Do you want to build your own site but have been put
off by the daunting process of wrestling with code for hours on end?
To be honest, you do need web design skills and a degree of technical
knowledge to design your own site but in this section we won't be dealing
with designing your website yourself from scratch. On this page we will
be explaining how to create your own site, in a few easy steps, on a
budget, by using the innovative tools of a Site Builder. However, if
you would like a custom built site professionally designed to your specifications,
we also list a Web Design company who will build your site and publish
it for you. Interested? Read on…...
What Should I Consider Before Creating
My Website?
How Can I Create A Website
Using A SiteBuilder Programme?
Where can I find a free site?
What Is A Domain Name And How
Can I Get One?
Where Can I get Photographs for
My newSite?
Where Can I Find Content/Articles
To Use On My Site?
An online course on Running an
Online Business
I Want To Learn How To
Design My Own Site From Scratch Without Using A Site Builder
Where Can I Buy Merchandise
to Sell on My site?
Earning Money From My Site
Using Affiliate Marketing
Getting Traffic To My Website
Where Can I Find A Freelance Web
Designer To Build My Site For Me?
Help With Income Tax, Registration
And National Insurance Contributions
How Do I Create My Own Site?
The first thing that you must
take into consideration when building a site is 'planning'. This is
a crucial part of the process. Identify what you would like to gain
from your site and ask yourself questions such as, 'is your website
going to be an extension or advertisement to your existing business?'
'Is it a personal site?' Or are you thinking of starting an online business?
As this site is dedicated to earning an income from home, we will be
dealing predominately with how to go about building sites that will
earn you an income online, but all the information listed here can be
applied to a personal or existing business site.
Once you've decided on a theme, the next step is to consider whether
you will be selling the product yourself or if you plan on earning as
an affiliate (for details on affiliate marketing click
here). Think about your site - how many pages will you need? Will
you need an e-store? Will you need to accept online payments? Will you
need a gallery? Will you need to buy or hire articles or will you be
writing the copy yourself? Think about all these questions carefully
and draw up a plan, this will set you on your way to a successful enterprise.
All the programming you need will be supplied by your Site Builder.
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What is Site Builder?
Site Builder is a comprehensive
programming package that enables you to build your own website without
any technical or programming skills what so ever. Using the facilities
provided in a Site Builder programme you will be able to build your
own website in a few easy steps. Site Builder offers you all the conveniences
that would otherwise require an in-depth understanding of web design.
You will be offered a huge range of templates to choose from that will
house your site then an option of how many pages you would like your
website to have.
Once you've chosen your package all you will have
to do is fill in the spaces with your content and images. With their
'what-you-see-is-what-you-get' page editor to help you create your web
pages, it really couldn't be simpler. When you've created your pages
you will be able to use their online form to add titles, keywords and
metatags to your pages to help you get listed in the search engines.
Then once you've finished building your site all you have to do is click
'publish' and your site will be 'live' online. Simple as that.
Using a Site Builder is fast, economical and easy,
and it'll have you up and running in no time at all. 'But why should
I use a Site Builder and pay when there are so many free website programmes
available?' I hear you ask. Free website programmes, such as Blogs,
have their place and are an excellent resource but they will not give
your site a professional look nor offer e-store facilities, forums or
galleries. And remember, nothing is really free, you will have to make
some sacrifices for your free website such as: your domain name (their
name may appear within your url), or you may have to place adverts for
them on your site, or you may find that you will have to pay for additional
features or a decent amount of bandwidth. All this could reduce the
professionalism of your online business. If all you need is a personal
site then a free site is completely fine but for a speedy and cost effective
way to build your own online business the following companies offer
excellent packages:
Give them a try here...
They offer an
impressive 14-day FREE trial on all their packages.
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What
Is A Domain Name And How Can I Get One?
Principally, your domain name is one of the
most important features of your site. Your domain name is the title
and address of your website, so think carefully when choosing it. Make
sure that it fits the theme of your site in order to make it search
engine friendly so that people can find you easily. If you use Site
Builder to create you site you can buy your domain name directly from
them, some may even offer it free of charge with your package. If you
are building your site yourself or using a free website package then
you may want to look at buying a domain name from a company that offers
you the best deal.
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An
online course on Running an Online Business to help you get started
If you need a little help to get you started then
consider taking a short online course in running an online business.
E-learn offer a very affordable course for new businesses at £50.00.
The course takes approximately 40 hours to complete online. You will
cover areas such as: how to start an e-business, establishing a business
presence, legal ramifications of e-commerce, transaction processing
and data mining, managing costs, and the logistics of providing customer
service and payment processing. Other topics covered include building
a strategy to market and advertise your e-business, resource planning,
and ongoing business management. For more details click on the following
link: Running
an Online Business
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Where Can I get Photographs
for My new Site?
