Month: May 2008

Getting a Web Hosting Plan

Posted on by Admin

Getting a Web Hosting Plan is the second task of Building your website right after registering your own domain name. This is an obligatory step which you cannot skip, if you want a professional website.

What is a Web Hosting?

A Web Hosting is a type of service that allows you to host your website on your domain name. In other words, it provides you space on a server where you can upload any kind of files to which makes your site accessible via the World Wide Web. So, whenever someone types your domain name in their Internet browsers, they will be able to see your web pages.

Getting a Web Hosting is necessary for everyone who wants to build a website. If you don´t have any hosting service, you won´t be able to put your web pages on your domain name. So, when your audience types your domain name, they will just see a simple page saying it is a parked domain name or anything like that. They won´t be able to see your actual website.

Different Types Of Web Hosting Services

There are a number of various web hosting services on the Internet. Each of them is created for specific use. While everyone has different goals, needs and priorities, it is better to determine which one suits you. Here is a quick review of the most popular web hosting services:

  • FREE Web Hosting: FREE, But Limited & Advertisement-Supported Service.
  • Shared Web Hosting: Shares More Than One Website (Domain Name) On the Same Server.
  • Reseller Web Hosting: Allows Clients To Become Web Hosts Themselves & Resell the Service.
  • Dedicated Web Hosting: Allows Clients To Lease the Entire Server Not Shared With Anyone.

First off, I highly recommend you to get a paid web hosting service. Don´t go for FREE accounts, because it is not worth it. A FREE web hosting is always limited and ad-supported. Besides, you don´t have full control over your host. Again, it is about being professional. Don´t let your visitors think you don´t own one of the most essential components of your business which is web hosting. You want people to give you credit. A paid web hosting is a must have tool for every web business owner. Period!

On the other hand, you don´t need to have some of the above-mentioned web hosting services. You don´t even need to know them all. But, before ordering a web hosting package, you should take some important points into account.

Here are a Few Important Features Of a Good Web Hosting Plan:

1. It should allow you to host unlimited domain names on your hosting account. Quite frankly, you would not want to pay for every single hosting service for each of your registered domain name. Select and order a web hosting service that allows unlimited domain names.

2. The disk space of your hosting plan should be high. Later, you will want to upload some large files such as audio and video to your website. A great web hosting space would enable you to do that without worrying about lack of capacity. Normally, 600 Gigs of web space is recommended.

3. The third important feature of a good web hosting service is the bandwidth. In a nutshell, bandwidth is the amount of traffic that is allowed to occur between your website and the rest of the Internet. In other words, it is the measurement of data sent from your web host’s server down to the visitors computer. So, if you get a lot of visitors and they download large files from your website, then you will need a great amount of bandwidth. A good web hosting plan should offer more than 5,000 Gigabytes of Bandwidth.

4. FREE instant setup is another feature of a good web hosting service. I don´t think it would be wise to pay extra for installing the web hosting for you. It must be fast and FREE. When you pay for a hosting package, this feature should be included in the price.

5. Uptime guarantee is something many people simply overlook. Most of the web hosting companies offer 99.9% Uptime Guarantee which means that if your website is not up 99.9% of the time, they will compensate you. So, they strive all the time to achieve that level of uptime and guarantee your website activity and availability in 99.9% of the time.

6. Money-back guarantee is a plus for a good web hosting plan. It makes you more confident and secure. If you are not happy with the service, you should be able to request a refund and get your money back. Usually, it is offered as a 45-Day Money-Back Guarantee.

7. You should be able to build and design your website with an easy-to-use web development application. A FREE site builder is something that a web hosting plan should always offer you. Although, you will be using other tools and software such as Microsoft Frontpage or Dreamweaver, but a FREE site builder in your hosting account would be helpful, as well.

8. There are some other components that a good web hosting package should have. Actually, you don´t even need to know them all and their functions. But, one day, you will need them in a way. Features such as CGI, PHP 4 & 5, RoR, Perl, MySQL, SSH, SSL, IMAP, POP and cPanel hosting.

9. FREE 24/7 support is the most important feature of a good web hosting plan. If you have any questions or problems about your service, you should be able to get full support from the customer service. And it should be absolutely FREE.

These were some of the features you have to check out before ordering a web hosting plan. At the moment, a normal web hosting package may cost around $10 / Month. Once you order a plan, you don´t need to pay for any extra or hidden fees. And always remember to buy from a reliable web hosting service.

