTRATION which has to be done through an official registrant.

3. Join the HOSTING & DOMAIN together with DNS

4. Add a Theme to your website to change how it looks

5. Start blogging – add your content pages

The first part, the creation of an addon domain, in your hosting, the loading up of WordPress files and setting up the Theme is easy ‘Mechanical’ work. They can be carried out from a simple checklist. 

1. Hosting:

For your first site, dont worry too much about this, most hosts do the basic stuff, prices are very similar. It is useful to have space for a second and third site, maybe a  sandbox site for trying things out and ‘auxiliary’ sites and utilities like link cloaking so my choice would be to go for shared hosting, most hosts will do a package with unlimited sites for a very reasonable price per month

2. Domain Name

Buying Your Domain does need some careful thought. Ideally go through the process below, of choosing  the niche you intend to compete in, to choose a suitable name for your site. 

Check if the Domain Name you want, is actually available Here , you can buy the Domain Name from here too

3. NameServers (DNS)

Again this is simple ‘Mechanical work’. Once you have your webname, your Registrant will hold the Dynamic Name Server settings, which need to be pointed at your new webspace purchased from your hosting provider.

4 . WordPress Theme

This gives your new site its look and feel, there are many good free themes, I use one  which is fully compatible with Elementor, which is my webpage  builder of  choice, my Theme is called Generate-Press, it is always kept updated by the Theme software team, it has a very large customer base so it’s a good one to start with. There are many Themes you can buy too, depends on your priorities and what features you need 

The second part is much more detailed and difficult. Most of Googles users, 88% in fact , don’t even look at page 2 of the Google search results ( serps). So your task is to build a site and rank it in Google on the first page.

Choosing Your Domain Name

Quick Note: Choosing your Domain Name is not the same as Choosing your Niche.

By choosing the right Domain name – one that is at the right point of the funnel, you can ensure your site is going to be successful long term.   For example, suppose I was to enter the diet and fitness niche. Choosing “Diets” would be so competitive, it would be virtually impossible to outrank big sites with big teams and big budgets. 

Choosing a Domain “xyz-diet” would be ok, but would have a limited audience. What if the xyz diet became unfashionable or was overtaken by another type of diet? Your site would be dead. My first attempt, fell into this category, when I built the site BestHalogenCooker.com , halogen ovens were at their peak, TV shopping channels were selling them like hotcakes, my site bloomed and brought in a good affiliate income, but a year down the line, Halogen Ovens were over. Dead! Having the title Best HALOGEN cooker, I couldn’t really expand it to cover other things.

By choosing a domain name halfway between the two, like “SpeedyDiets.com” it wouldn’t be so hard to rank on page one and any new diets would fit in nicely under your name’s umbrella.  After all the intention is to attract searchers using Google’s results, to pick your site from the 10 sites given in the page 1 results. Check here to discover if your chosen website domain is available

In other words, don’t go so niche that your audience is too small – you will also find that you have covered all the possible subjects to talk about under that niche, very quickly. 

Don’t try to go too broad, the competition for a new site is just too big. You would never rank.

Make Your Site the Go-to Authority in your Niche

This is your long-term goal.

Authority sites rock.

If you can cover all the topics in the niche, with INTERESTING articles of better QUALITY and LENGTH than your competitors, then you will have a winner, a site that will bring visitors in and so make sales.

For the main points to make an authority site see my Authority Site Page

Monitising your Site with Ads

How to make all your work pay? It can be done in many ways. Selling affiliate products is one of the most profitable methods.  If your niche is one without related products but attracts lots of visitors, like for example a Comedy Collection site, you can put Ads on the site . Although its counter-intuitive, as visitors will click away to another website , statistics show that it does actually work well and the drop in page views due to visitors clicking the ads is quite small.

The easiest is Google Adsense. Google will display Ads relevant to the search query and visitors clicking the Ads. will earn you a good return.

CPC Value 

If you investigate keywords before writing your blog posts, you can find the likely return from an ad-click. Many keyword tools give the value “CPC”

If you grow your site and have a clearly targeted audience in the US and reach 25k sessions/month you can jump up to MediaVine Ads , which pay significantly more than Google Adsense. 

AdThrive is another player worth investigating, but again require you to have  at least the 25k sessions month after month. They all have managers to help you achieve better results ( well they earn more if you earn more ! ) .

Ezoic is another Ad – manager , they put a lot of resources up to test ad returns on your pages and get the very best results. This is slightly less of a hands off  monetisation approach , you will need to put in some time with Ezoic.

Results will vary from niche to niche and a lot depends on your ad target audience.

Monetising Your Site with Affiliate Promotions

If you have picked a niche with lots of affiliate products, this is relatively easy. Write product reviews and include your affiliate link.  Be genuine!  If everything you review is GREAT its not going to be believable. 

Don’t forget that in most niches there are physical products AND “how to” guides and books. Often the physical goods side is the easiest ( Amazon for example ) to promote, but the guides ( Clickbank for example ) often have very high commission rates.

Read my guide How to do Affiliate Marketing 

Always Build Assets

No matter which method you choose, always build YOUR OWN assets.  For instance if you use a site like Facebook to host your content  or choose Wix or Weebly to build your site – Its on someone else’s web property, so it can be taken down in an instant, if you transgress, step over a boundary, even accidentally. You could lose your  entire income ,  so ALWAYS put your content on a site YOU host, your own website that no one else has control over. 

  1. Always build a list of your customers, it takes time and money to reach customers , if you have that list safe on your own server, you can go on reaching those customers FOR YEARS TO COME. Imagine you only have a following available through Facebook and then FB shuts your account down! 
  2. Create links from Social Media and to other Authority sites – Links are one of the main ways Google ranks sites, each link, is like a ‘vote’ for your site. Links from Authority sites are worth far more than blog comment links, but they all count

 You can go the PAID route with ads of course , but advertising will only ever get more expensive. 

The great thing about the Internet is – its still growing. There are nearly 8 billion people in the world and almost half have some access to the internet.

People are rapidly changing from town center shopping to Online shopping. The trend is going to continue for the foreseeable future, so get your slice of the billion dollar pie NOW!

Think Long Term

Always add Long Term Assets to your Website

If you promote Skate Boards or Fidget Spinners, don’t expect it to be still earning next year. If however, you promote Kitchen equipment like Cookers, or Garden tools like lawnmowers, Strimmers… everyone needs this sort of ‘evergreen’ product and always will, so that content will still be sought after and valuable in the future.

The phrase “content is king” is certainly true. Google will always rank the best articles highest and is getting very intelligent, assessing articles on your site. So writing the best quality and longest most comprehensive articles will give you the best return on your time and effort. Over time you write more and more articles, each one brings customers to your site to buy your offers.

Although Google Algorithm updates sometimes bring about changes in your performance in the SERPs it is rare. By sticking to the post formula I describe in the “Building a Business” series of articles you will stand the best chance of avoiding penalties

On the other hand, if an opportunity to make a killing comes up – take it! No one expected the Corona Virus. Millions of People all over the world suddenly found themselves with lots of time. Netflix and Movie Companies made huge profits, during the pandemic with so many people having time on their hands.  You could offer a Learning package for example – computer coding, speaking a new language  

Once you have your affiliate system set up, you can make use of opportunities quickly.