You can buy photographs and images or hire them for
usage from Stock Image Agents. Buying and publishing them directly onto
your web pages couldn't be easier. We are so impressed by this facility
that we have used them ourselves on this site! They offer a superb range
of images at very affordable prices, they also offer some images completely
free of charge for use on your website. We recommend the following Stock
Image Agents:
Where Can I Find Content/Articles For My Site?
Your visitors will only come
back to your site or recommend it to others if you've got something
great to offer. If you want your site to be successful then you will
need some good quality and informative articles that are keyword friendly.
If you have the ability to reel them out yourself then that's great,
but if you don't then you may want to look into buying or hiring articles.
There are a lot of websites that offer free usage of well-written articles
on any subject, such as E-Zine. But remember that using these free articles
will require you to list the author's by-line and url, and if it's a
competitor site then you may be driving your potential customers away.
If you want to buy articles without being bound by these requirements,
then have a look at Constant
Content. They have a host of articles on a variety of subjects at
very affordable prices. Under no circumstances should you lift articles
from other websites for use on your site, apart from it being unethical
practice you could also be penalised by your hosts or face legal action
by the website owner or author.
If you want orginal content for your website then
why not hire a freelance copywriter? You can find professional copywriters
at Freelancer.com.
To be eligible to post your job enquiry on their website you will first
have to register (registration is free of charge). Once you've become
a member then you can post a job description on their site that should
include all your requirements such as the price you are willing to pay,
the type of article/s or content that you require and the time scale
of when you expect the job to be completed and delivered. Once your
article goes live, freelancers who feel eligible for the job will make
a bid based on the listed price, i.e. you might say that your budget
is between $20-150 (don't worry about the dollor sign, this site is
international and accepts UK buyers and sellers) - the copywriter will
then make a bid to gain that job. Your job ad will run for a specified
period, once that time slot is up, you can choose the copywriter who
most fits your needs. For more information visit their website at Freelancer.com.
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Where
Can I Buy Merchandise to Sell on My site?
If you do not have your own products to sell on your
website then you will have to find wholesalers to purchase your goods
from. We recommend Wholesale
Pages. For or a small fee they offer an impressive and extensive
list of wholesalers and dropshippers.
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Earning
Money from my site Using Affiliate Marketing
Because this is a lengthy and in-depth subject
we have listed it on a separate page. Click
here to find out more about Affiliate Marketing.
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Getting Traffic To Your Site
1.
Have a Blogger Review your Site -
Get
instant traffic to your site by having your website reviewed on top
Blogs. Generating high volume traffic to your new site can be tough
but this programme really can help. You simply sign up and start a campaign
going. You can either choose which Blog reviews your site from the hundreds
listed or you can set your price and put your website up for grabs in
the marketplace. As well as getting traffic to your site, this system
provides quality inbound links which will help with your ranking on
major search engines. Prices start from as little as £5.00 ($10.00)
but you should expect to pay in the region of £20.00 ($40.00)
to get a Blog with a good volume of traffic to review your site. This
is a cost effective way to promote your website or product. For more
information visit any visit Review
Me
2.
Build a Squidoo Lens - What is a Squidoo Lens? It's a webpage similar
in characteristics to a Blog that allows you to write about any subject
you please. It can even be about your business, so if you've got a website
that needs promoting then you can do so here. A Lens will increase your
Pagerank on Google as well as earn you a bit of extra cash from ads
placed by Squidoo on your page, and that's not all, it will also increase
visitors to your site if you promote it correctly - what a brilliant
idea! It's fun and it's easy, to sign up today click
here.
3. Consider purchasing
a Cube at YouCubez
and start getting more traffic to your site. The concept of advertising
your site on YouCubez is quite refreshing. You buy a cube that you can
decorate to your liking from as little as £1.00. The cube then
goes onto the YouCubez website alongside other members' cubes where
visitors and members are invited to 'click' the cubes, which consequently
brings traffic to your site. But why would members click on your cube?
The simple answer is that they get paid to do so, as will you if you
become a member and decide to participate in the programme. The incentive
that YouCubez
has given its estimated 6000 members works well, and you will see a
stream of new traffic delivered to your site once you've purchased a
cube. Remember that you can join and take part in the 'earning' programme
without buying a cube but as the sole purpose of this article is to
drive traffic to your site then buying a cube would be in your best
interest.
You can also buy traffic from YouCubez
from as little as GBP1.00 for one hundred clicks. That's a mere 1p per
click. We think it's amazing value for money and can vouch that it works
too!
YouCubez
offers lots of incentives for increasing the value of your cube to give
it prime position on their site. If your cube performs well, you can
offer it for sale to interested members who would like your prime position
on the board.