HostGator is one of the world’s largest web hosting companies that offers popular and affordable web hosting plans. This service is highly recommended by many webmasters and Internet marketers.

But if you want more options, I suggest you to check out the post below and take a look at the recommended resources:

Web Hosting With FREE Domain Name

In the next posts, I will cover more aspects of web hosting services and their features. Stay tuned and get the latest posts by subscribing to my RSS Feed.

Wish You the Best!

Hooshmand Moslemi

Registering a Domain Name

Posted on by Admin

Registering a Domain Name is the first step of Building a Website and followed right after the Brainstorming step. After you choose your website type and topic and come up with some profitable keywords that reflect a hot niche market, then you might choose a domain name and register it.

What is a Domain Name?

In a nutshell, a Domain Name is the address of a website that people should type in their browser bar in order to go to that specific website. In fact, your domain name is the name of your site, business or brand name. This is the first element your visitors notice when they visit your website.

Domain Names are used in form of URLs (http://www.YourDomainName.com) and represents one or more IP Addresses (http://216.239.51.99/). So, instead of typing that IP Address in the browser bar, you can just type the domain Name even in form of www.YourDomainName.com or YourDomainName.com.

The Structure Of a Domain Name

Basically, a Domain Name is composed of two or more parts. The first part is the section after the final dot (.) and is called Top-Level Domain Name. It can be either a Generic Top-Level Domain Name Extension such as .com, .net, .org or a Country Code Top-Level Domain Name Extension such as .us, .ca, .de.

The second part is the section before the final dot(.) and is called Second-Level Domain Name. This is the main part of your domain name and reflects the name of your business, brand name, keywords or topic. This is the part that you are going to choose and register. Of course, you will also determine which top-level Domain Name you prefer.

Choosing the right domain name will always bring great results. Successful business owners have good domain names and admit the importance of this fact. If you too want to build a successful website, then you should think about choosing and registering a good domain name. That way, you audience will

  • Find Your Website Better
  • Remember Your Website Better

What is a Good Domain Name?

Although there are tons of points you have to notice before registering a domain name, I thought it would be enough to mention the most important ones. Take the following tips into account before registering a domain name:

1. Don´t ever try to take FREE domain names. Remember you are going to build a business and your website and its components are your properties. You have to own them and have full control over your stuffs. A FREE domain name does not give you the full rights. Besides, FREE domain names are parts of a main domain name. So, a FREE domain name is normally too long, ugly and unprofessional.

2. If you have a business or brand name, choose it as your domain name, as well. But, if you don´t, pick a good name. As you may remember from the previous step, you had to find some hot profitable keywords. Choose the best one and check if it is available. That way, you will be able to have a keyword-rich domain name which may help your audience find you better through search engines.

3. Always try to choose a domain name that is short and easy-to-remember. Bear in mind that your visitors should be able to memorize it very easily. I would personally prefer to choose a name less than 20 characters.

4. Your domain name should be easy to read, as well. If you are going to use some abbreviations, fine! But, don´t try to use some strange or unfamiliar names. Like I said before, if people can read it with ease, they would also remember it simply.

5. Avoid using misspellings. A misspelled domain name looks ugly and unprofessional. Only if you have the correct name and believe that many people may spell that name incorrect, you can register a misspelled name, as well and redirect it to the correct one. It would be smart. but if the correct name is someone else´s domain name, you will be wasting your time and money.

6. If possible, don´t use hyphen (dash) in your domain name. A hyphenated domain name may look easy to read for visitors and easy to distinguish for search engines, but it may not be easy to remember and does not look professional. If possible, register both hyphenated and non-hyphenated domain name. That way, you will ensure that you won´t lose any visitor.

7. While there are tons of Top-level Domain Name Extensions, I would prefer to choose only .com because they are more popular. If you can, go and register similar names in different extensions such as .net, .biz, .name, .info. But, .com are more powerful.

Where To Register a Domain Name?

Domain names can be registered by Registrars, companies accredited by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) and/or by a national authority. If your chosen name is available, you will be able to take that domain name and register it as your own.

The price of a domain name is usually too cheap and can be paid one time per full year. Sometimes you may get it for FREE if you order a web hosting service, as well. The normal price for a domain name is about $10 USD/ Year.

Always try to register your domain name from a reliable and popular registrar company. There are a number of websites where you can buy a domain name from. GoDaddy.com is the world´s largest registrar on the Internet and I highly recommend it. In the next posts, I will reveal more resources where you can get cheap domain names and even buy or sell your own. Stay tuned and subscribe to the RSS Feed right away!

