Hi all. Here is a post from my blog Raceforacamaro.com where I dissect issues related to generating money online. I thought this post might help some of the newer users on DP. Comments are always welcome. Webmaster 101 - All the secrets revealed! Black hat, white hat, gray hat, schemes and tricks. In this post I am going to give you the secret recipe. This is what all the big guys don't want you to know. Normally I would sell this for $97. But WAIT! There's more! For today only I will give it all away free! All you have to do is visit my buggy, spam filled, 40 page long landing page of death! If you haven't figured it out by now, I am being sarcastic. On the forums I am active, I can't count the number of times where people are looking for the holy grail. News flash. There is no holy grail. I am going to lay out exactly what you need to do to get get your site indexed in the big guys, gain traffic, and eventually make money. If you haven't already, read my post on Three Easy Steps for Developing Better Websites. Before you begin any web project, you should follow the three steps in the article. Now, on to the good stuff. Since I like laying things out in steps, that is exactly what I will do. Step 1. Content, Content, Content Any new site should be based on content. Fluff will not work. All these people promising great returns by scrapping content from other sites are wrong. This is a VERY difficult task as the search engines constantly are on the look out for this stuff. Even the most seasoned black hatter will tell you that they have to constantly re-invent themselves. For someone new into the webmaster arena, focus on building a site based on something you are passionate about. Find something that you can put a unique prospective on and write 5-10 pages of content a week on. Content also doesn't mean just words. Content can be video or audio files (don't pirate, it will only end badly), images, widgets, what ever. I learned this from an English Lit professor I had in college. While he was no web head, the lesson surly applies here. It is also valuable to mix it up and have multiple pieces of content on the same topic. This variety of related and interesting content is literally 90% of the battle. Half a page of content and all the links in the world will do jack shit. If you can't produce the content, don't do it. And please, for the sake of yourself and the internet, stay away from MFA (Made For Adsense) sites. They are junk, rarely work at all, and are generally a supreme waste of time. Step 2. Look and Feel Now that you have content, you can figure out how to organize and present it. A good clean layout goes a LONG ways. Focus on eye pleasing colors. A black background with salmon pink and lime green text, and flashing gifs is the prototypical example of what not to do. By going on Google or Download.com you can find tools that help you create complimenting colors. I have used these types of tools main times as I am no Picasso. When developing a layout, remember to include a couple of things. One would be a simple and easy to use navigation system. For search engine spidering purposes (I will go into more detail later), try to keep your site three levels deep or less. Do some reading on Mod_Rewite (Just Google it. I may write on it in a later post). A search box can be a great addition and a money maker. Google's Adsense program provides a great site search that displays ads along site the results. The front page is critical to your success. Have something that catches a visitors eyes. This is a great place to have your newest content, complimenting images, and links to further information. If you have a new feature, introduce it. Don't expect your user to just know to look for something new. Also, remember you need to guide your visitors eyes from the upper left to the lower right hand corner. I am constantly doing a visual check on my sites to see if my eyes naturally follow where I want them to go. Forums.Digitalpoint.com is a great place to post your site in the review section and get some quality feed back. Always get a second opinion as your opinion is biased. Step 3. Sitemap. Don't over look! A quality sitemap is crucial to getting your site out there. Many many people over look the sitemap when it will be the single most important part of your marketing. If you are using a piece of blogging software like Wordpress, you can find plugin's that automatically generate sitemaps for you. If you have created your own site, you can download third-party software that can index your site and generate a sitemap for you. Google provides a list of free sitemap creators that meet Google's guidelines. Once you have a sitemap, place it in your root directory. It should look like http://www.domain.com/sitemap.xml. Once you have this up, go to Google's Webmaster Tools. If you haven't created a Google account before, create one now and login. Google has a sitemap manager that will allow you to tell Google exactly where your sitemap is located. Google will index your sitemap typically within 24-48 hours, though sometimes it is much faster. Raceforacamaro.com was indexed and showing up in search results within 18 hours. Remember, if your sitemap is static, you will have to rebuild it every time you add new content to your site. Google will index your site more frequently if it sees that there is a stream of fresh content to grab. Step 4. Links, build'em Now that you have a site up filled with quality content, a great looking layout, and a sitemap, now its time to build some links. Why are links important? Two reasons. One, people you see your link may click on it and visit your site. Two, easily the most important reason, is that when search engines crawl the web, they jump from link to link, indexing everything in their path. The more links you have out there, the better. That said, do not just blanket the net with links. The major search engines look at the context of a link. If your link is on a page about dog grooming and your site is about St. Louis Rams, then the link will grow suspect. Search engines look for similar content. A great way to build links is to get active in a forum related to your topic and drop your link in your signature. This is generally seen as a best practice technique. Step 5. Directories, should I use them? In short, yes. But again, be careful. Find directories that either have categories on your topic or find directories on your topic. Stay focus. In the end you want focused traffic. I would rather have 1,000 targeted visitors than 10,000 non-targeted visitors. You want traffic that will convert. Conclusion These five steps should give you a general outline of what to do. Using only these steps, I have had several sites take off very quickly. This is the stuff that internet marketers do not want you to know. They prey on ignorance and a drive to get rich quick. In later posts I will talk about SEO techniques for improving your rankings once you have some. As always, if you find that the content here is interesting or beneficial, become a feed subscriber. Click on the blue feedburner icon on the right and add to your favorite RSS reader. Comments, questions, or concerns are always welcome. Please post them in the comments section.
Well, are you sure? I think not really. Some popular forums won't let you place any links in your signature. I think the most popular technique is link exchange. I mean three way link exchange (if you have two websites in one niche with strong back links). I see many people succeed with this method in competitive niches.
I didn't realize everything you needed to know could fit in one full DP post while maxing out the max char limit.
i think it should be named webmaster A to Z since all the secret is revealed in one page. 101 usually gives people an idea of an introductory cource
Thanks for the feed back on the post. There are a lot of link schemes out there. I have had success with straight exchanges, three ways, and forums. Using all these will only better your chances. To post everything you need to know would take, well a forum full of information like DP. The name change is noted. I've been doing this stuff for a long time, now I'm just trying to get it down so that maybe it helps someone else. I'm a better programmer than writer!
Very basic information, could be useful only for beginners and newbies. Thanks anyways, sometimes it's good to re-read some tips.
I wrote it exactly for beginners. How many times have we all seen questions like "How do I make $10K a day?" and then find out they don't even have a site up? People need to start somewhere, and getting a few basics down is essential.