We were so impressed with the concept that we bought
a cube ourselves, but don't just take our word for it, check it out
at YouCubez
and see if it's something that might interest you.
4.
Use LinkReferral for FREE traffic. The concept here is that you
sign up, free of charge, submit your site with a short description and
have other members visit and review it for you - completely free. The
deal here is that in exchange for this you must also visit and review
other members' websites. This system really does work and is well worth
joining. Click
here for more details.
5. Get Yourself A
Blog to support your site, why? For a few reasons, firstly, Search Engines
seem to prefer Blog content as opposed to that listed on your website.
This is mainly because it's 'new' content and search engines love copy
that is updated regularly. You will also benefit from regular visitors
who want to know if you have anything new to say about your product
or service. Blogging also gives you the opportunity to add 'backlinks'
to your main website thus benefiting from a new flow of traffic plus
search engine optimisation. If you write frequent and interesting articles
other Bloggers will link to your Blog thus promoting your main site
and getting you 'out there'. But the crucial point in having a Blog
is to interact with your visitors. They will no longer see a 'website'
as a stationary project but instead know that there is a human face
behind that screen that is willing to help, advise, assist and give
regular updates on new products and information. Remember though that
Blogging needs commitment, there's no point in starting up a Blog and
only writing 'posts' once every month or two. Blogs need to be updated
regularly to be beneficial so you must be prepared to write, preferably
everyday but if not then at least once or twice per week. You can sign
up for a free Blog with Google or Wordpress, or if you prefer do an
online search for one of your choice.
6. Participate in
online forums. Find a forum that has the same theme or interest as your
website, there are plenty of them out there, and start posting threads
and signing off with your website link. Despite the fact that quite
a lot of forums prohibit the use of promoting your own site on their
forums, although some do allow it, they do permit the use of your website
link in your signature. So when you sign up to the forums make sure
that you add your URL to your signature in order to generate traffic.
How much traffic you receive depends on how popular the forum is, its
PR and search engine ranking. Try to find forums that have thousands
of posts as these are more likely to be long established and should
bring you a good flow of traffic. Regular participation is required
for maximum effects.
7. Get your site
listed on Free Classifieds for that extra rush of genuine traffic. We
highly recommend the award winning UK
Classifieds or VivaStreet
Both sites are listed in most of the popular directories and search
engines, which means that your ads will get maximum exposure on the
net so do pay attention to keywords when composing your ad. Classified
sites attract thousands of visitors per day. Give them a try, they're
definitely worth it.
8. Sign up to Preloved
as a business seller and get two months' worth of advertising completely
free of charge. You can place as many ads as you like and they have
a good range of categories to list under for ease of use. If the campaigns
work for you then you can continue with this advertising medium for
£23.50 per month (correct at time of publication). You will need
to give your credit card details during the initial sign-up process,
but if you cancel your membership before the two month free trial period
is up then you will not be charged a penny. Try it, you might like it,
we do!
9. The real master
technique of getting visitors to your site is to make sure that your
site has good SEO (search engine optimization). This will ensure that
your site gets good organic placement in the search engines. There are
many techniques that you can implement yourself and although this might
be time consuming, it is the cheaper option. Do an online search to
find out more about SEO or go the the library and take out a book on
the subject. The alternative is to hire a good SEO company to do the
necessary work for you. Do shop around though and get recommendations
as there are a lot of SEO companies out there that will take your money
and not deliver the goods. We will soon be adding a page on SEO techniques,
as well as recommended companies on this site. Sign up to our free newsletter
or bookmark this page for further details.
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Freelance
Web Designers & I.T. Specialists
We understand that some of you may want a unique look
for your website and would rather not use a ready made template. You
may have specific requirements that a site builder can't meet, or you
may have an existing website that that needs updating. For a custom
built site or to improve and update functions on your existing website,
you can hire freelance Web Designers, Programmers, Copywriters, Graphic
Designers and I.T. Experts at affordable prices to carry out work to
your specifications. You can hire these specialists at Freelancer.com.
To have access to the I.T. specialists you must first sign-up with Freelancer.com
(registering is free of charge) then post your job. Unlike
contacting a company direct, here you have the option of naming your
price, that is you set the maximum price that you are willing to pay
the freelancer for your project. Once your advertsiement is approved
by GAF it will go live on their website and qualified freelancers will
make a bid for your job. You can then study their CV and reviews and
accept the freelancer and bid of your choice. For more details visit
Freelancer.com
today.
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Help with Tax, Registration and National Insurance
If you own a website and are
earning an income from it then you will need to pay tax and national
insurance contributions. Visit our Tax
Page for more details.
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