Cheers,

Hooshmand Moslemi

Niche Finding

Posted on by Admin

Niche Finding is the last step of Brainstorming and the practical result of an accurate and deep research market. In this step you will be able to find a profitable niche market which you can start building your website around that niche.

For those who don´t know what a niche market is, it is a segment of a market that has specific targeted customers. In other words, a niche market is a focused portion of a market, addressing a need for a product or service. So, in most cases, terms such as “Words”, “Keywords” and “Key Phrases” can be used as the synonyms of Niche Markets.

In the Market Research process, you were supposed to keep in mind 3 important factors while researching a market for your website (Demand, Supply & Profitability). In fact, this step is the practical aspect of a market research process and at the end, you will be able to find a profitable potion in the market that you can start building your website in that niche.

Since most of your customers will find your website through search engines, it would make sense if we focus our market research on this media. Then, we can go to the next level and expand our research process. But now, the following factors will be focused and monitored on search engines and in most cases, Google.

First select one of the general or broad terms you came up before as the main topic for your website. The point is to find a list of other related terms or keywords to your topic and determine if they meet the criteria or not.

There are some criteria for each and every factor and I am going to go through all of them. Bear in mind that most of the numbers are for estimation purposes only.

1. Demand

It is defined as the number of searches done by people on the Internet. If we find out how many people search a specific word or keyword in a search engine, then we will simply get a better picture of the existing demand out there.

A profitable niche is a high demand part of the market meaning that there are already a lot of potential customers looking for that specific topic. The more the number of searches, the greater the potential.

Basically, you should select a keyword that is searched more than 100 times per day (+3,000/Month). This estimation just tells you that there are a quite number of searches done each and every month. So, you would determine if it is worth building  a site around that keyword or not.

On the other hand, you have to check the trends, as well. Just because the number of searches is high doesn´t mean it applies all the time. Sometimes, an occasion or a news could create some demand in the market that won´t last forever. Checking the trends over a longer period of time would give you a better indication. If that specific keyword has been searched on the Internet for a long time without any big difference, then you would consider it as high-demand keyword.

2. Supply

It is defined as the number of competition out there and shows how many websites are using the same keywords on their web pages. As I mentioned before, you should check out this factor through search engines and determine how much the strength of competition there is.

I would only recommend using the big and famous search engines in this approach. And as you may know, the leading search engines are Google, Yahoo! and MSN. In most cases, I would prefer to focus my research only on the most powerful one, Google.

You can check this factor by entering your specific keyword in the search engines between quotes(“”). That way, only the web pages having that keyword in the exact order will come up and you will see the number of your competitors. Remember that your potential customer would not type that keyword in the quotes. It is only an indication for you to figure out the strength of competition.

If you pick a low-supply keyword, you will have better chances to beat your competitors. So, it is too important to select a zero-to-low niche market at the beginning in order to avoid competing with a large number of other established websites.

Basically, that number should be less than 30,000 web pages. More conservatively, it is better to go for less than 10,000 web pages. In fact, it depends on the first factor. If your keyword has a decent number of demand (+200/Day), you can still consider 30,000 web pages as a low-supply keyword.

Sometimes, you would better check other elements of competition, as well. For example, how many web pages are using your specific keyword in their “Title”, “URL Address”, “Text” and “Anchor Text”. In the next posts, I will talk about them in more detail.

3. Profitability

It is defined as the grade of potential profitability and measured by checking if there is enough money to spend or not in that specific niche market.

You may find some high-demand and low-supply keywords, but don´t start building your website around them until you find out they are profitable. Otherwise, how would you be able to make money from your website?

Checking the potential profitability of a keyword is not a simple task. Basically, this fact can only be gained through testing and analysing the results. Since, this is your first website and you don´t have any previous test results then you should use your logic in this approach.

Basically, if there are potential customers in a specific niche market, then there should be some advertisers willing to spend money for promotional purposes, as well. People want good results from their projects and if there is not enough money to spend, they would not keep their projects running.

So, you can get a better indication of a potential profitability of a specific keyword. Just type it in a search engine like Google and check if there are some sponsored links at the right side of the results. If yes, chances are that there are already some advertisers making money in that market.

Also, you may check if there is any related affiliate program for your topic or not. In most cases, you don´t have your own product or service and want to monetize your website by promoting other´s stuff. So, if there is not any single affiliate program out there, you would not be able to monetize your web pages.

