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How To Build A Successful And Profitable Blog/Website With Minimum Resources

I have not been a webmaster for a very long time but I just want to share some things that helped me increase my traffic and hopefully will do the same for you too. This is my second site. My first site runs pretty much on its own or what they call "autopilot". Here are some simple tips I believe can help you build a fairly successful blog or a website.

Domain Name:

The first step in building a successful website is registering a domain (Of course). It is always better to register a longer domain name easier to remember and that makes sense than a shorter one that doesn't. Try sticking with just letters. Numbers, hyphens and other unknown characters can confuse your user. And register the '.com' domain rather than '.net' or '.org'. It should be obvious why. Last point about registering your domain- It is always helpful if your domain name is related to the content of your site but don't worry even if it doesn't.

Web Hosting:

The second important thing is to choose your web host. Read reviews and compare different web hosting sites. My site is hosted by www.1and1.com and I chose this because it's cheap compared to others. For the first six months I paid $15 for the hosting and received two free domains. They were having a sale when I bought it but I think the current price is still cheaper than other web hosting sites. No matter what hosting you choose make sure they have PHP script and MySQL database.This site runs on Wordpress but you can install Drupal or anything other software you are comfortable using. Choose proper template. Making a site look professional is very crucial.

Content:

Ok, now when your blog is set, important thing to focus on is your content. Originality and regularity are the two most important factors that will determine your site's fate. Think what you know that most people don't. What are your fields of expertise? Make it your niche. Try to write at least one new post a day. New content is very important to make your visitors come back to your site. Write posts that needs to be read immediately. If you don't have time to write a new content everyday or if you are just lazy, write something that is timeless. Timeless content will keep your site fresh no matter when your visitor reads it.

Spread The Word:

Participate in different forums and reply on posts that matches your sites content. Some of the well-known forums are webmasterworld.com and digitalpoint.com. If you think you have written something amazing, interesting or unique then dig it. Submit a new topic on digg.com and you will immediately see some traffic. If you write something extraordinary and it lands on the home page of digg.com then you will receive thousands and thousands of traffic. Some other sites similar to digg are del.icio.us, fark.com, technorati.com, etc. There are whole bunches of these kinds of site. Submit your story on as many sites as you can. If nothing happens, you will end up getting free backlinks from these high page ranked sites. But this technique will be only feasible for a short period. You will have to keep providing good content so that the visitors want to come to your site directly. Email subscription and weekly newsletters are some of the ways to remind visitors that your site exists. If you are selling products on your site, go for pay per click advertising. This will help you receive good targeted traffic which means the conversion rate will be better.

Monetizing Your Site:

Some webmasters claim that they don't want to focus on monetizing the site unless it gets some traffic but I believe that you have to think about monetizing even before you register your domain. Think ways how you can earn money without loosing the professionalism of your site. Don't just fill your site with junk ads. Google adsense and adbrite are probably the best source of income for webmasters. If you were banned or rejected by Google adsense, read my other post where I have addressed this issue -Adsense-Adbrite . Your revenue will depend on your ads placement, your traffic origin, number of new visitors because returning visitors are blind to advertisement and of course your luck. Also check for affiliate marketing because it can help you earn a lot of money in a small period of time. Read other webmaster forums as mentioned above to know what are the latest money making trends on the net.

And finally, be optimistic, don't give up and pray.

This is just a brief description on what are some simple but important steps in building a successful site. These might sound obvious to some of you but obvious is usually the hardest thing to see. There are other lots of details I have not covered in this post but will try to do so in the future.