You have a website idea but don't know how to take action - Here's how

You have a website idea but don't know how to take action - Here's how

We all want to get online but sometimes we don't know the first steps to take in order to do it. The good thing is that you found this discussion where the process from purchasing a domain to getting your initial sale and branding yourself along the way will be covered. Sure, it's a long road and could seem like you're going up and down a hill multiple times, but it's worth it in the long run because you could actually have financial freedom if you tap into the right niche! The main thing people worry about is the design of their website, but what they should actually think about first is their domain name. There is actually an order of operations when it comes to setting up a website, think of DHDOOM, it's not the best way to remember this, but if you just think "Designated Hitter Doom!" you'll remember DH (designated hitter) and DOOM.

What DHDOOM means:
Domain
Hosting
Design
Optimization (on page)
Optimization (off page)
Marketing

Basically you'll be covering everything you'll need to know with DHDOOM

The following content will cover your domains, hosting, design, on page and off page optimization, as well as some marketing in order to bring in a sale or two.


Choosing the right domain name for your website

• Short and Sweet - Your domain name needs to be short and sweet for a couple reasons. First, you want your domain to be short so your visitors can easily remember what it is. Second, you want it to be easier to type than a longer domain. Third, you want it to be easier to brand than a longer domain.
  
  Now, you can't just purchase any short domain name and think you can brand it because it's short, it doesn't work like that. You will need to get it related to your niche somehow, and that doesn't mean you need to get your keyword within it, like how we all had to back in the day Get it short, make sure people can remember it, and be sure it's easy to type on a keyboard
  
  
• Brandable - Like I mentioned above, a shorter domain is easier to brand because it can be remembered easier and people will come directly to your website without having to do a random search in order to find you. People will also share it much more frequently because they can remember how to type it rather than searching and then doing a copy/paste type share.

Choosing the right hosting for your new website
For hosting I like to recommend NameCheap because their services are great and their customer support is some of the best I've had in a long time. If you're having a problem with your website, and you think it could be due to the hosting, you can just contact them and they will let you know exactly what is going on and why your website is not loading right or why it's crashing or lagging. If it's a problem due to the server, they will fix it immediately. If you're having a problem because your design is doing something, they will let you know it's something to do with your code.


Choose how you want it designed
This is a big problem with people because they usually have an idea for a website, but they want custom coding to make their imagination come to life, and not everyone can afford that. The real problem is that they don't know where to look when it comes to great website design. You can find plenty of great designers on freelance marketplaces like SEOclerks and your worries will be lifted because they can get almost anything done for you in a timely manner for a fraction of the price than if you contacted some company through a Google search.

Another problem that people run into, after they know what they want their design to look like, is if they want a fully custom website or if they want to work with something like WordPress where they can purchase a theme.

1. Custom HTML/PHP - A custom HTML/PHP website will definitely cost a lot more because the designer is starting everything from scratch. The could have some scripts and basic templates ready to go, but even them it will take a lot of customization in order to make your perfect website. There are also a lot of things that can go wrong with a custom design, and that will drastically increase the time to complete everything before you can go live.
   
   
2. WordPress - A lot of people will use WordPress as their content management systems (CMS) because it's designed very well as a back-end system to keep everything managed. But what a lot of newer people don't know is that you can purchase a theme from somewhere like ThemeForest and get a fully functioning website design that you just upload and customize slightly by adding your own images. I actually prefer using WordPress in the beginning of a websites lifetime because you never know how successful something is going to be. There have been plenty of times that I've purchased a theme and the website never panned out because the niche was pretty much dead or I couldn't market it as well as I thought I could. If I had purchased a custom design for a few thousand dollars, I would have wasted a lot of money on something that didn't pan out. This is why I like using WordPress as my back-end with a premium theme as my design in the beginning so I don't have to worry too much about my initial investment

Optimizing your pages for getting properly indexed
When you do on page optimization, you're going through your pages and editing them in a way that Google and the other search engines will be able to figure out what you're website is going over. If you aren't optimizing anything on page, you won't see as many of your pages getting indexed, or getting indexed at all. So, to help out Google and the other search engines, you should be optimizing the following:

• Your Titles - These are the meta titles within your code, and if you're using WordPress, it's the title of a blog post. Be sure to get a keyword in the title for best optimization and make it readable.
  
  
• Descriptions - Your meta descriptions are a big thing now that google increased the character limit so you can add more content for them to categorize you with. Before I would say to get 1-2 keyword in your descriptions, but now that they descriptions can be twice as long, I don't see why you couldn't put 2-4 keywords in there and be perfectly safe
  
  
• Header Tags - This is a little trickier since it requires a little coding and know how. If you ever see someone talking about H1-H6 tags, those are the headers! They basically let the search engines know what the most important content on your pages are. And if you didn't put 2 and 2 together yet, H1 is your most important content while H6 is your least important content on the page. All of your headers are important content, but you can prioritize them for Google.
  
  
• Alt Tags - Alt tags are a little trickier to do since you will likely need a special plugin with WordPress or you'll have to go through your code in order to edit them. Basically, alt tags are tags within the code that shows your images that lets the search engines know what the image actually is. This helps the search engines index your images better, and will help your overall SEO in general.
  
  
• Your content - This is a big thing right now, since your content is the face of your website after your actual design. If your content isn't optimized, you won't see much success after posting for a few months. If you're getting your content to a 2% to 3% keyword density, 2-3 keywords per 100 words, you will have a better chance at cracking into the top of the rankings on all the search engines.

Optimizing your website for higher rankings within the search engines
We all know that you need to build a presence off of your own website in order to become the authority within your niche, and the easiest way to do this is to post on niche related websites and get backlinks from those posts. I'm not telling you to scrape together 1,000 different websites within you niche and then posting on them "I love your website!" because that will just get seen as spam. You'll need to add quality content to the niche related websites in order for it to stick and keep your backlink there.

Backlinks are little pieces of HTML code that create hyperlinks on websites. Have you ever been to a website and clicked on a link that brought you to a different website? Well, that was a backlink and it helps the ending website increase in the rankings


Doing proper online marketing to boost sales
Online marketing is a tricky thing to do if you're not use to it. Basically, you'll have to build up your brand name and hope people come to make a purchase or sign up on your website. You can set up some PPC campaigns through Adwords and Facebook in order to reduce the time it takes to make your initial sales, but that doesn't have the same effect that a great online marketing campaign can produce. Sure, PPC campaigns can bring in quick sales, but a great marketing campaign can create sales and keep people coming back for years instead of just one click through an ad they found on Google for Facebook

It's difficult to tell you how you should run a marketing campaign for your website since every website is different. Basically, what you'll need to do is run some PPC campaigns to get your initial sales in and also build your reputation on 3rd party websites in order for everyone to see you as amazing, as well as the search engines



In Conclusion
Building and making a website profitable isn't an easy thing to do, it takes a lot of work, but just getting your website up and running is the first battle that you need to win in order to start your path towards success. You can't just start with a great website and make money, you need to start with your domain name and make every decision carfully from there on. I've written up a decent guide to help you with your decisions, but it's really up to you to choose the right path. I've done this plenty of times, so I'm a seasoned vet when it comes to getting a website up and running, hopefully you trust the words that I've written for you



Remember to follow me!
https://www.seoclerks.com/user/Razzy


Thanks!

Razzy