Just enter your keywords along with terms such as “Affiliate Program”, “Referral Program” or “Partnership Program” in the search engines and see what comes up. Check out the results and if you find a relevant program, join it.

As you may see, finding a profitable niche market is dependent on the above-mentioned factors. If you overlook them or do the process wrong, you will hardly succeed. Later, you will realize how important it is to pick the hot keywords for your niche market, even in the steps like Marketing and Monetizing.

Now, you have come up with some related keywords that are high-demand and low-supply with some potential profitability. At this point, you can start building your website based on those keywords. In the next posts, I will get though them all. Of course, you don´t want to miss out any single post, so subscribe to the blog RSS Feed today!

See You!

Hooshmand Moslemi

Researching a Market

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Researching the market for a website is the most essential part of brainstorming after determining your website type and topic. It is an important process which you have to collect, record and analyze the needed information on the market of your website in order to find a hot and profitable niche.

Niche Finding is the result of an accurate and appropriate market research process which will be explained in the next sessions as the last step of brainstorming a website. Now, we are going to go through the process of researching a website.

At this point, you have chosen your website type (model) as explained in the last part. Also, you have come up with some topics that are in your interests. Some general and broad terms that you are knowledgeable or passionate about. Now, you are going to research that topic, market or industry to check if it is worth creating a website in that market or not.

During the market research process, you have to take 3 important factors into account. After gathering the needed data and information on the basis of those important factors, you will then need to analyze it deeply and carefully. It will end up to some specific information which will be used as the basics of the Niche Finding process.

3 Important Factors You Should Always Keep In Mind While Researching a Market:

1. Demand

The very first aspect you have to consider during the entire market research process is to check if your chosen market (topic or industry) is in demand or not. It is an extremely crucial factor for any business owner to know. If there is not enough demand for a specific topic, then chances are that you will hardly be able to build a profitable online business around that topic. So, your market should be high-demand. The following questions may help you get a better picture:

  • What is happening in the market at the moment?
  • What are the hottest market trends in your topic?
  • How many people are talking about your topic in the market?
  • What are consumers talking about the products in your market?
  • Who are the market potential customers and where are they located?

You see, the above questions are very helpful in this step and you have to consider them all the time. After narrowing down your chosen market, you will find out some sub-topics in your broad market that are more specific. Your job is to list as many high-demand sub-topics as possible and record your data. Then, you might bring your data to the next step and check the second factor.

2. Supply

The second factor in this process is to determine how much supply there is to meet the current demand. In other words, you have to check the competition out there in your market and find out the quantity and quality of them. So, get the data you gathered before and check the supply for each and every of them. The point is find a low supply market. A topic or sub-topic that has a zero-to-low competition. That way, you will be able to make a wise decision. The following questions would be helpful:

  • How many website are talking about your topic?
  • How many products or programs are meeting the demand?
  • Is the quality of the current supply convincing and satisfying?
  • Is there a missing link in your current competition that you can cover?

Bear in mind that there are more questions and aspects you should think about for checking the current supply. Don´t overlook this part. You will hardly succeed if you simply underestimate the strength of competition out there. You will soon realize how important this factor is even in the very last steps such as monetizing and marketing. So, don´t ignore these elements!

3. Profitability

Just because you have found a high-demand and low-supply market does not necessarily mean you have discovered a winning and profitable market. The third factor of a good market research for a website is to determine if the market is quite profitable or not. If there is not enough money to spend in that market, how would you be able to earn money and run your online business around that topic?

Asking the following questions may help you understand the concept of profitability:

  • Is there any product or service being sold today by your competitors in the market?
  • Is there any advertiser out there willing to pay to promote their products or services?
  • Is there any affiliate program that pays you commissions for promoting their products?

As you may see, these questions give you a better picture of profitability in a specific market. If you can find a high-demand and low-supply topic with convincing amount of profitability, then you will definitely be able to discover a hot niche market which you have to start building your website around.

Niche Finding is an amazing result of a good market research. It should not technically be considered as a fully separate step. Perform a complete market research for your future website and you will have accomplished the Niche Finding step, as well. In the next posts, I will cover Niche Finding in more detail, which is the ultimate goal of Brainstorming phase.

Stay tuned and subscribe to the blog RSS Feed today, because I am going to provide you with more valuable information!

Take Care!

