Building A Website - 5 Things You Must Consider
By: TREVOR KUGLER
So you want to have your own website? Good for you, that's great. I just wanted to share my experience and some things that I've learned along the way. Had I realized these things before I began, I would be much further along today. Hell, I wouldn't have even started some of our projects had I considered these things. 1) Your website needs to revolve around something that interests you. For example, if you could care less about dogs, don't try to start a website about dog breeding. I realize this sounds over simplistic, but it's true. If you aren't interested in the theme of your website, you will lose interest and become frustrated very quickly. 2) If you have any delusions of becoming wealthy overnight with a website, go buy lottery tickets instead. Your chances of becoming wealthy overnight are better with lottery tickets. Like anything else on this earth, becoming wealthy takes expertise, and when you begin on the internet, you have no expertise. 3) Traffic, Traffic, Traffic. Everyone and their brother want to tell you how to build a great website that looks fabulous. What they don't mention is that none of it matters, if you don't have traffic. For the uninitiated, the word traffic refers to people visiting your site. You have to have a way to get traffic, or it's all for not. 4) Search Engine Optimization. As you build your site you want to optimize it, so do your research on SEO beforehand, not after the site is built (like we did) . If you do the steps as you build your site, it will be MUCH less expensive than doing it after the fact. And when a company claims to be able to get you in the top ten results on search engines for fifty bucks a month, SAVE YOUR MONEY! It's B.S. without the front end work in place. 5) Are you going to do updates and work on your site yourself, or are you going to pay a webmaster? If you're going to pay someone, it will get expensive. And just so you know, you're going to do a lot of changes, especially in the beginning.
These five things are all things that I wish someone would have made me aware of when I started, because I just didn't know. Knowing them would have helped me in my decision making processes, and hopefully they will you as well. Before I bring this article to a close, I have to reiterate number three. Traffic really can't be emphasized enough. When I started our first website, I think I was laboring under the delusion that there was some "magic internet fairy" that was going to bring people to the website. Or that there were simple and easy ways to get visitors. This is not the case. Traffic is the lifeblood of a website, and it's NOT simple and easy to attract! It can obviously be done, and you can do it, just don't begin your journey thinking it's simple or easy.
HOW design rocks Hot-lanta
HOW Design rocks Hot-lanta Fresh off the heels of the annual designer’s trade and technology conference produced by HOW design magazine and let me tell you, what a trip it was! Over 3500 designers and creative professionals rocked hot-lanta this June with the annual HOW design conference. The conference serves as water-well for hoards of talented creatives who step away from the computer monitor once a year to refresh and rejuvenate. After shelling out a small inheritance to attend. . .
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