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Building a Website – If I Can Do It, Anyone Can!The thought of building a website all began out of a desire to find a better way to sell my crafts, primarily my copper fountains, stained glass and electroforming creations. As I researched how I might go about becoming a webmaster (fancy word!) I came across the term “Infopreneur” (another fancy word!) which is defined by Wikipedia as “a person whose primary business is gathering and selling electronic information”. This got me to thinking about all of my life experiences and what might be interesting or useful information to others. At first I concluded that there wasn’t much about my knowledge that might be interesting to others. But I didn’t give up.
Looking at all of the things I have done and was still doing and applying a few research tools I found on the web, kept me coming back to my crafts. As I began to pursue this line of thinking further I kind of totaled up the list of crafts and hobbies that I have or have had over the years and decided that there might be enough to get a start building a website. Those activities that I didn’t know about I believed I could learn. Again, there were some tools on the web that were useful in analyzing my ideas.
Finding these tools and figuring out how to use them was pretty confusing and it took a lot of my time, but I felt like I was progressing, at least a bit. Along with thinking about content, I began looking at how I go about having someone host my site. This was confusing as well as there seemed to be so many options, all with names I did not quite understand. Bound and sort of determined, I pushed on.
Most of us when investing time and effort into a project like this, hope to get some benefit from it. So how could I possibly make a little money being an Infopreneur? I then tried to figure out how other information websites were making money. It was all very confusing, but again I kept looking.
I had been seeing in my web searches on building a website references to something called “Site Build It” and decided to spend a little time checking it out. I tried to find independent reviews of Site Build It or “SBI” as it is also known as, but usually ended up on a site with someone pretending to review SBI but then leading you to a link to buy SBI. This was frustrating. Eventually, I found a few sites that said good things about it without trying to sell it. What they said was that if you are new to building web sites this was not a bad way to get started.
I spent a fair bit of time on the SBI site looking at their sales pitches and the free tools that they were offering. Of course there were many more tools promised once you sign-up and pay the money. Fair enough, I don’t expect everything to be free.
I even had a couple of computer savvy people I know look at the site and give me their opinions. It took a couple more weeks of pondering before deciding that it was worth a try, after all, they had a money back guarantee.
So, I paid my money and began to work with the tools and video action guides that are comprehensive and pretty well done. They took me step by step through the process of building a website. In contrast to some of the other sites I had investigated, SBI warned me not to get in a hurry. “Take your time, get it right and good things will happen” which in retrospect is good advice.
It took about three weeks of pretty intensive work before I was ready to register a domain name. This time was spent testing my ideas for a website through some very helpful tools with names like “Brainstomer”, “Master Keyword List”, “Search-It” and a few others. The Video Action Guide took all of the confusion out of these tools and kept me on the logical path to naming my site.
Once I registered a domain name, a whole new suite of tools and a new Video Action Guide becomes available. These walk you through getting your homepage up and running and all the steps beyond.
Now, I would say that I am not a real good writer and wasn’t at all sure how to write in this type of situation. Most of my writing through the years had been in a technical/business setting where you are usually just pounding out the facts in some kind of logical order. Luckily, SBI had some real good writing guides which helped me get started. I know I still have a way to go!
For a couple of months following the creation of my homepage, I spent all my free time creating pages of content. The plan is to build something for people to come to before you invite them there. Somewhere around 30 pages and you are ready to open the doors.
After getting about 30 pages, the next challenge was to let people know that my site existed. Google, Yahoo and all the others don’t immediately know you are on the web and once you tell them you will be so far down in the search results no one will ever find you. A couple of weeks after telling the search engines I was out there, I found my site on a Google search on page 29. I knew not many people were going to find me at that position!
At this time I was getting one or two visitors per day. I am pretty sure that these were my sisters and a few friends, but they were hits and all hits count. SBI provided a few strategies that helped get things going. With the things suggested by SBI, my traffic began to grow while I kept building a website.
All during this time, I kept building pages. Some of these pages I am pretty proud of and some of them can be improved. As I get better, I will go back and improve those, but for now I will keep going forward.
So, if anyone asks me if SBI is worth the money? I will say yes. Would I do it again? The answer is again, yes. In fact, I have been thinking about creating another website when this one is finished and going strong. It will be hosted by SBI, they have earned my loyalty.
Final Thought on Building a WebsiteBuilding a website is a great way to spend some of your free time. If you enjoy the internet and can share some of your life’s experiences or are willing to research your subject, then you can build a successful website. It may start out as a hobby, but you will end up with a home based business.
Other descriptors include find a hobby and money making hobbies.
Other Resources to Help YouMake-My-Website.Com - Expert advice that guides you through the process of how to make your own website; including choosing your idea concept, building and monetizing your site, and promoting it so it can be found by the Search Engines.
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