Hooshmand Moslemi

Planning a Website

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Website Planning is the second most important step of brainstorming phase and is mostly about setting a plan for your site building project. It is not about market research, site design or anything like that. In fact, this step is more likely a fundamental step and is talking about a step-by-step business plan for the entire process.

The reason why I have put this step in the first phase of site creation process is that without a clear plan you won´t be able to get the job done. After setting goals for your business and generating some ideas for your website such as your site type and topic, then you will need to follow the goals and commitments step by step. You should know how to get started, what the steps are, how to collect the needed information, tools and resources and how to get the job done.

What To Do First?

So, the very first task is to ask a few important questions before starting your project. In fact, these questions will exactly determine a more clear plan for your web business:

1. How much time you can dedicate to your online business?

2. How much money you can spend for your website projects?

3. How big is your financial goal for the short and long term?

4. What are your human resources for your new web business?

5. How much automated will the entire process be in percentage?

6. How personalized do you really want your Internet business to be?

These are the questions that help you set a better plan for your future website. Although many of them could be mentioned a little bit earlier in the step of idea generating or goal-setting, but I think it would be a good idea to mention them here in the Planning step, as well.

Creating a Mind Map

After determining your answers, you will be ready to set a complete plan for your website. My advice is to at least pick a pen and write down every single step on a piece of paper. If you don´t like writing, use an application for creating mind maps in order to brainstorm and plan your projects in an easy way. I would recommend an online program called bubbl.us that is absolutely FREE.

Always be as organized as possible. Build your step by step plan, put it in front of your eyes and stick with it. That way, you will exactly know what to do every time you want to work on your project.

For a better picture of what I am talking about, browse this website carefully and write down the steps. I have laid out a complete action plan that walks you through the entire process step by step. At least, you will figure out how site building works and what the steps are. I suggest to check out the About page where you will see a clear diagram.

Stay tuned and subscribe to the blog RSS Feed, because I will be providing more valuable information in the next posts.

Be Happy!

Hooshmand Moslemi

Idea Generating For a Website

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Idea generating is the first step of brainstorming a website. In fact, you will be building a foundation for your website and your goals. You have to generate some ideas that can be turned into a website, or an online business.

To be honest with you, this step is the hardest one in the entire process of making your website. If you overlook or underestimate the importance of this part, you won´t be able to create a profitable web business. So, spend more time in this step and don´t move on to the next steps until you have completely finished the needed tasks.

What Do You Need To Do For Generating Website Ideas?

Basically, you have to complete 2 important tasks for generating an idea for your website. In fact, you need to determine the following elements:

1. Website Type:

Website type is a model of website that is specialized in a particular use or service. In fact, it is too important for you to select a special website type because it helps you become more specific and build your website according to that type. Although the basic principles of site building would apply to any type of website, but the details would vary. Website type normally reflects the goals of the website. Here are some of the more common types of websites on the Internet:

A) Commercial Website B) Personal Website C) News Website D) Educational Website

E) Organizational Website F) Entertainment Website G) Blog Website F) Hybrid Website

2. Website Topic:

This is the main theme or subject of your future website and reflects a specific topic in your market. Actually, that topic should be something you are knowledgeable or passionate about. Something that you will be able to add content more regularly. That´s why you need to pick a topic that is close to your interests. Later on, you will narrow down your topic in the market and find specific segments called niches. That process is called Niche Finding and is the last step of brainstorming phase.

Now, pick up a pen and paper and write down a list of topics that are close to your: Knowledge, Experience, Passion, Interests or Hobby. I don´t think It would be that hard. I bet everyone can make a top 10 list of his/her favorite topics.

If you have still difficulties in choosing a main topic for your website, follow the tips below:

– Go to a directory website and browse their lists. Websites like dmoz.org or dir.yahoo.com are great places full of website topics. You can even narrow down and find some sub-topics as well. Write down the top 10 topics that are close to your favorites.

– Rank your potential website topics from your favourite to least favourite one. That way, you will have the best idea at the top which you can start narrowing down that topic and find more specific sub-topics.

At this point, you have completed the Idea Generating step, been able to choose your site model (type) and pick some website topics. Remember that this step is not called Market Research or Niche Finding. This is only for idea generation purposes and gives you raw information that you will be using in the next steps.

Idea Generating should be considered as the basis of the entire process and next steps are performed around this point. In the next posts, I will walk you through the Planning, Researching and Niche Finding steps. So, stay tuned and subscribe to the RSS Feed right now!

Take Care!

Hooshmand Moslemi

Tracking a Website

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Tracking your own website is considered as the last, but not the least step of the entire process and should not be ignored or overlooked. In fact, one of the biggest mistakes that many site owners make is that they don´t usually track their marketing efforts. If you don´t, you will be wasting your time and money. 

The purpose of this step is mainly tracking the traffic resources to your website, finding out where your visitors come from and how they interact with your website. It is so important that many smart marketers and webmasters do it on a daily or even hourly basis. Correct tracking and accurate analyzing could mean more profits for every business owner. So, if you want to be one of those successful people, you need to put high weight on this vital step, as well.

As a matter of fact, like the previous steps, tracking should be performed and monitored from the beginning. It may be regarded as the last phase, but some elements must be put in the building step, as well. So, as you see, nothing is totally separated here. All steps are like loops of a chain.

This step can basically be divided into 2 parts. One of them is more technical and the other is analytical. No matter if you are a beginner or an expert, you can do it with the right knowledge and powerful tools. Here are the 2 parts:

1. Tracking

In order to find out how much traffic you have received, where your visitors have come from and how they have interacted with your website, you need data and statistics. In short, tracking technically means getting those data and stats and it can be measured by some tracking tools and programs on the Internet.

Today, you can track everything and receive data and stats such as number of your site unique visitors, page views, hits and downloads. You are now able to find out incoming and outgoing links. You can also get data on more specific details. For example, you can find out how long your visitors have stayed on your web pages, when they have come to your website, which country they live, which Internet browser they use and much much more.  

2. Analyzing

Analyzing your website is actually the most sensitive part of the entire process. If you analyze the data and statistics you have received from your tracking efforts in the right way, you will boost your profit and increase your revenue.

With an accurate and deep analysis you will realize what is working and what is not and then you should cut off the poor elements and strengthen the positive ones to make the highest possible profit. That´s how business works.

So, nothing is more effective than testing, tracking and analyzing your website. More details about each of the above-mentioned parts will be covered In the next posts. Subscribe to the blog RSS Feed in order to get the latest updates.  

To Your Online Success!

Hooshmand Moslemi

Monetizing a Website

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Monetizing your own website is the desired result of your building and marketing steps. Actually, it is the most beautiful part of the job that increases your motivations and keeps you working, testing and improving your projects all the time.

In fact, like other steps, it cannot be considered as a totally separated part. You can start monetizing your web pages from the very first steps, but, in the entire process, we can give it a special place. So, the fourth step of making your own website is being able to make money and earn profits from your web pages.

Website monetizing is something that generates a cash flow system for your business. So if you are spending time and money on your website, you want something to help you keep running your projects. Otherwise, why would you want to continue and waste your time and money? So, if you cannot monetize your website after a while, you may regard it as a failure. Because, in most cases, the ultimate goal of building a website is making money. Right?

On the other hand, you will hardly get results overnight. It is actually a process that may take some time. Don´t get me wrong! Making a website for commercial purposes is a business. It is true that you don´t need to spend a lot of time and start up capital for running this kind of business, but you should be patient. Don´t expect to earn thousands of dollars in a matter of days! Getting rich quick is not real.

But, you will be able to earn good money if you complete the previous steps properly and elegantly. So, monetizing a website is not that hard itself. Like I said before, it is a beautiful result of your earlier efforts.

Basically, you can monetize your website with 3 different main methods. In my personal point of view, every single website on the Internet makes money from one or more monetization ways mentioned below:

1. Selling Your Own Stuff:

If you own a product or service, the main monetization method of your own web pages will definitely be selling your own stuff. Actually, you will have an e-commerce website where you will offer your audience a number of your items and in most cases get 100% of the sale to your pocket. In fact, this method has its advantages and disadvantage. So, it may not apply to everyone.

2. Selling Other People’s Stuff:

Frankly, not everyone has his own stuff to sell. So, there should be an opportunity for people to sell other´s stuff and earn commissions or referral fees. That´s why this kind of monetization method has been created. Here is how it works: you promote other´s products and services by sending your visitors to their websites and get paid whenever a desired action has been performed.

For instance, that action can be a purchase (Sale) or a sign up (Lead). This kind of business model is called Affiliate Marketing and by far is the best and easiest way to make good money online. But, I don´t mean it is as easy as 1.2.3. Due to the heavy competition out there, you will find it hard to promote other people´s stuff. Do it correctly and you will earn too much money.

3. Selling Advertising Space:

I have decided to put this monetization method as a separate one, because I do believe that there is a large difference between selling advertisement and affiliate marketing concept. Advertising can be covered everything from pay per click and pay per impression to sponsored posts and reviews.

Whatever method you choose for monetizing your website, be sure to test and track your efforts and don´t expect to get best results as quick as possible. Although this step is the most simple step of the entire process, but you should implement some strategies and techniques to achieve high grade of success.

In the next posts, I will cover each and every one of the above-mentioned methods in more details. So, stay tuned and subscribe to my RSS Feed right away, because you don´t certainly want to miss out a single tip, right? OK, and also, feel free and share this blog with your friends. I really appreciate that! 

Cheers!

Hooshmand Moslemi

Marketing a Website

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Marketing your own website is the second most important step of site building process and is defined as techniques and strategies that get traffic to your web pages. Traffic means visitors; people who see and visit your website. Therefore, without traffic, your website is like a dead web page on the world wide web.

It is traffic that may bring you profit. If your website does not get seen, how would you be able to sell your stuff on your site or promote other´s products and services? So, in other words Traffic = Money.

While this step will determine your future success in some extent, you should know that marketing a website is not a simple job. In fact, getting traffic is a very overwhelming task and if you don´t exactly know what to do and how to do, you are wasting your time and money building a website.

To be honest with you, getting traffic and website marketing is achievable. The point here is not actually getting traffic. It is important to receive high-quality traffic and targeted visitors to your website. That way, you can convert that traffic into profit and earn too much money.

So, I would not prefer to recommend you to buy bulk traffic which many beginners do these days. Trust me, it does not work. Do you really think some page views or hits to your website is traffic? Your site should get real and highly-targeted visitors. Period!

Like I said before, marketing a website should also be started and monitored from the very first steps of building your web pages. It is true that I have put this step as the third one of the entire process, but you should follow all steps together from the starting point. Later on, you will find out why it is important to do so.

When it comes to marketing a website, there are literally thousands of methods, techniques and strategies that may help you get traffic and market your web pages. In my personal point of view, you don´t need to implement all of them. Actually, you won´t have enough time, money and energy. Just focus on one or a few methods and you will get better results. 

I am going to introduce some of the best and most effective marketing methods and then let you choose the one that suits you, your needs and resources. In the next posts, I will cover each and every method more deeply.

1. Search Engine Marketing (Search Engine Optimization = SEO)

It is by far the best and most effective method of website marketing. In this method, you will actually get FREE traffic to your website from search engines like Google, Yahoo! and MSN. So, the volume and quality of traffic is too high and your visitors are much targeted. This method is based on a number of actions that help you optimize your website for search engines and improve your site rank for specific keywords in the search results.  

2. Search Engine Marketing (Pay Per Click Advertising = PPC)

This method is also based on getting traffic from the search engines, but not FREE. In fact, you pay for this kind of traffic when a user actually clicks on an ad to visit your website. This marketing model can also be very effective because of the volume and quality. But, you need to act very carefully in order to reduce the risks of money loss. The largest providers of this kind of advertising model are companies like Google AdWords, Yahoo! Search Marketing and Microsoft adCenter.

3. E-Mail Marketing

In fact, this method is one of the most profitable methods of Internet marketing that uses e-mail as a means of getting traffic to your web pages. If you have a list of subscribers that allow you to send them e-mails, then you have a great opportunity in front of you. The volume and quality of traffic in this method is totally based on how well you have built your list and developed trust. If done properly, it can bring you incredible results.    

4. Social Media Marketing

This advertising method is the newest model of Internet marketing and it is defined as a number of actions that achieve branding and marketing goals through the participation in various social media networks. This technique can integrated with other forms of marketing such as search engine optimization, viral marketing and word of mouth marketing. Therefore, this method gives a huge opportunity to advertisers and marketers. If you do it properly, the volume of traffic will be extremely high, so will the quality . Facebook, MySpace, YouTube, Squidoo, Wikipedia, Digg, StumbleUpon, Flickr and Second Life are just a few examples of social media networks.

As you see, the sky is your limit. There are literally hundreds, if not thousands of marketing methods that can help you get traffic to your web pages. The above-mentioned methods are the best ones to get started and focus. There are even more effective methods that I will cover later such as Article Marketing an Forum Marketing. So, stay tuned and subscribe to my RSS Feed in order to not miss the latest posts and updates.

Regards,

Hooshmand Moslemi

Building a Website

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After completing the Brainstorming step, you are now ready to build your own website from scratch. This phase includes everything that is related to building and publishing a website and can be done on a parallel with other steps, as well. In other words, next steps such as Marketing and Monetizing can be already merged with this step and monitored from now on. 

Building a website should also be based on previous steps. So, you are going to create your own web pages assuming you have researched the market well and found a niche about your desired topic. At this point, you have basically 4 essential steps in front of you. Some of them are one-time actions and the others should be consistently done during the process. In fact, this step is the most determinant phase of your online business.

1. Registering a Domain Name:

The very first step of the Building phase is registering a domain name. Your own domain name is the name of your business or brand. It is the URL address of your website that cannot be changed. So, this action is a one-time action. You have to register a good domain name that reflects your business or brand in a good manner. At least, your domain name should contain your keywords or key-phrases.

2. Getting a Web Hosting Plan:

Next, you should select a web hosting service and get a plan that enables you to host your website on your domain name. A web hosting service gives you the opportunity to upload and publish every kind of file versions you want to have on your site directory and sub-directories.

3. Designing Your Website:

After buying a domain name and a hosting account, you will have to design your own web pages and build your website layout. Headlines, Menus, Navigation Bars, Links and Graphics are a few examples you should think about. At this point, you will publish your web pages on your domain name and upload different files to your hosting server.

4. Creating & Publishing Content:

Actually, this step along with the step 3 can be done in parallel. The content is the main component of your own website and the only element that your audience is looking for. Creating and publishing high-quality content will give value to its readership and develops relationship between the website owner and its visitors.

Like I said before, building a website is not a separate step in the whole process. Rather, it can be combined with other steps, as well and, in some ways, be improved all the time. In the next posts, each and every one of the above-mentioned steps will be explained more deeply. So, if you would like to receive the latest posts and updates, bookmark this blog and subscribe to my RSS Feed!

To Your Online Success!

Hooshmand Moslemi 

Brainstorming a Website

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Brainstorming is a number of activities done for generating some ideas and plans for a specific project. With that being said, brainstorming a website is a process of generating and developing ideas plus setting goals and plans for making a working website. It is regarded as the first and most important step of building web pages from scratch. 

Actually, brainstorming a website allows you to set a frame for your future efforts. In this phase, you will come up with different ideas, various business models, special plans, market research and hot niches. The main goal of this step is to find a suitable niche market based on your topic and business model. Believe it or not, without this step, your project will ultimately fail. So, bear in mind that the more you pay attention to this step and the more better you do your job, the more successful your website will be.

So, in order to carefully brainstorm a website and choose a winner topic in the market, you have to follow 4 important steps:

1. Idea Generating:

This is the core of your project. In this step, you will have to think deeply, ask yourself some questions, set your goals, come up with a number of ideas and generate one of them as the main topic of your future website. The gained data is raw and you have to narrow it down later. Besides, in this step, you should choose your business model and lay out your website on that specific model.

2. Planning:

Honestly, without a clear plan, you won´t get anywhere. You have to be organized and set your plans. In this step, you determine a general map of your activities and create a step-by-step plan for your business. Also, you should decide how much time, money and energy you are willing to spend.  This plan is highly valuable and puts you in the right track of building a successful website.

3. Researching:

So far, you´ve come up with a few ideas and topics, set your goals and plans, determined your spendable time and money and now you are ready to research. This step is the most time-consuming part of your brainstorming process. You should be too careful and accurate in this phase. It is not based on guess and imagination. You have to research the market about the idea and topic you are going to work on and find out if it is worth it or not. You should figure out how much demand and supply there is for that particular topic and if the market is profitable or not.

4. Niche Finding:

It is the last step of brainstorming phase and is the result of your previous activities. After researching the market, you should be able to find a hot niche, a profitable segment of the whole market about your particular topic. Your niche market should be in high demand and low supply. The secret key to success in your site building business is dependent on your niche market. Don´t overlook this important step, because it determines your future achievements.

So, brainstorming a website is a necessary action for everyone who wants to build a website that works. I have laid out a complete guide on the whole process on this blog hoping you will find it valuable before making your own website. In next posts, each and every one of the above-mentioned steps will be covered more deeply. So, if you want to stay tuned and get the latest posts and articles, bookmark this website and subscribe to the RSS Feed!

To Your Online Success!

Hooshmand Moslemi